"Gruff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the sort by, as the ordinance now is made that the lieutenant shall [ap]point the [a]warding sarplers of every man's wool, the which sarpler that I have casten out is No. 24, and therein is found by William Smith, packer, a 60 middle fleeces and it is a very gruff wool; and so I have caused William Smith privily to cast out another sarpler No. 8, and packed up the wool of the first sarpler in the sarpler of No. 8, for this last sarpler is fair wool enough, and therefore I must understand ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... eighteen hours she had been a keenly attentive, wide-eyed, and partly frightened bit of humanity in this onrush of "the horde." She had heard a voice behind her speak of it as "the horde"—a deep, thick, gruff voice which she knew without looking had filtered its way through a beard. She agreed with the voice. It was the Horde—that horde which has always beaten the trails ahead for civilization and made of its own flesh and blood the foundation of nations. For months ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... was gruff and husky, and at first it had been harsh; but it had softened queerly in a feeble attempt ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... talking rapidly in gruff voices, now entered the room, and we distinctly heard the jingling of spurs and the rattling of sword scabbards coming to us distinctly through ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... times with a harder will, had not a little beauty in their toughness, so that grit, lifted to heroism, would allure affection as well as enforce respect. But their sense is so rigid, their integrity so gruff, and their courage so unjoyous, that all the genial graces fly their companionship; and a libertine Sheridan, with Ancient Pistol's motto of "Base is the slave that pays," will often be more popular, even among the creditor portion of the public, than these crabbed heroes, and, if need be, surly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... came in, and Hawley introduced me to him. He was a gruff old gentleman, and seemingly anxious to have Froude become an eligible, and I judged from the rather fierce manner in which he handled a club he had in his hand, that there were one or two other men of prominence still living he was anxious to meet. ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... from France, and giving him the control of affairs. A sudden flight back to Stirling only saved him from seizure at Doune; and a few months later, as James hunted at Ruthven, he found the hand of the Master of Glamis on his bridle-rein. "Better bairns greet than bearded men," was the gruff answer to his tears, as his favourite fled into exile and the boy-king saw himself again a tool in the hands of ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... To the great astonishment of the town the young man hardly went out at all, and when he called upon him in his lodgings at Fairport, Mr. Oldbuck was astonished at the change in his appearance. Lovel was now pale and thin, and his black dress bore the badge of mourning. The Antiquary's gruff old heart was moved toward the lad. He would have had him come instantly with him to Monkbarns, telling him that, as they agreed well together, there was no reason why they should ever separate. His lands were in his own power of gift, and there was no reason ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... many different barks! Just as many as there were dogs,—deep or squeaky, smooth or creaky, rough or happy, gruff or snappy, and one that Marmaduke knew the very minute ...
— Seven O'Clock Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... Sudden knew he couldn't be far away, and would ring until he did answer. He unfastened the door again, cursing to himself and wondering if the Rolling R people were in the habit of calling Johnny Jewel every ten minutes or so. He stumbled over a box that he had missed before, swore, and called a gruff hello. ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... delay of a week or ten days in the harbor, owing to head winds or inclement weather we set sail; and I remember well that the pilot, Fowler by name, as he was about to leave the vessel, throwing his leg over the bulwarks, said in his gruff voice to our skipper, "I will give you twenty-eight ...
— Piracy off the Florida Coast and Elsewhere • Samuel A. Green
... a fob set under the cuff of her left sleeve and brought forth a small gold badge and held it cupped in her gloved hand for him to see. As he bent his head and made out the meaning of the badge the gruff air ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... and put the primroses among it. I ran across the road outside of our gates—for I could run in those days—and soon filled my basket with as many primroses as I wanted. As I was standing under a large tree, I heard all at once, exactly over my head, a loud, gruff cry of 'Cuckoo.' I was so startled, the cry was so near, that I thought it must be a rude man, and I dropped all my primroses and ran ...
— Woodside - or, Look, Listen, and Learn. • Caroline Hadley
... looked dark and moody, and, taking up a book, was silent. The next time the door opened, it was Lionel who entered. He frowned and gazed up, perceiving the figure but not able to make it out. "Ha, Lionel! How d'ye do?" said Elliot in a short, gruff, indifferent voice; without moving or attempting to shake hands, without any token that he thought ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... volunteered recently for a certain hazardous duty. He knew, too, how quickly his dear wife would know the full extent of the peril with which he felt himself surrounded. And so his reply was short and seemingly gruff, as many another man's has been ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... my hand its final adjustment to the pistol, when suddenly a man dashed out of the covert at one side of the hollow, and ran toward us, calling out in a gruff voice: ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... and numbed and scarce awake, Out in the trench with three hours' watch to take, I blunder through the splashing mirk; and then Hear the gruff muttering voices of the men Crouching in cabins candle-chinked with light. Hark! There's the big bombardment on our right Rumbling and bumping; and the dark's a glare Of flickering horror in the sectors where We raid ...
— The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon • Siegfried Sassoon
... leisure to ponder over the difficulties confronting our expedition, some few of the crew now began to 'speak it foully,' and even to emit gruff proposals to return homewards. But to these waverers old Bill at once administered the sternest rebuke; and, as they at last held their peace, he averred with a gay smile (for he dearly loved the presence of danger, and could never be ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... disposition to move on. It was as if that series of gruff barks from the unseen dog had acted as a sort of challenge; and having a duty to perform he meant ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton
... hair with a silk motor veil, and the stout boots which she had surveyed so ruefully when Bower brought them to her on the previous evening after interviewing the village shoemaker, were by no means so cumbrous in use as her unaccustomed eyes had deemed them. Even the phlegmatic guide was stirred to gruff appreciation when he saw her vault on to a large flat boulder in order to examine an iron cross that ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... the forest for wood, she warned them against the Wolf; if he came, they were not to open the door to him on any account. Presently the Wolf came, and knocked, and asked to be let in; but the little Kids said, "No, you have a gruff voice; you are a wolf." So the Wolf went and bought a large piece of chalk, and ate it up, and by this means he made his voice smooth; and then he came back to the cottage, and knocked, and again asked to be let in. The little Kids, however, saw his black paws, and they said, "No, your feet are ...
— Fairy Tales; Their Origin and Meaning • John Thackray Bunce
... the Scottish archers, their escort, they could not tell; they only heard a tumult of shouts and cries, and found rude hands holding them on their horses and dragging them among the trees. Their screams for help were answered by a gruff voice from a horseman, evidently the leader of the troop. 'Hold that noise, Lady! No ill is meant to you, but you must come with us. No; screams are useless! There's none to come to you. ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... out with a gruff, "No sense in letting one fellow have all the money. I said so from the first. Look in ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... a Caiarara monkey (Cebus albifrons). Both these lively members of the monkey order seemed rather to court attention, but the Mycetes slunk away when anyone approached it. When it first arrived, it occasionally made a gruff subdued howling noise early in the morning. The deep volume of sound in the voice of the howling monkeys, as is well known, is produced by a drum-shaped expansion of the larynx. It was curious to watch the animal while venting its hollow cavernous roar, ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... all went to the shore. Mr. Wolf looked after them very sadly from the door of his kennel, where he was chained, and barked a gruff goodbye; but Quick informed them that he intended going also, took matters into his own hands, and started to run down the road ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... in the darkness at the edge of the wood and listened, but not a sound came to our ears, and in a moment or two Mac whispered "Now, Jack," and we made a dash across, when to our utter amazement three figures sprang up right in front of us and we found ourselves looking into three rifle barrels. A gruff German voice called, "Halt! Who goes there?" and we threw up our hands and grunted a reply. Immediately the guns were lowered and the men came toward us, but instead of finding two helpless prisoners, they were met by good hard blows delivered in true ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien
... After my gruff refusal, the company begins to disperse; they prepare to go out, some to have a row on the lagoon, others to saunter before the cafes at St. Mark's; family discussions arise, gruntings of fathers, murmurs of mothers, peals of laughing from young girls and ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... to do something, he was again disobedient. This time he was forced to appear before Magistrate Hillier of the Hudson's Bay Company and was condemned to gaol. As there was really no such place, a log-house was built for Findlay, and he was imprisoned in it. A gruff-noted babel of dissent arose among his kinsfolk, supported by the men from Glasgow. A gang of thirteen, in which both parties were represented, put a match to the prison where Findlay was confined, and rescued its solitary inmate out of ...
— The Red River Colony - A Chronicle of the Beginnings of Manitoba • Louis Aubrey Wood
... So he was both gruff and disagreeable when Patsy, after buying a lot of ribbons of him, broached the subject of politics. He told her plainly that her cousin hadn't a "ghost of a show," and that he ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... looked at his watch for the fiftieth time, and found that it indicated nearly half-past eleven, there was a heavy knock at the door. As it opened, Colston heard a rattle of arms and a clinking of chains. Then there was a sound of gruff guttural voices in the entrance-hall, and the next moment the door of the room was thrown open, and Soudeikin walked in, followed by a young man in the uniform of a lieutenant of the line, and after them came two soldiers, ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... spent thus along the rocky defiles of the little stream, eating their lunch beside a cold spring at the head of a miniature gulch, the trio of engineers were about to leave the spot when a gruff voice hailed them from the hilltop. Looking up they saw another group of three: an oldish man, a slim young fellow who was almost a grown man and a girl in her middle teens. The young people seemed to be quarreling, to judge from the black looks they gave ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... him in a strange place, among strangers ... he leaned upon the rail in a sudden excess of yearning for those whom he loved, summoned the spirits of those who loved him. They came to him through the night—Susan fretting, Ellis affectionately gruff, Enrico boisterously cheerful, Father Jennings wise, patient, watchful. Another, fairer, unutterably dear, hovered near him: he strove, as of old, to bridge the gap—and ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... adviser, and went on, hearing the sound of the tinkling bells, but unable to see any thing. In a little while I saw a light ahead, and was glad to see it. Driving up in front and halting, I repeated the traveler's "halloo" several times, and at last got a response in a hoarse, gruff voice. ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... English, French, Dutch and Danes had factories here, though few European merchants remain at the present day. I found the streets crowded with gayly-dressed, vivacious Mohammedans and Hindoos and solemn, gruff-looking Afghans. Some were on foot; some on horseback, astride splendid horses brought from the Deccan; many rode in eckas, a few in baillies—two varieties of native vehicle. The dwellings in the city, built of mud with tiled roofs, were mostly but one story in height. In those of two stories ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... he had spoken so harshly, and was about to make amends for his severity, when Mr. Lord's gruff voice recalled him to the fact that his time was not his own, and he therefore commenced his day's work, but with a lighter heart than he had had since he stole away from ...
— Toby Tyler • James Otis
... onward moved Like Peter following his angel guide Deeming he saw a vision. As the bolts Drew gratingly to let them pass, he seem'd To gather consciousness, and restless grew With an unspoken fear, lest at the last Some sterner turnkey, or gruff sentinel Might bar their egress. When behind them closed. The utmost barrier, and the sweet, fresh air So long witheld, fill'd his collapsing lungs, He shouted rapturously, "Am I alive? Or have I burst the gates of death, and found A second Eden?" The unwonted sound Of his ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... not long been set straight when steps were heard on the stone stair, and, the door opening wide, Captain Falconnet's gruff voice was heard, 'This way, Monseigneur; ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... then a gruff voice became audible on the outer side of the door. "Present, sir," growled ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... thereafter four of us went, through a drizzling rain, I riding a blind horse, the others on foot. Night overtook us soon after leaving camp, and when, within a mile of our destination, we asked at a house by the roadside for directions as to the way, a gruff voice informed us that an intervening creek was too high to cross, and insisted on our coming in and spending the night. We declined this, and the man said, "Well, I'll send a negro boy with you; but you'll have to come back," which proved to be the case. On our return we were boisterously welcomed. ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... before I go," returned the other gruffly. Indeed his voice was more than gruff: it ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... Lucky One became the hero of the hour. With all its stubbornness, Eric's pride could not but be gratified. He began to show signs of relenting. Gradually he ceased to avert his face. One day, he even worked himself up to making a gruff ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... to be a regular miser," declared Helen, earnestly. "And he is so gruff and grim! ...
— Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill • Alice B. Emerson
... with Mr. Rolls, serving as a clerk at that gentleman's sugar wharf, a tall, broad-shouldered, strapping fellow, with red cheeks, and thick red lips, and rolling blue eyes, and hair as red as any chestnut. Many knew him for a bold, gruff-spoken man, but no one at that time suspected that he had it in him to become so famous and renowned as he ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... of letters like that: a lot of words, evasion of coming to the point about anything; just conventional letters. Benda was the last man to write a conventional letter. Yet, it was Benda writing them: gruff little expressions of his, clear ways of looking at even the veriest trifles, little allusion to our common past: these things could neither have been written by anyone else, nor written under compulsion from without. Something had ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... norther before their eyes. We stopped at the house of the "Marine Monster," Don Leonardo Mata, before crossing the bar, took up our shells, and had the felicity of making his acquaintance. He is a colossal old man, almost gigantic in height, and a Falstaff in breadth—gruff in his manners, yet with a certain clumsy good-nature about him. He performs the office of pilot with so much exclusiveness, charging such high prices, governing the men with so iron a sway, and arranging everything so entirely according to his own fancy, that he is a complete sovereign ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... the while, and evidently longing to be away from a scene that distressed her. Margaret came in upon this scene. She stood for a moment at the door—then, her finger on her lips, she stole to a seat on the squab near Bessy. Nicholas saw her come in, and greeted her with a gruff, but not unfriendly nod. Mary hurried out of the house catching gladly at the open door, and crying aloud when she got away from her father's presence. It was only John Boucher that took no notice whatever who came in and ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... not seem to frighten the strange creature. He laughed in my face, and then said in a gruff voice, "You must give me gold, for it was I who turned your horse aside ...
— Undine • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... down his whip and began loosening the large pack of toys that were upon his shoulders. As the sack was laid down in front of the old fireplace, a rubber ball rolled out upon the rug, whereupon Edwin heard him say in a gruff tone: ...
— The Poorhouse Waif and His Divine Teacher • Isabel C. Byrum
... better," answered another, as a strong, red flash followed close after the sledge-hammer blow of the clap. The officer of the watch gave some command in muffled tones, and immediately afterwards the man at the helm muttered in a gruff voice, ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... A gruff voice bawling "All for shore," wakened them the next morning and, mounting to the deck they found the steamer was just entering the picturesque little bay. The sun was gilding the line of rugged hills that surrounded the bay and glinting on the water, and they both exclaimed ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... suggested that singing might 'improve the conditions;' on which Mr. C. struck up 'Power of Love Enchanting' in maudlin spiritualistic words. Things looked dull. All at once we were hailed by one of the most tremendous gruff bass voices that ever hailed a man-of-war. John King, the favourite spirit of Mr. A., had appeared with a grumbling announcement of his presence. 'Who is this John King?' inquired the Liverpool man, who, if he was a confederate, acted peculiarly well. 'He lived about three hundred years ago,' said ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... smiled again, and rose up to take the cup from this fair bearer, and at that moment there was a sort of scuffle, unseemly enough, at the lower end of the hall near the door, and gruff voices seemed to be hushed as Ina glanced up with the cup yet ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... "Nonsense." Seymour's gruff tone concealed emotion. Hargraves' face betrayed death's indelible sign. "You'll pull through, once you're back at ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... the ducks, the baa-ing of the sheep, the grunting of the pigs,—possibly discussing the novelty of their position. And, nearly all through the night, just outside my cabin, two or three of the seamen sit talking together in gruff undertones. ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... of the Baker Street to Victoria route, and when they recognized him he became purple with content. A short youth was making notes near a tank in the corner. Mr. Trew, nudging Gertie, went to him and, in a gruff voice, asked what the deuce he was doing there; the youth turned to ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... great success. Matilda laughed for very delight, as well as at the fun of the thing. David, who personated the poor man who had come to sell a piece of ground, talked so admirably like a countryman, and was so oddly crochety and cross and gruff and impossible to make terms with; and then Norton, who was the rich man he had come to see and who wanted the land, coaxed him so skilfully, and ordered all sorts of good things to be brought to him, when he found he had come a good ...
— Trading • Susan Warner
... said one of the fellows in a gruff, but good-humored tone, "don't let's have any of your tantrums; one would have thought that you had had swing enough for this bout. Come, it's high time to leave off harlequinading, and go home to ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... wished that he might faint away, even for a moment, but his nerves were too sound for that. He was recalled to outer things by feeling a hand laid gently on his leg, and immediately afterwards he heard a man's voice, in a quietly gruff tone that scarcely rose or fell, reciting a whole litany of the most appalling blasphemies that ever fell from human lips. For an instant, in his suffering, Zorzi fancied that he had died and was in the clutches of ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... is talking," said Craig. "Good—he is gaining time. He is a trump. I can distinguish that all right. He's asking the gruff-voiced fellow if he will have another bottle of wine. He says he will. Good. They must be at Prince Street now—we'll give them a few minutes more, not too much, for word will be back to Albano's like wildfire, and they will get Gennaro after all. Ah, they are drinking again. What ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... only sees the superficial aspect of the Englishman, to think of us as a brutal nation. He was an odd mixture of awkwardness and complacency, a desire to be courteous struggling with a desire to show his independence; he had no ease of manner, no bonhomie, but a gruff and ugly kind of jocosity, which I am sure was not really natural to him, but was his protest against the possibility of my considering him to be shy. He seemed anxious to show that he was as good a man as myself, which I was quite ready to take for ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... diagram. He saw no one; but half way up the cliff was a huge bowlder, over which peered a pair of eyes that were closely watching every move he made; and, when Arthur whistled twice, the eyes disappeared, and a man stepped from behind the rock, and said, in a gruff voice: ...
— Frank Among The Rancheros • Harry Castlemon
... They were sitting on chairs opposite the doorsteps; Julian with one little leg over the other, in a nonchalant attitude; Una also in negligent position. They were discussing their prisoners, Hopeful and Christian, in very gruff and unamiable voices. "Well, what had we better do with them?" "Oh, beat them pretty well, every day!" The air of the two figures, and their tones, in comparison with the faces and forms, were very funny. I heard Una telling ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... have revived it, unless Charity had been talking. He had not thought of any one's punishing him for neglecting her. But if Dyckman had enlisted in her cause—well, Cheever was afraid of hardly anything in the world except boredom and the appearance of fear. He answered Zada with a gruff: ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... discourteous, inurbane, rude, uncivil, disrespectful, saucy, insolent, impertinent, churlish, brusque, unamiable, surly, gruff, boorish. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... not takin' holt of his hand and climbin' on agin. Till finally she did show some good sense, she asked the man standin' on the platform if he would help her off, for she had been tryin' to git off for the last five stations. So she had to take a car back, but the conductor wuz humbly and gruff and she got along all right, ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... criticizing my fellow-guests, the Mayor had got up to propose another toast; and listening rather inattentively to the first sentence or two, I soon became sensible of a drift in his Worship's remarks that made me glance apprehensively towards Sergeant Wilkins. "Yes," grumbled that gruff personage, shoving a decanter of Port towards me, "it is your turn next"; and seeing in my face, I suppose, the consternation of a wholly unpractised orator, he kindly added,—"It is nothing. A mere acknowledgment will answer the purpose. The less ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... here," he said, "what I have got to say won't take long and we can do the roses afterwards when Mrs. Grant is about. I guess you could help me a bit if you only chose to," he went on, his voice curiously gruff and unready, "but you won't, you won't even look at me. I suppose those great grey eyes of yours hate the sight of me, and I am a damned fool to put my heart into words. But I have got to," she heard him move close to her and how quickly he was breathing, "I love you, you pale, ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... not likely to, either, Cadet Corbett!" said a gruff voice above them. They turned to see a heavy-set man wearing the uniform of a major in the Solar Guard, standing on the floor above them. The slidestairs carried them to his level and Captain Strong hopped off and extended ...
— On the Trail of the Space Pirates • Carey Rockwell
... home not disappointed, for I have said that I had long considered those authors useless whom the professor reprobated; but I returned not at all the more inclined to recur to these studies in any shape. M. Krempe was a little squat man with a gruff voice and a repulsive countenance; the teacher, therefore, did not prepossess me in favour of his pursuits. In rather a too philosophical and connected a strain, perhaps, I have given an account of the conclusions I had come to concerning them ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... number of days, but failed to get work, and as I failed this time I asked if I had better continue calling for work. He replied, 'You had better call again.' As I was passing out of the door his partner, Michael Walsh, came to me (in a gruff, commanding tone), 'What is that you say, Lacy?' 'Nothing to you,' I replied; 'I was speaking to Captain Salles.' At this he gave a stab, and as I turned to see what he was hitting me for, he added two stabs more with cursing. ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... a shadow fell upon the grass, and a deep, gruff voice was heard, saying, "Star, ahoy!" The child started up, and turned to meet the newcomer with a joyous smile. "Why, Bob!" she cried, seizing one of his hands in both of hers, and dancing round and round him. "Where did you come from? Why ...
— Captain January • Laura E. Richards
... and burst into tears," said Schlorge, speaking in the gruff tone an anxious doctor uses toward an excitable patient. "I'll have my hands full mending your baby here, without having to mend you. He has no internal injuries," he added, turning the Kewpie upside down and peering down the stumps of his legs (which were hollow) into a perfectly pink and smooth ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... what's doing. Within half a minute I was besieged by tossing hair and excited hands, and an avalanche of talk about shop, what they were doing, where they were this week, where next, future openings, and so forth; all of which was cut short by the good-humouredly gruff ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... sir! Here, shepherd, call your dog. Shepherd. Be not affrighted, madame. Poor Pierrot Will do no harm. I know his voice is gruff, But then, his heart is good. Traveler. Well, call him, then. I do not like his looks. He's growling now. Shepherd. Madame had better drop that stick. Pierrot, He is as good a Christian as myself And does not like a stick. Traveler. Such a ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... Karembwe's village. The mountains east of him are called Makunga. We went yesterday to the shore, and by protraction Rua point was distant thirty-three miles. Karembwe sent for us, to have an audience; he is a large man with a gruff voice, but liked by his people and by strangers. I gave him a cloth, and he gave me a goat. The enthusiasm with which I held on to visit Moero had communicated itself to Tipo Tipo and Syde bin Alle, for they followed me up to this place to see the Lake, and remained five days while ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... who occasionally find their way into the ranks of even the most enlightened constabularies, they would undoubtedly shift the settee and drag him into a publicity from which his modest soul shrank. He was enchanted, therefore, a few moments later, to hear a gruff voice state that th' mutt had beaten it down th' fire-escape. His opinion of the detective abilities of the New York police ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... time, perhaps for ten minutes, they all sat in silence, and only the gruff comment of the clock sounded in the building. Then the lights went up with a flare and Thurston, followed by Mr. Warlock, entered. It was at that moment that Maggie had a revelation. The faces around her seemed to be suddenly gathered in front of her, and it was with a start of surprise ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... he was his old self, except that he was perhaps a trifle gruff when he spoke and a good deal inclined to silence, and harmony came and abode for a season with ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... Paul through his trumpet, in a rapid off-hand tone, as though he were a gruff sort of friend, impatient at being ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... lad. Were it not for the desperate urgency of his errand he never would have dared to enter. As it was, the fumes of alcohol and steaming, dirty clothes nearly choked him, and he could scarce stammer the name of "citizen Rateau" when a gruff ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... little paler, the eyes were slightly more bloodshot; but he did not attempt to speak. Zu Pfeiffer rose. The sergeants stood to attention and saluted. As he left the room towards the Court House, he smiled with slight satisfaction as the gruff voice of Sergeant Schneider barked: "Prisoner, ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... would be very hard to please if she could not be happy. And after about an hour's talk Beauty began to think that the Beast was not nearly so terrible as she had supposed at first. Then he got up to leave her, and said in his gruff voice: ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... toilette made its first impression upon the surly-looking Irish porter, who, like a gruff and faithful watch-dog, guarded the entrance to the editorial rooms of the Bugle. He was enclosed in a kind of glass-framed sentry-box, with a door at the side, and a small arched aperture that was on a level with ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... approached it and showing a well-defined, rock-bound harbour. Was this the home harbour? The sick crawled on hands and knees above the hatchway to mumble out their thanks to God for escape from doom. A cask of brandy was opened, {25} and tears gave place to gruff, hilarious laughter. Every man was ready to swear that he recognized this headland, that he had known they were following the right course after all, and that he had never felt any fear ...
— Pioneers of the Pacific Coast - A Chronicle of Sea Rovers and Fur Hunters • Agnes C. Laut
... him?" the county official asked in gruff good humor. He at least seemed not at all awed by the solemnity of ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... whistle. "Here's the boy himself! Going along wi' us, sonny?" he asked, looking down on me and speaking down in a voice which seemed to me unnaturally gentle—for I remembered him as a gruff fellow and irascible. The outside passengers at once broke off their talk to lean over and take stock of me; and this ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... it's all up with her, and she might as well engage a permanent suite in Jarvyse's little hotel up the river," he says, very sharp and gruff. "I've staved that off for a month now, but they can't see it and they're bound to try it: Jarvyse himself half advises it. And I'll risk my entire reputation on the result. If she can't fight it ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... Soon again her little feet were lagging; and once more her eyes turned curiously upon the pail she carried and again she said, "Oh, I wonder, I wonder, I wonder." "Why do you wonder, little maid?" said a deep, gruff voice. On looking up once more Alice saw close beside her, not her friend the tawny lion, but a shaggy black bear. At first she was afraid; but the great beast, looking kindly upon her, placed his great paw softly on her arm and once more ...
— A Kindergarten Story Book • Jane L. Hoxie
... horses and wagons. He walked slowly, scanning every inch of the ground and clay pavement in front of him, but when he drew near the well-remembered building he had not caught sight of the prize. He was within a few paces of the steps of the porch of the store, when he was suddenly startled by a gruff voice: ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... it made her withdraw from comforts she might have had. She never went to North Farthing House, where she could have talked about Martin with the one person who—as it happened—would have understood her treacheries. Lawrence came to see her once at the end of September, but she was gruff and silent. She recoiled from his efforts to break the barriers between life and death; he wanted her to give Martin her thoughts and her prayers just as if he were alive. But she "didn't hold with praying for the dead"—the Lion and the Unicorn would certainly disapprove of ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... his gruff, austere, and soldier-like personality there issued words of a plain, homely philosophy that marks the path of success for all men. "The way to get honour is to go to work and be ...
— The Vanishing Race • Dr. Joseph Kossuth Dixon
... lightened. He listened, however, to Stratton's brief explanation and in a few gruff words agreed that in the unlikely event of any inquiry he would say that the new hand was off riding fence or something of the sort. Then he swept out the offending ashes and proceeded methodically to get supper, declining any assistance ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... gruff heartiness, and the others now began to remove their goggles. Locke, however, did not do the same. ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... in a deep, gruff voice which was the very essence of heartiness. "You also are getting off at Merryweather, young ladies? I beg the privilege of assisting you with your parcels; I insist upon it! Permit me, madam!" ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... me this time of night?" he grumbled, in a deep gruff voice; "any young scamp prowling after the maids shall have sore bones ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... back then," growled a gruff voice. "Your family will never believe your story, never believe that you came again and stayed at Lustgarten's against your will. Why," the voice taunted with a harsh laugh, "if they knew the truth, they would turn you from the door, instead ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... "I'll try my hand," said she. "The secret is plenty of pins; you don't use enough of them. Pins, I expect, are scarce in the pa." She had fastened up one long coil, and was holding another in place with her white fingers, when a gruff voice roared through ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... Ledyard put in; "a regular little marplot!" Then he gave that gruff laugh of his that Helen knew to be a ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... the gruff voice angrily bade her be silent. Far from obeying him, the girl shouted louder than ever; and now, out of the entrance to the cave, close behind the scene of the disaster, came a number of men with lamps and tapers. They were the same daimons whose song she had heard in the street; she ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... a gruff voice exclaimed, and Chester beheld a large German soldier with his rifle pointed squarely ...
— The Boy Allies At Verdun • Clair W. Hayes
... home she groped her way into the living-room, which was lighted only by the low, red gleam of the coals on the hearth. Her father's gruff voice called out from the bedroom beyond: ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... all the same to me," was the gruff answer. "I'm a hardshell Baptist myself, but I've only good feelings to your kind. My old captain was one of you, and never a better man walked the deck. Now, duck, my lads, while I swing out the sail and ...
— Killykinick • Mary T. Waggaman
... cutting the grass there, and begin an animated conversation with him. Bobby curled himself up well out of sight, and presumed upon his position, for when Mr. Mortimer came down to his corner and stopped for a moment under the tree, the little scamp again said, in as gruff a voice as he ...
— 'Me and Nobbles' • Amy Le Feuvre
... a book on Fanny's bird, and it's dead. She asked me to come and tell you," said Norman in a gruff voice; "and, granny, she wants you to go to her. I wish I had not done it, that's all I have got ...
— Norman Vallery - How to Overcome Evil with Good • W.H.G. Kingston
... for them," returned January, in his gruff voice; "there are no strawberries under ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... horses arrived, four besides Shag's, and the rest of the outfit. The onlookers regarded Shag with the mournful interest due to the undertaker at a funeral. Shag felt it and acted accordingly. He gave short, gruff orders to his men; called attention to straps and buckles that every one knew were in as perfect order as they could be; criticized the horses and his men; and every one, even the horses, bore it with perfect composure. They were all showing off and felt the importance ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... Then this young lieutenant must be a prince. If so, some princes were likable. Wharton and Carstairs and he had outwitted a prince once, but it could not be von Arnheim. He turned his full gaze back to the general, who continued in his deep gruff ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... disheartening; tall warehouses, dingy brick houses, a ceaseless roar of carts and waggons in the main streets, and a population of which all the better dressed march at double quick time, with care-brent brows, and if pausing, only to exchange gruff monosyllables and ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... lunch time, she neither went to her room to freshen up nor sought her nephew to make a hasty report on the result of her embassy. She betook herself instead to the study, and there was a malicious twinkle in her eye as she tapped on the closed door. She obeyed a gruff command ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... man, acknowledging him as a son-in-law prospective, addressed him now with gruff kindness, and had Lester shown the slightest gain in managerial ability he would have been content—glad to share a little of his responsibility with a younger man. In his uncouth, hairy, grimy fashion Blondell was growing old, and feeling it. As he said to his ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... things changed," the gruff voice rose. "The whole d—n house is open. I can't shut it with these people here. Your men will have to move in closer—but keep under cover. Can ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... captain was going to leave the lad his money, and had therefore a right to speak; but no one knew. He was closer-mouthed than ever, though not so gruff and ugly as he used to be; Archie had softened him, they said, taking the place of that boy of his he "druv out to die a good many ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... moonlit heights and hollows rolled by on either hand. On, at the same time, went Mr. Guilderaufenberg with his stories of rivers and cities and countries that he had seen, and of battles fought along rivers and across them. Then, suddenly, the gruff voice grew deep and savage, like the growl of an angry ...
— Crowded Out o' Crofield - or, The Boy who made his Way • William O. Stoddard
... under the mistletoe."... And there was Edward's gruff undertone. Then Nancy had come in, with feet that had hastened up the stairs and that tiptoed as they approached the open door of Leonora's room. Branshaw had a great big hall with oak floors and tiger skins. Round this hall there ran a gallery upon which Leonora's ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... singularly unlike in aspect to the patrons who were accustomed to frequent it. One of them was a weather-beaten man in a rough pilot jacket; the other was an odd old woman bundled up in a threadbare coat of the cheapest imitation fur. The man, with a gruff shyness, blurted out, "I should like to see a diamond necklace." The salesman with some hesitation put a necklace before him of no very precious kind. The man eyed it askance and said, dubiously, "Is that the ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... place in Trinity Church. As the youthful pair was standing in front of the altar, surrounded by a few sympathetic friends, the rector reached the words, "Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?" when, to the astonishment of the assembled group, a gruff, loud voice in the rear of the church shouted "I do." Old John Watts had opposed his daughter's marriage with all his might, but when he learned by chance that she was to be married clandestinely, he graciously accepted the inevitable and without the ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... him walking back and forth along the river bank, smoking, and seemingly thinking out some problem. Nor did he appear until I had the evening meal ready, and called to him down the arbor. He was always gruff and bearish enough when we were alone, seldom speaking, indeed, except to give utterance to some order, but this night he appeared even more morose and silent than his wont, not so much as looking at me as he took seat, and began ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... a boy," he said nervously, "not a big six-foot fellow with a gruff voice, and—my dear Dick. Why, then, it ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... attained to the dignity of a private drawing-room, and on bright days she spent many hours here, delighting to feast her eyes with the rich coloring of the flowers and to inhale their fragrance. For however gruff Jane Merrick might be to the people with whom she came in contact, she was always tender to her beloved flowers, and her nature invariably ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces • Edith Van Dyne
... strolled out to invite the other guests. A few minutes' walk brought us to the domicile of Thomas Ringwood, Esq., known amongst his intimates as the Bully, a sobriquet he owed to his gruff voice, blustering tone, and skill as a pugilist and cudgel-player. He was member of a well-known and highly respectable English family, who had done all in their power to keep him from disgracing their name by his disreputable propensities. In dress and manner ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... had been tempted to draw, and was passing on, when Ishmael turned in his lair, and demanded roughly who was moving before his half-opened eyes. Nothing short of the readiness and cunning of a savage could have evaded the crisis. Imitating the gruff tones and nearly unintelligible sounds he heard, Mahtoree threw his body heavily on the earth, and appeared to dispose himself to sleep. Though the whole movement was seen by Ishmael, in a sort of stupid observation, the artifice was too bold and too admirably ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper |
