"Muffled" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Stood they all; for from ocean's ground Sighed round the fleet a muffled: "Taken the great Long Serpent, Fallen ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... Counting each word as a piece, there are more pieces in an average copy of verses than in a violin. The poet has forced all these words together, and fastened them, and they don't understand it at first. But let the poem be repeated aloud and murmured over in the mind's muffled whisper often enough, and at length the parts become knit together in such absolute solidarity that you could not change a syllable without the whole world's crying out against you for meddling with the harmonious fabric. Observe, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... a muffled, muffled concert. Here were life, reality and dreams. Here were sun, warmth and light. Here were colour, form and line, and in this line, outlined by the mountains against the sky, the artistic ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... still. By and by, out of the stillness, little, scarcely perceptible noises began to emphasize themselves. The ticking of the clock began to bring itself into notice. Old beams began to crack mysteriously. The stairs creaked faintly. Evidently spirits were abroad. A measured, muffled snore issued from Aunt Polly's chamber. And now the tiresome chirping of a cricket that no human ingenuity could locate, began. Next the ghastly ticking of a deathwatch in the wall at the bed's head made Tom shudder—it meant that somebody's days were numbered. Then the howl of a far-off ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the singing began. Here and there a human voice soared and struggled above the narrow text and the monotonous cadence with a cry of individual longing, but was borne down by the dull, trampling precision of the others' formal chant. This and a certain muffled raking of the stove by the sexton brought the temperature down still lower. A sermon, in keeping with the previous performance, in which the chill east wind of doctrine was not tempered to any shorn lamb within that dreary fold, followed. A spark of human and vulgar interest ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... to his soliloquy, there rose above the crackling of the fire, the muffled distant thud of galloping hoofs. A few moments later a well-built, sturdy lad astride a mettlesome pony dashed into the circle ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... its people. Calmly and deliberately with folded arms O'Brien walked through the streets, and entered the Thurles Railway Station. He wore a black hat, a blue boat cloak, in which he was rather tightly muffled, and a light plaid trousers; in his hand he carried a large black stick. He walked to the ticket office and paid his fare to Limerick; then wrapping himself up in his cloak and folding his arms, again ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... unedifying to note why this man was martyred. So long as he pursued the profligate course on which he had embarked in early youth, Rome had not a word to say to him. Sin does not come under her cognisance, except to be muffled up in absolution, and hidden from the eyes of the sinner—but not from the eyes of God. But the moment that Holland's course was altered, and he began to try so to walk as to please God, that moment he came under the ban of her who dares to stand up in the face of the world, and with ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... aeroplane bombs. Soldiers sleep side by side in a little garden on asphalt steps beneath crocuses. A drowsy Jew opens his bookstall on the arrival of the train: he sells books by Chirikov, Von Vizin, and Verbitskaya. And from the distance, with strange distinctness, comes a sound like muffled clapping. ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... watching that day's novel proceedings. Not even the presence of those men in khaki, nor that sad array of surrendered rifles, sufficed to draw from those stony guardians of their master's home so much as a muffled growl. They are believed to be of British origin, and I suspect that, so far as their nature permits, they cherish British sympathies; for they certainly showed no signs of lamenting over the ignoble departure of their lord. All regardless ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... as though the whole roof might be falling in, what with the clatter of tinpans, the upsetting of chairs and the half muffled shouts that punctuated the entire clamor. And Frank leaped to his feet, believing on the spur of the moment that his ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... war-parties. They bivouacked in the forest by squads of twelve or more; dug away the snow in a circle, covered the bared earth with a bed of spruce boughs, made a fire in the middle, and smoked their pipes around it. Here crouched the Christian savage, muffled in his blanket, his unwashed face still smirched with soot and vermilion, relics of the war-paint he had worn a week before when he danced the war-dance in the square of the mission village; and here sat the Canadians, hooded like Capuchin ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... soul, But now, before the fearful shadow came That since my boyhood often visits me, And with dark musings fills my brain perturb'd; Making the current of my life-blood stagnate, My heart the semblance of a muffled bell, Within my ribs, its tomb; my flesh creep like The prickly writhings of a new-slough'd snake; Each several moment as the awaken'd glare Of the doom'd felon starting from his sleep, While the slow, hideous meaning of his cell Grows on him like an incubus, until ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... indeed, often figurative and fantastic; and with none is this more the case than with that of love. Still there is a limit. The feelings should, indeed, have their ornamental garb; but, like an elegant woman, they should be neither muffled nor exposed. The drapery should be so arranged, as at once to answer the purposes of modest concealment and judicious display. The decorations should sometimes be employed to hide a defect, and sometimes to heighten a beauty; but never to conceal, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... minute more and they would be upstairs, swallowed and dispersed in the publicity of the meeting. Floor and ceiling above them brought down the sounds of a company near at hand, the scraping of a chair-leg, the muffled echo of voices. Carlisle's foot trod upon the bottom ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... might have a respite from the clang of the bell. In the intervals of the sickness, with such strength as remained to me, I tore strips from my soaking shirt and tried to bind up the clappers; it muffled the noise a little, but not much. I wept from ...
— The Tale Of Mr. Peter Brown - Chelsea Justice - From "The New Decameron", Volume III. • V. Sackville West
... at the top of his lusty young voice, he went along the landing, putting his gifts outside the doors of his family, and pausing to yell "Happy Christmas" as he did so. From within he was greeted in each case by muffled groans. ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... this, then, the end of his chase? Was Beatrix in yonder house? Would he soon hold her in his arms—or was he about to learn that she was lost to him for ever? In the tumultuous rush of feeling his power of quick decision left him for the moment; but Dauvrey's muffled ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... this and clambered up the slippery steps, still possessed by the same muffled excitement. The beach was hard as a floor under me and I almost ran along it toward the sanded cottage. The merest glance at it showed that no one watched there; the windows were dark. I skirted the rocky wall that protected its back and sides; no one was stirring in stable or outhouse. ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... behind them. They managed to drive short stakes and run trip-wires between them without the enemy suspecting them. When a light flamed, every man dropped flat in the mud and lay still as the dead beside them till the light died. In the brief intervals of darkness they drove the stakes with muffled hammers, and ran the lengths of barbed wire between them. Heart in mouth they worked, one eye on the dimly seen hammer and stake-head, the other on the German trench, watching for the first upward trailing sparks of the flare. Plenty of men were hit of course, because, light ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... shining in the sunlight, and the mountains, opalescent in the morning glow, were so luminous that they seemed hardly solid; they looked as if one could walk through them. The people, covering their mouths in dread of a pulmonia, hastened by, closely muffled in long cloaks. As I passed the open doors I saw them standing round the brasero, warming themselves; for fireplaces are unknown to Andalusia, the only means of heat being the copa, a round brass dish in ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... no disturbance in the clouds themselves there was among them something very active, something that drilled its way through them with a muffled whirring, something that was oblong and lean and light of texture, that was ominous and menacing for all its buoyancy. The sound it made was too high up, too thickly shrouded by clouds, to determine its precise position. It gave forth a breathing of persistent, ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... and Time is fleeting, And your hearts though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating Funeral marches to ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy
... into the great distances which suggest eternal things. From the darkness, as from the mouth of a mighty cavern, rose a wind, not strong, very pure, very keen, which seemed dashed with the spray of water. Now and then an Arab passed muffled in burnous and hood, a fold of linen held to his mouth. The noise of the ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... the allied troops on shore at Anzac and Suvla Bay could see the dark forms of the warships and the transports as they dropped anchor close inshore. If they had listened attentively they might have heard the soft splash of the hundreds of muffled oars as they slowly propelled the ships' boats toward ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... Euhoe rav'd, Euhoe with fanatic heads gyrated; 255 Some in womanish hands shook rods cone-wreathed above them, Some from a mangled steer toss'd flesh yet gorily streaming; Some girt round them in orbs, snakes gordian, intertwining; Some with caskets deep did blazon mystical emblems, Emblems muffled darkly, nor heard of spirit unholy. 260 Part with a slender palm taborines beat merrily jangling; Now with a cymbal slim would a sharp shrill tinkle awaken; Often a trumpeter horn blew murmurous, hoarsely resounding. Rose on pipes barbaric ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... form, and he walked from his tent. It was a fine morning. Thaddeus looked up, as if to upbraid the sun for shining so brightly. Lengthened and repeated rounds of cannon rolled along the air. The solemn march of the dead was moaning from the muffled drum, interrupted at measured pauses by the shrill tremor of the fife. The troops, preceded by their general, moved forward with a decent and melancholy step. The Bishop of Warsaw followed, bearing the sacred volume in his hands; and next, borne upon the crossed pikes of his soldiers, and supported ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... thither he was overtaken by a stranger, whom he remembered as one of the passengers on the second car. He appeared to be about forty years of age, and though it was a warm summer evening he was muffled up about the neck. ...
— The Erie Train Boy • Horatio Alger
... thousand warriors by his word were kept In awe: he said, as the centurion saith, "Go," and he goeth; "come," and forth he stepp'd. The trump and bugle till he spake were dumb— And now nought left him but the muffled drum.' ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... properties entirely at the disposal of a British parliament. Having obtained a copy of the act, they publicly burnt it. The ships in the harbours hung out their colours half-mast high, in token of the deepest mourning; the bells in the churches were muffled, and set a-ringing, to communicate the melancholy news from one parish to another. These flames, kindled in New England, soon spread through all the capital towns along the coast; so that there was scarcely a sea-port town in America in which ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt
... need not dread Thy wonted touch upon my head! On, loving brothers! Wreak and spend Your force on all these dwellings. Rend These doors so pitilessly locked, To keep the friendless out! Strike dead The fires whose glow hath only mocked By muffled rays the night where I, The ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... They saw him quickly swing his battered trumpet from behind his back and raise it to his lips, sounding some call. Floating across the wind, over the bleak and barren prairie, came almost together the muffled sound of two rifle-shots, then the stirring ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... accept this humiliation at the hands of a public that he had outraged. A mule in a box stall could not have made a greater clatter with heels against planks than the fallen city marshal of Ascalon drummed up with his on the stout end of the coffin box. He cursed as he kicked, and called in muffled voice on the friends of his brief day of power to come and ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... rattle was changed suddenly to a dull, muffled murmur. He had reached the point where sand had been recently laid down for a hundred yards or so. In a few moments, however, he was back on hard ground again and his flying feet ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... no longer resist my desire of seeing it, and went in. There was nobody, as I could perceive at first, in the churchyard, or going into it, but the buriers and the fellow that drove the cart, or rather led the horse and cart; but when they came up to the pit they saw a man go to and again, muffled up in a brown Cloak, and making motions with his hands under his cloak, as if he was in great agony, and the buriers immediately gathered about him, supposing he was one of those poor delirious or desperate creatures that ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe
... the feelings of the father, when he saw the collapse of the roof of the barn and knew that his two children were beneath? He rushed thither like a madman, only to be cheered to the highest thankfulness the next moment at hearing their muffled assurances that both were all right. A brief vigorous application of his axe and the two were helped out into the open air, neither the worse for their ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... then, over at the guardhouse, the sentry on Number One started the call of eleven o'clock. Number Two, at the storehouse, took it up in his turn and trolled off his "All's well," and then it was Number Three's turn, out just under the edge of the bench, and Three muffled his voice and strove to turn it into a lullaby as he began, and, as the first words of the soldier watch cry came floating in through the partly open window, Mrs. Archer's hand stole forth and clasped that of Mrs. Stannard's, for the mother had ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... a woman cross the snowy green in front of him. She had come from the road leading to the hill, and her pace was hurried. Her shawl was muffled round her head, but he recognised her, and his mood fell. She was the wife of Isaac Costrell, and she was hurrying to the Spotted Deer, a public-house which lay just beyond the village, on the road to the mill. Already several times ...
— Bessie Costrell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... camp ashore, so on the quarter-deck at sea—the trumpets of one victory drown the muffled drums of a thousand defeats. And, in degree, this holds true of those events of war which are neuter in their character, neither making renown nor disgrace. Besides, as a long array of ciphers, led by but one solitary numeral, ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... over his ear. Above them, casting a shelter of shade from the sun, grew a wide-spreading canopy of Ponciana regia, itself a flame of blossoms, out of each of which sprang pom-poms of feathery stamens. From far off, muffled by distance, came the faint stamping of their tethered horses. The eyes of all were intently fixed upon the solitary sleeper who lay on his back on a lauhala mat a hundred feet away under ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... stream to beat linen on the stones. The stream made loops of water round their ankles. But none of that could show clearly through the swaddlings and blanketings of the Cambridge night. The stroke of the clock even was muffled; as if intoned by somebody reverent from a pulpit; as if generations of learned men heard the last hour go rolling through their ranks and issued it, already smooth and time-worn, with their blessing, for the ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... he went out upon the terrace in the misty chill morning, all damp and miserable, with the trees standing about like ghosts. There was a dripping thaw after a frost, and the air was raw and the prospect dismal; but even that was less wretched than the glimmer of the shaded lights, the muffled whispering and stealthy footsteps indoors. He took a few turns up and down the terrace, trying to reason himself out of this misery. How was it, after all, that the little figure of this infant should ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... for it, old man!" exclaimed a muffled voice that Trefusis hardly recognized as his chum's. "Make a dash for it. Don't let them ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... the breeze freshened, and I heard the distant and muffled noise which in the West announces either an earthquake or an "estampede," of herds of wild cattle and other animals. Our horses, too, were aware of some danger, for now they were positively mad, struggling to ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... the window, walked to the fireplace, tapped his pipe firmly on the grate, and was about to go into the hall and call up the telephone exchange, when the door-bell rang. He was aware of a muffled conversation between Bates and a visitor. Then the valet appeared, obviously ill ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... had heard anything. Yet all manner of wild stories circulated through the crowds. Strange fires were said to have burned in the sky during the night. A phantom sentinel had kept watch on the citadel, a spectral waterman had crossed the river with muffled oars, a shadowy horseman from the forest had dashed through Levis, and his foaming steed had fallen dead on the water's edge. Those who disbelieved might see the corse of the animal in a sand-quarry not a hundred yards from where ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... and blues of the pattern, the white fingers, the bending cheek. Suddenly, like Sir James Chide or Hugh Roughsedge, he was struck with a sense of change. The Dian look which matched her name, the proud gayety and frankness of it, were somehow muffled and softened. And altogether her aspect was a little frail and weary. The perception brought with it an appeal to the protective strength of the man. What were her cares? Trifling, womanish things! He would make her confess them; and then conjure ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... on, while the stage coach, with a rattle and a jerk, and a final flourish of the driver's whip, stopped at the front door. Springing to the ground, the driver opened the door of the vehicle, and at the same time two other men, with their heads muffled against the wind and rain, leisurely descended from the top. The landlord now stood at the entrance of the inn, a sour expression on his face. Certainly, if the travelers had expected in him the traditional glowing countenance, with the apostolic injunction to "use hospitality ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... blazing fire that was powerless to thaw the cold about his heart, and then he retired to the smoking-room, which he had all to himself, and where he sat staring grimly at the leather benches and cold marble-topped tables around him, while he could hear muffled music and applause from the theatre hard by, varied by the click of the balls in the billiard-room at the end of the corridor. Presently the waiter announced a messenger for him, and on going out into the hall he found a man of seafaring appearance, who brought him a card ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... somehow cramped herself in the winding passage through the snow, and her voice was muffled as she too cried ...
— Betty Gordon at Mountain Camp • Alice B. Emerson
... off a damaging five yard penalty against your favorite team. At such a time you arise in your wrath and demand: "Who is that guy anyway? Where did he come from? Why did he give that penalty?" Other muffled tributes are ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... who comes forward. The body of Agamemnon lies, muffled in a long robe, within a silver-sided laver; the corpse of Cassandra is ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus
... dragged it all: over the country with them, dropped it countless times, forgot its pelisse on wet days, muffled it up when it was hot, gave it the most astounding things to eat, and yet it was the if healthiest; prettiest, and most sunshiny baby that ever sucked a wee ...
— Seven Little Australians • Ethel Sybil Turner
... low, rumbling sound was to be heard. Time and again they halted to listen. It was a changeless, sullen, muffled roar. Finally, when they reached the sixth lake, later in the afternoon, their curiosity got the better of them and they climbed a barren eminence to investigate. As they neared the summit the roar increased in volume, and when ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... a dull muffled explosion—the strange bomb. Instantly the men below began acting like madmen. Throwing away their rifles, they staggered about, tearing at their eyes, their throats, their clothing, and uttering wild cries of distress. At the same time ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... side Olinda, lighting in Marcel muffled as before in his Cloke, from the other ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... a few languid smoke-columns might be seen, telling the first stir of the people. Soon an Indian or two might be noticed here and there at the doors of their barnlike cabins, and a merchant getting ready for trade; but scarcely a sound was heard, only a dull, muffled stir gradually deepening. There were only two white babies in the town, so far as I saw, and as for Indian babies, they woke and ate and made no crying sound. Later you might hear the croaking of ravens, and the strokes of an axe on firewood. About eight ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... She took the finest flour, and newest eggs and freshest butter, and while she was working them, whether by design or no, a ring which she had on her finger fell into the cake and was mixed in it. When the cooking was done she muffled herself in her horrible skin and gave the cake to the messenger, asking him for news of the Prince; but the man would not deign to reply, and without a word ran quickly ...
— The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault • Charles Perrault
... my ears from outside the castle sounds of a gathering crowd—murmurs and vague muffled shouts. The cries grew louder. A rain of missiles struck the castle; a stone came through a near-by window, falling almost at my feet. All at once I remembered the lurking figures we had seen among the palms ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings
... if a stinging blow had been delivered between his eyes. As he met Craig's fixed glare he knew there was no hope. Slowly, as if the words were being wrung from him syllable by syllable, he said in a muffled voice: ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... young men from the barracks, muffled to the chin in buffalo robes, lit the inevitable cigar, and jingled merrily off to the ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... the land, and a landsman was rowing it. He could tell by the uneven splash of the oars, the slish along the surface as a crab was caught, and the muffled curse ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... others, immediately repaired to the place where Joe Braman's boat, which had been hired for the enterprise, was concealed. Seating themselves in it, they waited till the hour had expired, and then, with muffled oars, pulled up to the ...
— All Aboard; or, Life on the Lake - A Sequel to "The Boat Club" • Oliver Optic
... the front door-bell, Mr. and Mrs. Bingle were seated before the fire in the library. Kathleen sat upon the former's knee. The rest of the children had been sent off to the huge playroom on the top floor, and their distant shrieks, muffled by the thicknesses of many doors and walls, came faintly down to the fireside. With the subdued, even refined jingle of the door-bell, the two Bingles straightened up in their chairs and looked into each ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... There had been frequent instances throughout this war in which by means of a net, such as that carried by the Roman retiarius in the contests of the gladiators, and dexterously applied by two persons from behind, a sentinel had been suddenly muffled, gagged, and carried off, without much difficulty. For such a purpose it was clear that the present sentinel's range, lying by the margin of a wood from which his minutest movements could be watched at leisure by those who lay in utter darkness themselves, ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... she moved on upstream, further yet from the bridge, the rocky banks grew steeper, drew nearer to each other, until suddenly the plunging river was lost to her, its thunder muffled. Wanda could see a thick mat of snow from a great, flat topped rock on the far side curving downward, inward, as if from the eaves of a house, the long icicles like sharp teeth set in ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... power or wish to obstruct his flight. I thought of it with transport, and once more threw myself upon the bed, and wrapped my averted face in the carpet. He would probably pass this door, unobservant of me, and my muffled face would save me from the agonies connected with the sight ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... minute they were gliding along the road at a pace which the muffled beating of the horses' hoofs on the thin sheet of snow that covered the road showed to have broken out of the conventional trot, and to resemble something more ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... know that those who wait upon the Great Kaan with his dishes and his drink are some of the great Barons. They have the mouth and nose muffled with fine napkins of silk and gold, so that no breath nor odour from their persons should taint the dish or the goblet presented to the Lord. And when the Emperor is going to drink, all the musical instruments, of which he has vast store of every kind, begin to play. And when he takes the ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... noise as of distant thunder was heard mingling with the metallic notes of the bell; and simultaneous with this ominous dialogue, between the hoarse muffled rumbling of the waters and the lugubrious clanging, a sheen of reddish light was seen to gleam suddenly over the moon-whitened plain, and, as it glared far into the distance, illuminating the dark forms of the palm-trees. It was proceeding from the beacon fires which Don Mariano had caused ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... the tables in the smoke-room the conversation was limited to the announcement of bids and orders to the stewards. This group had about exhausted available discussion when the ship gave a sudden lurch sideways and forward. There was a muffled noise like the slamming of some large door at a good distance away. The slightness of the shock and the mildness of the report compared with my imagination was disappointing. Every man in the room was on his feet in ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... to dream that birds were singing near me,—a soft, delicate whirlwind of sound; and then bells all like muffled silver rang through the aching, sweet air. Bits of prayer and poetry I learned when a boy flashed through my mind; equations in algebra; the tingling scream of a great buzz-saw; the breath of a racer as he nears the post under the crying whip; ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... fog, but the lights made it not quite so bad outside, for the shops had got all their lamps on, and we could see them now and then. There was a lot of shouting going on, and yet every sound was muffled. There were not many carts or omnibuses or anything on wheels passing, and what there were, ...
— Peterkin • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... and palm-groves of Wadi-'l Kura! Arise, Buthayna! and lament aloud: weep for the best of all thy lovers!'" The man did what Jamil ordered, and had scarcely finished the verses when Buthayna came forth, beautiful as the moon when it appears from behind a cloud. She was muffled in a cloak, and on coming up to him said: "Man, if what thou sayest be true, thou hast killed me; if false, thou hast dishonoured me!" [i.e. by associating her name with that of a strange man, still alive.] He replied: "By Allah! I only ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... whirled up and a merry face, in a cloud of dishevelled hair, looked out, a pair of horrified eyes rested momentarily on Graeme, and the blind rattled down again with something that sounded like a muffled feminine objurgation. ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... blanket was for a moment over the head of Mr. Garvace, and his voice, muffled for an instant, broke out into ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... such suspense, and such emotion, as Sidney never in after- life could recall without a shudder, the coach stopped—the benumbed driver heavily descended—the sound of the knocker knelled loud through the muffled air—and the light from Mr. Beaufort's hall glared full upon the dizzy eyes of the visitor. He pushed aside the porter, and sprang into the hall. Luckily, one of the footmen who had attended Mrs. Beaufort to the Lakes recognised him; and, in answer to his ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 5 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... A faint, muffled sound vibrated in the damp air, as if some one had tittered lightly. Ostrov caught hold of the brass handle of the gate. The gate opened towards him easily and without a sound. Ostrov looked round cautiously as he entered, and ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... directly, with all the other apartments. At one extremity, this spacious room was lighted by the windows of the two towers, which formed a small recess on either side of the portal. At the other end, though partly muffled by a curtain, it was more powerfully illuminated by one of those embowed hall-windows which we read of in old books, and which was provided with a deep and cushioned seat. Here, on the cushion, lay a folio tome, probably of the Chronicles of England, or other such ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... feeble glims and to founder London, built of shadows on its boundary. It moved with frightful quietness. It seemed confident of its power. It swirled and eddied by the piles of the wharf, and there it found a voice, though that was muffled; yet now and then it broke into levity for a moment, as at some shrouded and ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... from the Alhambra. Whistles were being blown shrilly for taxis. London theatre-crowds were slipping cosily through the muffled darkness—a man and girl, always a man and a girl. They walked very closely; usually the girl was laughing. Suddenly the contrast flashed across my mind between this bubbling joy of living and the poignant ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson
... other such fragments from the child's path, that the journey might not be brought to an untimely end by some insuperable barrier a quarter of an inch high, she was alarmed by discovering that a man on horseback was almost close beside her, the soft natural carpet having muffled the horse's tread. The rider, who was Venn, waved his hat in the ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... intense the following day, yet Miss Featherstone, well muffled up, was on her way to the hall-door, where the sleigh was waiting to take ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... alliance with France; his people had their eyes "opened to the dangers" —incurred by Europe from the arms of Louis XIV. "Certain persons of the greatest influence in Parliament come sometimes to see me, without any lights and muffled in a cloak in order not to be recognized," says a letter of September 26, 1669, from the Marquis of Ruvigny to M. de Lionne; "they give me to understand that common sense and the public security forbid them to see, without ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... darkened. The decks were not yet dusky with the shadows which Jack had hoped might enable him to approach the forecastle door in his brave endeavor to unbar it. The plans were all awry. Tears filled his eyes. And then there came to his ear a muffled knock against the other ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... had occurred to Nevill to ask him to Algiers. Nevill had seen Margot's picture. In silence they walked towards the open door of the dining-room. Somewhere not far away the Kabyle dogs were barking shrilly. In the distance rose and fell muffled notes of strange passion and fierceness, an Arab tom-tom beating like the heart of the conquered East, ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... finished their meal, she opened the piano and struck out some chords, which echoed with a kind of wail through the long corridors outside. The instrument was out of tune, and the strings seemed muffled. ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... when sick men mostly die, and sentries on lonely ramparts stand to arms, exactly half-an-hour before dawn, Shard, with two rowing boats and half his crew, with craftily muffled oars, landed below the battlements. They were through the gateway of the palace itself before the alarm was sounded, and as soon as they heard the alarm Shard's gunners at sea opened upon the town, and before ...
— The Book of Wonder • Edward J. M. D. Plunkett, Lord Dunsany
... A muffled sound at the other end—then a different voice asking some half-dozen comprehensive questions—which, having been answered to the best of the Curator's ability, were followed by the welcome assurance that a ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... a paroxysm of sobs muffled in the puppy's coat whereupon it ecstatically licked every visible part of the child's neck, whilst Ellen, throwing decorum to the winds, knelt down and drew the shaking ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... Airolo we were fairly in the twilight. But the pink and yellow houses shimmered through the gentle gloom, and Italy began in broken syllables to whisper that she was at hand. For the rest of the way to Bellinzona her voice was muffled in the grey of evening, and I was half vexed to lose the charming sight of the changing vegetation. But only half vexed, for the moon was climbing all the while nearer the edge of the crags that overshadowed us, and a thin magical light came ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... little away from the falling water they burst out simultaneously with a hearty hurrah, one that seemed to give fresh energy to the rowers. But it sounded feeble, hushed, and smothered as it were by the increasing roar of the falling water, ever growing into an overpowering, muffled thunder. ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn
... the better of her enemies. Not a bit of it. She has scarcely settled in her chair again before the tinklings recommence. The second string is in action; and as she hunts about the ward for the source of the melody in the ceiling, muffled convulsions of mirth, from the dim rows of beds, furnish evidence that her naughty charges are not getting the repose which they require and to ensure which is part of the ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... the chance of being shot by his friend, to the certainty of being taken by his enemies, fairly turned tail, and darted off at full speed. Sikes clenched his teeth; took one look around; threw over the prostrate form of Oliver, the cape in which he had been hurriedly muffled; ran along the front of the hedge, as if to distract the attention of those behind, from the spot where the boy lay; paused, for a second, before another hedge which met it at right angles; and whirling his pistol high into the air, cleared ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... almost left me at a terrible outcry from one end of the great hall, a cry not of human beings but of wild beasts, muffled and menacing. The dancing, the music, the hum of voices ceased, and a thick silence as of direst fear fell upon them all. Then there came a loud crackling and shattering of glass, a woman's scream, ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... ladies so far as I can tell, and the master what you might call a confirmed invalid. Goes about in a bath chair which he hires from a regular keeper of this class of thing. Not a very old gent, but you can't quite tell, seeing that he is muffled up to his eyes. Very pale ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... muffled groan, but Donald, shocked at the result of his ill-advised and hasty words, forgot his late adversary and sprang in pursuit, crying, "Smiles. Dear child, wait. I want to ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... the door there was a flutter of wings where a brood of white turkeys settled to roost. Beyond the bole of the tree a small negro in short skirts was "shooin'" a large rooster into the henhouse, but at the muffled fall of Gay's horse's hoofs on the dead leaves, she turned with a choking sound, and fled to the shelter of the kitchen at ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... gray of the dawn, Philip Hardin only catches a glimpse of a muffled form in a coach. He will see the mother of his child no more. With a wild dash, the stage sweeps ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... of a tender brown), and les cheveux blonds chatains (chestnut-blonde hair). Liszt, from whose book some of the above details are derived, completes his portrayal of Chopin by some characteristic touches. The timbre of his voice, he says, was subdued and often muffled; and his movements had such a distinction and his manners such an impress of good society that one treated him unconsciously like a prince. His whole appearance made one think of that of the convolvuli, which on incredibly ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... house, was burning; not because he had any other, or had friends to meet, or old haunts to revisit, or any liberty to gain but liberty to starve and die. And then a knot of highwaymen went trooping by, conducted by the friends they had among the crowd, who muffled their fetters as they went along with handkerchiefs and bands of hay, and wrapped them in coats and cloaks, and gave them drink from bottles, and held it to their lips, because of their handcuffs which there was no time to remove. All this, and Heaven knows how much more, was done ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... the banks of buttons and switches. Muffled thunder from the stern jets trembled through the ...
— This World Must Die! • Horace Brown Fyfe
... low. Beyond the worlds vague ghosts of monstrous things; half-seen columns of unsanctified temples that rest on nameless rocks beneath space and reach up to dizzy vacua above the spheres of light and darkness. And through this revolving graveyard of the universe the muffled, maddening beating of drums, and thin, monotonous whine of blasphemous flutes from inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond Time; the detestable pounding and piping whereunto dance slowly, awkwardly and absurdly the gigantic, tenebrous ultimate gods—the ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... slowly realised that a reprieve from death had been granted at the last moment, they also became aware that they were in a place of absolute darkness, and, save for the muffled outside roar of furious seas, of absolute quiet. At the same time they were so exhausted after their recent prolonged struggle that they found barely strength to get overboard an anchor. Then, careless of everything ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... very still night, earth and air all muffled in snow. Once in bed I felt easier, and lay quiet, listening to the strange noises that come out in a house after dark. Once I thought I heard a door open and close again below: it might have been the glass door that led to the ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... Grandpa also began to weep. At that Cis stumbled toward the door of her room, colliding on the way with the end of the cookstove, since one slender arm was across her eyes, and shut herself from sight. For some minutes after that the sound of her muffled sobbing came from that closet over which she had ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... Then a head, muffled so closely in a black satin mantle that no feature could be distinguished, was thrust from one of the carriage windows, and looking around, seemed to seek for some decisive sign on the house front. The unknown lady ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the billows thundering in some adjacent cavern. The song of the sea in its old halls rung out in a style quite unearthly. The slamming of the mighty doors seemed far off in the chambers of the cliff, and the echoes trembled themselves away, muffled into stillness by ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... rushing. Sometimes its song would almost cease, and then break out again, tinkle, babble, and rush, all at once. At the bottom of the hill they came to a small river, into which the brook flowed with a muffled but merry sound. Along the surface of the river, darkly clear below them in the moonlight, they floated; now, where it widened out into a little lake, they would hover for a moment over a bed of water-lilies, ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... the hill wound in and out among the trees, and so it happened that Rosemary heard muffled footsteps before she saw him coming. A wayfaring squirrel, the first of his family to venture out, scampered madly up a tree and looked down upon the girl with questioning, fearful eyes. She rose from the log and looked up, with her ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... Always the methodical muffled boom of cannon through the windows, and the delegates, screaming at each other.... So, with the crash of artillery, in the dark, with hatred, and fear, and reckless daring, new Russia ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... Petrarch, and he heard them still, though muffled, for a moment or two after the boy had gone. Then it ceased abruptly, and a pause followed, at the end of which the page returned. Raising the portiere of blue and gold, he invited Gian Maria ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... do miss you—so badly that I often take refuge in summoning you in spirit. The other day I had occasion to see Austin; and we sat in the library where all the curtains are in linen bags and all the furniture in overalls, and where the rugs are rolled in tarred paper and the pictures are muffled in cheese-cloth. ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... element in the atmosphere of fear and wonder that surrounded him. Then it rose a little, and he became suddenly sharply conscious of it as an additional menace. The sound was not loud, but deep and vibrant. A whir or hum, like that of a powerful, muffled motor, but deeper than the sound of any motor man has ever made. It came down the gorge, from the direction of the machine ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... ascertain my movements on the night when the crime was committed," snapped the little widow. "A woman muffled in a shawl, in much the same way as my head is now muffled in my skirt, talked to Bolton through the bedroom window of the Sailor's Rest, ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... down through any of the sheltered coulees behind; yet he knew they were near. The silence was in sharp contrast to the rumble and roar of the stampede just past. The only sounds which shattered the quiet were the muffled thuds of Waddles's hand-axe as the cook worked on a single idea and endeavored to gouge a loophole through the cracks of the twelve-inch logs. Harris transferred his attention to the long line of log buildings ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... something, since wariness had made him wakeful. Now he hears the sound of horse-hoofs on the hard road, and riseth to his feet and goeth to the very edge of the copse; looking thence he saw a rider who was just come to the very crossing of the roads. The new comer was much muffled in a wide cloak, but he seemed to be a man low of stature. He peered all round about him as if to see if the way were clear, and then alighted down from horseback and let the hood fall off his head, and seemed pondering which way were the ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... dream of moody mind, That lists a dirge i' the blackbird's singing; That in gusts hears Nature's own voice complain, And beholds her tears in the gushing rain; When low clouds congregate blank and blind, And Winter's snow-muffled arms are clinging Round ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Vol. 10, No. 283, 17 Nov 1827 • Various
... a dull noise is heard.] A muffled sound? 'Tis like the stroke of oars. It is the ferryman of shades who comes To take me hence. No, here—here ...
— Early Plays - Catiline, The Warrior's Barrow, Olaf Liljekrans • Henrik Ibsen
... collar of my overcoat for me, for some reason, and buttoned it at the throat. I afterwards found that he had done the same to his own, but I did not hear him doing it. The one thing I heard in the bedroom was a tiny metallic click, muffled and deadened in his overcoat pocket, and it not only removed my last tremor, but strung me to a higher pitch of excitement than ever. Yet I had then no conception of the game that Raffles was deciding to play, and that I was to play ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... to pass the building in which the post office was located. He was within a hundred feet of the place when suddenly a muffled explosion reached ...
— The Young Bridge-Tender - or, Ralph Nelson's Upward Struggle • Arthur M. Winfield
... near, though muffled. The earth shook; a tremor ran through the Jasper B.; the glasses leaped and rang upon the table. Cleggett, followed by Lady Agatha, ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... to do it," muttered Elfreda. Then gathering up her presents she made a dash for the door and with a muffled, "I'll be back soon," was gone. It was several minutes before she reappeared with red eyes, but smiling lips. Then a long talk ensued, during which time the art of trunk-packing languished. It was renewed with vigor that evening and ...
— Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... and the police poured into the house and up the stairs. There were muffled noises and suppressed ejaculations of "Aw, come on there, now! I've got him, Mike! No funny business now, you! ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... apart, and left us face to face with one man. He was a little below middle height, and all muffled in a thick coat with a fur collar. He wore a silver helmet with an eagle atop of it, and kept his left hand resting on his sword. Below the helmet was a face the colour of grey paper, from which shone curious sombre restless eyes with dark pouches beneath ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... among the debris of years for suitable weapons. Finally, brandishing pokers, and with two rusty boiler lids for shields, we faced each other, uttering our respective battle cries in muffled tones. Angel had put a battered coal scuttle over his head for a helmet; and, through a break in it, I could see ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... against the man's neck as a gentle reminder of what would happen to him if he should make a sound, and they proceeded to untie his hands. Then they motioned to him that he was to get on his hands and knees and go before them, which, with muffled grunts, and after two or three attempts, he succeeded in doing. He was evidently dazed yet and stiff from the cramped attitude in which he had been lying, but stern necessity was on him and he finally wobbled ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall
... with a woman in whom no one else would discover a charm. "There is," says a Latin love-poet, "no why or wherefore in liking." Hartopp, therefore, had taken, from the first moment, to Waife,—the staid, respectable, thriving man, all muffled up from head to foot in the whitest lawn of reputation,—to the wandering, shifty, tricksome scatterling, who had not seemingly secured, through the course of a life bordering upon age, a single certificate for good conduct. On his hearthstone, beside his ledger-book, ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... A muffled sound of hoofs—the men from Gloucester! Windybank noted with some degree of satisfaction that they ware well armed and well mounted. In the darkness he counted nearly a score of men. A few were "riff-raff;" some, like himself, were perhaps forced; but the majority seemed to be of some substance ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... possession of her. "What if he was not there? What if this was a plot, a snare laid for her feet? But no, no!" She saw a tall and closely-muffled figure crossing the open square, and coming directly to her. She could not see his face, but it was surely him. Now he was near her. He whispered the signal word in a low, soft tone. With a quaking heart, she gave ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... this particular occasion, I never could fathom; both had just ceased, and we were still chatting, when midnight struck, deep-toned or shrill, from all the clocks in the house; and, in the involuntary impressive pause, we could hear through the open window the muffled echo from the village church. Then Mr. Topham ran in with a huge loving-cup, and, drinking all our good healths, it was passed ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... its very mystery a deeper fear. Abner Dimock began to stay at home, to be visited at late hours by one or two men whose faces were full of evil and daring; and when, in the dead of the long nights, Hitty woke from her broken and feverish sleep, it was to hear muffled sounds from the cellar below, never heard there before; and once, wrapping a shawl about her, she stole down the stairways with bare feet, and saw streams of red light through the chinks of the cellar-door, and heard the ring of metal, and muttered oaths, all carefully dulled by such devices ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... her limbs, and adding to the impediment of her weakness. Suddenly her wandering eyes fell on Deronda, standing before her, and immediately, as if she had been expecting him and looking for him, she tried to stretch out her arms, which were held back by her supporters, saying, in a muffled voice— ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... soldiers found him, he lay back against a little heap of leaves he had scooped together, giving himself up to the numb, delicious feeling of the last sleep—no more to be feared and fought against—when his ear caught the sound of steps, muffled by the leaves of the undergrowth carpeting the ground. He started; life for an instant returned to him. Did that portend the approach of the soldiers, or was it some friendly Indian roaming the forest for game, and now on ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... impatiently ejaculated, with a sinking heart at the thought of any sequel. A sequel there was bound to be—however muffled. It did not rest with her. There were Emmy and Alf, both alike burning with the wish to avenge themselves—upon her! If only she could disappear—just drop out altogether, like a man overboard at night in a storm; and leave Emmy and Alf to settle together ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... dull beating of muffled drums filled the square. The sound of heavy steps was heard above his head. The next moment the very planks of the scaffold creaked with the weight of an advancing procession, and the eager faces of the spectators confirmed what a last hope at the bottom of his heart had ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... awfulness of the solemnity made the deepest impression on the minds of the distressed inhabitants. The peasant discontinued his toil, the ox rested from the plough, all nature seemed to sympathise with their loss, and the muffled bells ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... the door calling "Pat!" and whistling the familiar call, and this was answered by a storm of eager muffled barking. The locked door was shaken in vain, and there was no possible way of ...
— Dick Lionheart • Mary Rowles Jarvis
... door, waiting till the muffled sounds of their footsteps died away in the octagon chamber and on the ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... Dunk Island, but even his own familiar friends. Never had any seen such a classic interpretation of the theme, such brilliant leg movement, nor heard such realistic growling and snapping and intermittent yelps, such muffled, sob-like inspirations. Yellowby danced as dances the artist, so graphically interpreting the subject that the bewildered orchestra forgot itself. All were borne away in spirit to the scene of some far-off, familiar camp, where the scents of decayed ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... significance. At dinner she regarded her father with troubled eyes. He, too, was old, like Maurice's wife. He, too, as well as the bride, and her mother, would die, sometime. And she and Maurice would have such awful grief!... Something tightened in her throat; "Please 'scuse me," she said, in a muffled voice; and, slipping out of her chair, made a dash for the back door, and ran as hard as she could to her chicken house. The little place was hot, and smelled of feathers; through the windows, cobwebbed and dusty, the sunshine fell dimly on the hard ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... later a dark and muffled figure was seen to emerge from a recess in the mullioned wall of the Arc de Triomphe and pass ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... child, you will, I am sure, excuse me now and henceforth, from entering into details of all the horrible beasts which swarm in the shallows of the animal world, and whom learned men have in their wonderful wisdom muffled up in terrible names, in order to prevent children from coming near them! What would you have thought of the poor little squilla, so prettily baptised by the fishermen, if I had taught you that it belonged to the order of Stomatopoda? You ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... were ended, and the knights Had taken their set places at the board, Then there was silence. And from far away, As if from some deep cavern of a tomb, Behind the couch where King Amfortas lay The muffled voice of aged Titurel Spake with long silences between the words: "My son Amfortas, art thou at thy post?... Wilt thou unveil the Grail and bid me live?... Or must I die, denied ...
— Parsifal - A Drama by Wagner • Retold by Oliver Huckel
... me," he returned, in the same muffled voice; but she would not be repulsed. She swept back the dark hair from his forehead and kissed him. Did she not share his sufferings? Could any one sympathize with him as she could? "Oh, if mother were only here," she sighed, feeling her inability to comfort him. "Mother is so sorry for you, she ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... forehead that burned, and to whisper low at his ear. House and garden and silent street seemed asleep in the late sunshine, safe folded from the storm of sound that raged in the field on the border of the town. Distance muffled the Indian drums, and changed the scream of the pipes into a far-off wailing. Savage cries, bursts of applause and laughter,—all came softly, blent like the hum of the bees, mellow like the sunlight. There was no one in the summer-house. ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... passed below them, with a gleam of dim light on the shining broad quarters of the grey mare, on a bright heavy stirrup, on a long silver spur; but the short flick of yellowish flame in the dusk was powerless against the muffled-up mysteriousness of the dark figure with an invisible face concealed by a ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... should not have taken her to be greatly above thirty, though she seems to use no art to make herself look younger, and talks about her time of life, without any squeamishness. Her voice is very agreeable, having a sort of muffled quality, which is excellent in woman. She is of a very cheerful temperament, and so has borne a great many troubles without being destroyed by them. But I can get no color into my sketch, ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... little before midnight on the next night, two motors filled with muffled human beings might have been perceived, or seen, moving noiselessly from Riverside Drive to the steamer wharf where lay ...
— Moonbeams From the Larger Lunacy • Stephen Leacock
... howling grew muffled. He must have crawled into a hollow in the trunk. But his wife did not win this shelter. An arrow brought her to the ground. She was severely hurt, for she made no effort to get away. She crouched in a sheltering way over her baby (which clung tightly to her), and made pleading signs and sounds to ...
— Before Adam • Jack London
... connected with his tribe. One night, as Lieutenant Brown and I sat by the campfire at Tael-la-haes-ke's lodge—the larger boys, two Seminole negresses, three pigs, and several dogs, together with Tael-la-haes-ke, forming a picturesque circle in the ashes around the bright light—I heard muffled moans from the little palmetto shelter on my right, under which the three smaller boys were bundled up in cotton cloth on deer skins for the night's sleep. Upon the moans followed immediately the frightened cry of the baby boy, waking out ...
— The Seminole Indians of Florida • Clay MacCauley
... is visible, and the cannon roar. And it was a gloriously bright and beautiful day; but Ivan and Olga, looking out on the broad street and the glittering pinnacles of the palace chapel, watching the sledges fly by with people all muffled in furs, were two very disconsolate children. They had an English governess—for Russian children have to study English as Americans do French—and they had been so unruly, so impatient, and indifferent to lessons, that Miss ...
— Harper's Young People, December 9, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... you like it?" she said, when she had finished; and he answered, "I always admired your playing, you know, but the tone of the instrument does not quite suit me. It seems rather muffled, as if the wires were made of hair!" and his large black eyes were ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... 'Residenz-Theater' sparked and hummed With lights and people. Gebnitz was to sing, That rare soprano. All the fiddles strummed With tuning up; the wood-winds made a ring Of reedy bubbling noises, and the sting Of sharp, red brass pierced every ear-drum; patting From muffled tympani ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... muffled in a Cloke peering after a Woman? My own Boy to a Hair! She's handsom too. I'll step aside; for I must see the meaning on't. ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... The muffled drum's sad roll has beat The soldier's last tattoo; No more on Life's parade shall meet That brave and fallen few. On Fame's eternal camping-ground Their silent tents are spread, And Glory guards, with solemn round, The bivouac ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... fled like a sparkle of light, And dark is the dream that possesses him now; The morn of his doom has succeeded the night, And the damp dews of death gather fast on his brow. He hears in the distance a faint muffled drum, And the low sullen boom of the death-tolling bell; The block is prepared, and the headsman is come, And the victim, bareheaded, walks forth from ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... was addressed to a man who at this instant came into the room, muffled up to the eyes. He threw off the hood of his cloak and the wrapper that went round his throat, concealing his long white beard, and as he did so he exclaimed with ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... branchless pole That held aloft the singing wire; I heard its muffled music roll, And stirred ...
— Rose and Roof-Tree - Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... thinly and sluggishly, from a featureless sky. The lamps, just lighted, cast upon wet wood and metal a pale yellow shimmer; voices sounded with peculiar clearness; so did the rumble of a porter's barrow laden with luggage. From a foundry hard by came the muffled, rhythmic thunder of mighty blows; this and the long note of an engine-whistle wailing far off seemed to intensify the stillness of the air as gloomy ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... the troops to the entrance of the great, sullen fort, standing alone in the middle of the harbor, and made frequent trips bringing supplies and ammunition from the deserted fortress. All was done silently: the oars were muffled, and the commands of the officers were whispered, that no tidings should be told of the movement under way. Before sunrise all was completed; and when the rays of the rising sun fell upon the stars and stripes floating from the flagstaff of Sumter, the people of Charleston ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... from its taint. But he noticed that even at this slight elevation he had got free from the noise of the traffic. It would continue—a crashing roar—for hours, and yet it was now scarcely perceptible. Listening attentively he heard it—just a crackling murmur, a curious muffled rhythm, as of drums beaten by an army ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... following closely, and the remainder of the men bringing up the rear. The moon was on the wane and would not rise until nearly midnight, and for the first few miles, or until we entered the canon, there was scarce a sound to disturb the stillness of the night. The sandy road even muffled the noise of the wagon and the tramping of horses; but once we entered that rocky canon, the rattling of our commissary seemed to summon every Comanche and his ally to come and rob us. There was never a halt, the ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams |
