"Ominously" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a cow to market neared him, and Nicholas stopped to remark upon the outlook. The farmer, a thick-set, hairy man, whose name was Turner, gave a sudden hitch to the halter to check the progress of the cow, and nodded ominously. ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... out almost before we had taken our seats; we clutched his belt for support, and away we flew through the inky darkness and fathomless dust, outstripping everything on the road. We came to a bridge; one wheel skimmed along high on the side rail, the loose boards rattled ominously beneath the other. There are no regulations for slow driving on Russian bridges beyond those contained in admonitory proverbs and popular legends. One's eyes usually supply sufficient warning by day. But Vanka was ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... gave occasion to a sudden development of opposition to slavery in the legislature of Virginia. A measure for the prospective abolition of the institution in that ancient commonwealth was proposed, earnestly debated, eloquently urged, and at last defeated, with a minority ominously large in its favor. Warned by so great a peril, and strengthened soon afterward by an increase in the market value of cotton and of slaves, the slave-holding interest in all the South was stimulated to new activity. Defenses of slavery more audacious ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... dark, as much in anger at his son, as with the upstart cavalry captain. He began to growl ominously, "Captain Mauser, rejoin your command and obey ...
— Mercenary • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... suffer for this business, before we get through!" cried Captain Jack, his eyes flashing ominously. "But come, now, fellows, we must go to bed, for we must have enough sleep if we're to be good and fit in to ...
— The Submarine Boys' Lightning Cruise - The Young Kings of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... story-teller first and foremost. We can hold in our minds every thread of Mr. Wilkie Collins' web, or of M. Fortune du Boisgobey's, or of M. Gaboriau's—all great weavers of intrigues. But Dickens goes about darkening his intrigue, giving it an extra knot, an extra twist, hinting here, ominously laughing there, till we get mystified and bored, and give ourselves up to the fun of the humours, indifferent to the destinies of villains and victims. Look at "Edwin Drood." A constant war about the ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... contagion, the caravan was to be barred out. We never really believed that the town-fathers had taken their highhanded measure on account of scarlet fever. We saw in it some occult political significance, and referred ominously to the butter we carried there on Saturdays, and to the possibility that, if they cast us off, a separation might affect them far more seriously than it would us. But to our loud-voiced delight, the caravan, finding that it was to be within hailing distance, and unwilling ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... Eve, until the farmer sent a messenger to say that he was about to enter the house. Her punishment for the act of sinfulness was a week of severe silence; and the farmer would have kept her to it longer, but for her mother's ominously growing weakness. The sisters were strangely overclouded by this incident. They could not fathom the meaning of their father's unkindness, coarseness, and indignation. Why, and why? they asked one another, blankly. The Scriptures were harsh in one part, but was the teaching ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... his own person. The play went very much as usual, but those behind the scenes were not allowed to forget that Mr. Peel was in a furious temper: the ladies noticed with satisfaction that more than once he glared ominously at Miss Danver, who naturally could not aid him to make his 'points' as Miss Walcott had accustomed herself to do. At his final exit, it was observed that he shrugged his shoulders and ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... don't seem to know that in this here packet the youth an' beauty is allus considered fust," he rumbled ominously. No reply being forthcoming, he turned ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... time we shouldn't have taken it easy till we had seen the end of it. Without desiring to crow over the house, young Mr. Vendale, I wish you well through it. No offence, sir," said the Cellarman, opening the door to go out, and looking in again ominously before he shut it. "I'm muddled and molloncolly, I grant you. But I'm an old servant of Pebbleson Nephew, and I wish you well through them six cases of ...
— No Thoroughfare • Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins
... for the boy than the girl. "Massa Dick! Massa Dick! don' you be too rough wi' dat gal! She scratch you las' week, 'n' some day she bite you; 'n' if she bite you, Massa Dick!"—Old Sophy nodded her head ominously, as if she could say a great deal more; while, in grateful acknowledgment of her caution, Master Dick put his two little fingers in the angles of his mouth, and his forefingers on his lower eyelids, drawing upon these features until his expression reminded ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... tugged and strained at her anchor, wind and turning tide making taut the line that held her close to shore. The Venture, her rigging and masts scarcely visible, so sombre was the night, lay ominously silent, excepting for a murmur of voices from the cabin. Abruptly aware of the passing of time and the approaching white cloud on the water that was the Mirabelle, the monkey sprang to the side of the open window ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... very well now, with rosy love in their sky; but delays are dangerous," said some people, shaking their heads ominously. ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey
... do something more than threaten you," he said ominously, "you will not fool me, Miss Glaum, and the sooner you realize the fact the better. I am going all the way with you if you give me any trouble, and if you don't answer my questions. I might tell ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... not! The idea! But, seeing your skirt so very short, I should have guessed you were a sportswoman and killed the birds yourself!" and she sniffed ominously. ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... single elevator in commission in the great gloomy rotunda of the office building, and the watchman who ran her up made a terrible noise shutting the gate after he had let her out on the fifteenth floor. The dim marble corridor echoed her footfalls ominously, and when she reached the door to his outer office and tried it, she found it locked. The next door down the corridor was the one that led directly into his private office, and here the light ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... he said, addressing Lacheneur, "for presenting my request in such a manner, and at such a time. But surely, when fate glowers ominously upon you, that is the time when your friends should declare themselves—and deem themselves fortunate if their devotion can make you forget the infamous treatment to which ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... change! A cloud, which floated in the atmosphere, An inconsiderable and feathery speck Of no proportions, now augmented, wears A threatening aspect, ominously dark; Enveloping the heaven's canopy In lowering shadow and portentous gloom; In pall of ambient obscurity. The fork-ed lightnings ramify and play Upon a background of sepulchral black; The growling thunders rumble a reply Of ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... face in the moonlight and refrained from any suggestion of that nature. There was a spice of dogged obstinacy in Vane, which, although on the whole it made for success, occasionally drove him into needless difficulties. They held on; and soon after day broke, with its first red flush ominously high in the eastern sky, they stretched in toward the land, with a somewhat sheltered bay opening up beyond a foam-fringed point ahead of them. Carroll glanced dubiously at the white turmoil in the midst of which black fangs of ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... generation the gaunt Lincoln, speaking that same plain prose of Defoe, Swift, Franklin, and Paine,—Lincoln who began his first Douglas debate, not like his cultivated opponent with the conventional "Ladies and Gentlemen," but with the ominously intimate, "My Fellow Citizens,"—Lincoln is saying, "I am not master of language; I have not a fine education; I am not capable of entering into a disquisition upon dialectics, as I believe you call it; but I do not believe ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... ominously for the Catholic party. Preachers, licensed by the Archbishop of Canterbury and protected openly by the court, delivered wild harangues against Catholic doctrines and practices. Pamphlets, for the most part translations of heretical works published in Germany or Switzerland ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... obnoxious," went on George ominously. "For nearly three weeks I've been dodging him, and it can't go on much longer. One of these fine days, mother, a prominent member of the Wintermill family is going to receive a far from exclusive thrashing. ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... at regular intervals on the coast, and signals were flashed from the headlands to lead them into the safest creek or cove. Amongst these vessels, one, a full-rigged schooner, soon became ominously conspicuous. She was for long the chief terror of the Cornish Channel. Her name was The Black Prince. Once, with Coppinger on board, she led a revenue-cutter into an intricate channel near the Bull Rock, where, from knowledge of the bearings, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... was off getting the vehicles; Doctor Thayer had run up the dock to the village street on some errand, saying he would be back by the time the carriages were there; and Hand was walking up and down the dock, keeping a watchful eye on the launch. James was lying in the sheltered corner of the boat, ominously quiet. His eyes were closed, and his face had grown ghastly in his illness. Tears came to Agatha's eyes as she looked at him, seeing how much worse his condition was than when he had talked with her, almost happily, in the night. She ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... contracted in its bed, and its current, which, owing to the gloom, looked black as ink, flowed swiftly on, as if anxious to escape to livelier scenes. A large raven, which had attended the horsemen all the way, now alighted near them, and croaked ominously. ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... what was wanted than he began rapidly to gather up the dry grass into a heap, while Jack and his father drew their heavy hunting-knives and chopped off the brushwood; but it was nervous work, for the low, muttering roar came ominously close, and at any moment Dick felt that one of the great cat-like creatures, which have a terrible hunger after horseflesh, might spring upon one of the poor creatures, which trembled and whinnied, and ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... poop ladders with a rush and tramping of feet that sounded ominously loud for the work on so quiet a night. The yelling of the men at the braces coupled with the tramping aroused Captain Thompson in spite of his liquor, and he came up the after-companion to see ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... faces at other windows. The countenances of the boys and girls gathered about the door were ominously expressive. I lifted the horn to my lips. I blew upon it what was intended for a cheerful and exuberant call to duty, but to my chagrin it emitted no sound whatever. I attempted a gentle, soul-stirring strain; it was as silent as the ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... and in an instant she was in my arms. Ah, Love, Love! wherefore art thou so transitory a pilgrim on the earth,—an evening cloud which hovers on our horizon, drinking the hues of the sun, that grows ominously brighter as it verges to the shadow and the night, and which, the moment that sun is set, wanders on in ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the hammock, one foot used to propel herself gently back and forth. The newly-acquired striped dress was such a tight fit for her rubicund form, that it cracked ominously every time the wearer took a deep breath. But the short-coming of the two fronts over her ample bosom was camouflaged with the plaid ribbon and many pins. The corsage bouquet was tucked high under her chin where ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... dread. High above the altar, blackened by the constantly ascending cloud of smoke, swayed uneasily a peculiar graven image of wood, hideous in disfigurement of form and diabolical of visage, appearing to float upon outspread wings, and gloating down upon us through eyes glittering ominously in the fire sheen. At either extremity of the apartment, where I supposed were the entrance and exit previously noted, stood those savages remaining on guard, grim, naked fellows, whose restless eyes, ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... that the situation was critical in the extreme. Long-headed diplomatists of the conservative school shook their heads ominously. They hinted that there might be only too much truth in the current Catholic saying that the Medici family was destined to be fatal to Christendom. Under Leo the Tenth Germany was lost to the papacy, under ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... colossal bird were taking the earth under her far-outstretching wings, dense darkness fell—impenetrable, sooty darkness, that in a moment shut out all light, all power of sight. Then from out the sombre heavens deep thunder boomed ominously as the reverberating roar of a pack of hunger-ridden lions, and the two men, aliens in an alien land, stood beneath the tattered matting awning with a peculiar fear and some foreboding. We were tied in fast to the darkened sides of the great Ichang Gorge—a magnificent sixteen-mile ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... to be on the sly about saying "Good bye" to this host of yours. When, however, it was absolutely necessary to be gone, De Quincey forthwith insisted on accompanying his guest. What, then, was to be done? Ominously the sky looked down upon them, momently threatening a storm. No resource was there but to give the man his way, and accept his offer of companionship for a short distance, painfully conscious though you are of the fact that every step taken forwards must, during this ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... & Bangs' on the outskirts of the city, the big manufacturing plant was ominously still. The only sign of life about the place was at the wide entrance doors at the end of the yards, where a group of men were talking and ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... powerful neighbour to his aid. I was undone by my auxiliary; when I had once called him in, I could not subsist without dependence on him." Poor, needy Prince of Bloomsbury! think of him in his palace, with his allies from Chancery Lane ominously ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... consternation at the decline of Stoneborough school since Mr. Wilmot had ceased to be an under-master; the whole tone of the school had degenerated, and it was no wonder that the Government inquiries were ominously directed in that quarter. Scholarship was at a low ebb, Dr. Hoxton seemed to have lost what power of teaching he had ever possessed, and as Dr. May observed, the poor old school was going to the dogs. But even in the present ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... burned more ominously than before. "Of course he can't. He's run into a trap, and all we've got to do is to make a spread and round him up. I'll bet a hundred to one we find him somewhere this side, waiting for a freeze." Again the half-emptied bottle came from the shelf and passed to the end of ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... a woman!" Jake responded, tenderly, and the two stood together just at Mr. Hardcastle's elbow, as that worthy advanced to a central spot between the bonfires, cleared his throat ominously, and pirouetted solemnly around, holding up his ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... suspiciously, and did not seem disposed to admit her. However, on her decided request to see the lady of the house, she was shown a seat in the hall, and left to her reflections. A moment after, there was the rustle of silken robes, the sparkle of brilliant jewels, and a cold voice said ominously— ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... support, as we push slowly onward, and some of the nearer mountains are soon enveloped also. The blue sky is forced back, cut off in all directions; even the pusillanimous sun retires from the conflict; the heavens have darkened ominously. ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... the ice is broken, the new world of sun and flowers is ready, at an instant's magic word, to be born. Nevertheless this year there was an incredible pathos in the wind. The soul of Petrograd was indeed stirring, but mournfully, ominously. There were not, for one thing, the rows of little fairy lamps that on this night always make the streets so gay. They hang in chains and clusters of light from street to street, blazing in the square, reflected star-like in the canals, misty and golden-veiled in distance. To-night ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... She shook her head ominously, and hurried into the kitchen—a smoky old kitchen, but quaint from the little windows with the old ox-eyed panes of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... shortly before this accident occurred, an old woman passing near the mine heard a raven—(doubtless a carrion crow)—croaking ominously as it sat on the bough of a tree hard by, and that it distinctly uttered these words, “carpse, carpse, carpse” (i.e., corpse), and this she regarded as a certain presage of some fatal occurence. Truly the age of witches and warlocks ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... time, By nations sav'd, resounding your applause. While deep beyond your monument's proud base, In black oblivion's kennel, shall be trod Their execrable names, who, high in power, And deep in guilt, most ominously shine, (The meteors of the state!) give vice her head, To license lewd let loose the public rein; Quench every spark of conscience in the land, And triumph in the profligate's applause: Or who to the first bidder sell their souls, Their country sell, sell all ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... one the head, the other the heart of Italy. As head and heart made up the perfect life, so death was not complete until Heaven welcomed both. It seemed also strange, that on the night after Mrs. Browning's decease an unexpected comet should glare ominously out of the sky. For the moment we were superstitious, and believed in it as a minister ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... know! In these last two centuries of Atheistic Government (near two centuries now, since the blessed restoration of his Sacred Majesty, and Defender of the Faith, Charles Second), I reckon that we have pretty well exhausted what of 'firm earth' there was for us to march on;—and are now, very ominously, shuddering, reeling, and let us hope trying to recoil, on the ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... imaginary bills of parcels, which they had been writing out on their slates and were now required to calculate "off-hand"—a test which they stood with such imperfect success that Bartle Massey, whose eyes had been glaring at them ominously through his spectacles for some minutes, at length burst out in a bitter, high-pitched tone, pausing between every sentence to rap the floor with a knobbed stick which ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... girl to faint at the sight of blood), she was thrust violently back, after a short struggle, by the captain's sister, and locked in the cabin. However, she did not weep or wring her hands, but she became suddenly, even ominously quiet, her eyes shining in the pallor of her face with a luminous light. Meanwhile, there was a council of war outside in the cabin as to the ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... everything that had passed between her and Don Alberto, and Stradella's first instinct was to seek him out, insult him, and force him into a duel. Ortensia saw the big vein swelling ominously in the middle of the white forehead, the tightening of the lips, and the unconscious movement of the fingers that closed upon an imaginary sword-hilt; she saw all this and was pleased, as every woman is when the man she loves is roused and wants to ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... may be surmised, fell upon all. Lees had been no great favorite of late, and it had been the trite remark for a year that he was looking like death; but at this juncture the tidings came ominously enough. One member, at least, of the Southern Colony would never share the winnings of Auburn Risque, and now that they referred to his forebodings of the morning, it was recalled that with his own demise, he had prophesied ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... went off and left him and his wife and little girl alone at this time?" The questioner's eyelids were closing ominously. "You come here with that story and ask ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... spot, And press with the big urge of mighty powers Against the lofty grottos, then the earth Bulks to that quarter whither push amain The headlong winds. Then all the builded houses Above ground—and the more, the higher up-reared Unto the sky—lean ominously, careening Into the same direction; and the beams, Wrenched forward, over-hang, ready to go. Yet dread men to believe that there awaits The nature of the mighty world a time Of doom and cataclysm, albeit they see So great a bulk of lands ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... prevalent amongst the crowd of afflicted, that they were merely made the subjects of experiment, which thinned the ranks of the old applicants, and intimidated new. It might be said, that patients after a certain period had so ominously declined, that the very fire was likely to become extinguished for want of fuel. In order that the trials might be deliberately proceeded in, a fortunate thought occurred to Dr. Beddoes; namely, not to bribe, but to reward all persevering patients; for Mr. Davy informed me, that, ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... this longing, Gilbert began to plan how he might gratify it, and it appeared easy enough, as we were in a land of plenty; but the time required for the transport of such delicacies as grapes and peaches threatened ominously their safe arrival. However, we would run the risk to give a little relief to our dear invalid, and we would take the greatest precautions in the packing. So we went to a fruit-grower, taking with us a large box filled ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... him. His eyes were shining wickedly, but his voice was ominously suave and honeyed. "This boat, son, is a threemasted schooner, name of Nancy Hanks, Master Joshua Green, bound for the Solomon Islands with a cargo ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... to the top of its bent There is still room enough for improvement. Only let us hope that it always works for good: if not, the divergent lines on Darwin's lithographic diagram of "Transmutation made Easy," ominously show what small deviations from the straight path may come to ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... down the steps from Miss Woodhull's office, said office, by-the-by, being in the wing in which the recitation rooms were situated and quite separate from the main building, Sally's eyes were snapping, and her head wagging ominously; Aileen's cheeks were even a deeper tint than they ordinarily were, and her head was held a little higher. Evidently something of a disturbing nature had taken place. They did not see Beverly in her bosky nook and she did not feel called ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... me in the seventh heaven. I had been walking about the house, unable to settle to anything, and when I heard he had come I thought it was to congratulate me, and I hurried down; but the first glimpse of his face caused my heart to contract ominously. ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... upon it, and although the steps bent ominously, there was enough of sound wood to ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... two days behind his schedule, and falling snow and unpacked trail kept him two days behind all the way to Forty Mile. And here the weather favored. It was time for a big cold snap, and he gambled on it, cutting down the weight of grub for dogs and men. The men of Forty Mile shook their heads ominously, and demanded to know what he would do if the snow ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... hereby declare that martial law now exists throughout all the domain formerly under the rule of the commission! Until peace is declared, my word"—he paused ominously—"is ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... for a long minute. Stella's blue eyes, which were actually more staring than pretty, began to cloud ominously. Instinctively she sensed that Janice was not with ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... of Miss Landon for London was extraordinary. In a letter, written in 1834, and addressed to a reverend gentleman, she ominously says, "When I have the good luck or ill luck (I rather lean to the latter opinion) of being married, I shall certainly insist on the wedding excursion not extending ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... several times, and finally pitched headlong. When he next regained his feet Arsenic had disappeared in the timber, and our lad realised the futility of a further pursuit. Now, too, he noticed that the sky had become heavily overcast, and that a strong wind was soughing ominously through the tree tops. ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... a long pause while the man continued to look at Jeff ominously. Finally he stepped back and lowered the paralo-ray gun. "All right, go on. But if you see those murdering cadets, let us know. We're out to get them, and when ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell
... he had calculated, upon the divan. It creaked ominously. Catching his foot in the cushions, he stumbled and lay forward for a moment ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... to arrive. I did not know who or what it might be, but even the thought of someone else made me feel safer, for in so ticklish a piece of business as this, in dealing with at least a pair of desperate men such as we knew them to be in the ominously quiet little house, a second and even a third line of re-enforcements was not, I ...
— Guy Garrick • Arthur B. Reeve
... helmet, stirring his hair as it passed. A second struck his left shoulder, inflicting a flesh wound of which he was not even conscious at the moment; for Badshah Pasand lunged ominously forward; swayed, staggered; and with a sound between a cough and a groan, fell headlong, flinging his rider clear on to the ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... felt unrested. The servant came in to her and told her the hour. The breakfast was ready; but Walter, who had not returned on the prior night, was not as usual waiting for her. The announcement was ominously in harmony with the thoughts she had tried to banish. She scarcely touched the breakfast, and the day passed in expectation of Walter. Night came, but it did not bring him. The next day passed in the ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... wandered from the charming prospect towards the companion-ladder. Presently she became ominously and ostentatiously interested in the view again, and at the same moment a young man's head and shoulders appeared above the companionway. With a bound he was on the slanting deck, moving with the agility ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... a time the forest was in a great commotion. Early in the evening the wise old cedars had shaken their heads ominously and predicted strange things. They had lived in the forest many, many years; but never had they seen such marvellous sights as were to be seen now in the sky, and upon the hills, ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... died of their wounds. Sometimes, one side of a bush would shrivel first, causing it to double up like a creature agonizing. Some crouched like strange beasts watching to spring. Others thrust themselves ominously forward with projected arms, as if ready to grapple. Some brandished their flat leaves as the painter Wiertz, in his famous picture of Napoleon in Hell, made wives and mothers brandish their menacing fists at the man who had robbed them of their loved ones. All wore a look that ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... I wouldn't allow it—not that he tried to!" added Keen hastily as the indignant brown eyes sparkled ominously. "Really, Miss Southerland, he must be all you say he is, for he has a stanch champion to ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... a town that we might be able to lodge there over night. In this deliberate manner of proceeding, life was a sweet, lazy holiday, and our journey was like a May outing. We were all very happy—almost ominously so. ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... its weaknesses," murmured Mr. Spinks, waving his head ominously. Mr. Spinks was considered to be a scholar, having once kept a night-school, and always ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... creaking it ominously; but Bessie had got to a most thrilling part of her subject, and Kitty might have creaked the library down before she would have ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade
... them, and when the tax-gatherer arrived they refused payment. Trouble then arose. Outrages such as the mutilation of the Queen's statue at Bombay, the attempt to fire the Church Mission Hall, the assaults upon "moderate" Hindus who refused to toe the line, became ominously frequent. Worse was to follow when the plague appeared. The measures at first adopted by Government to check the spread of this new visitation doubtless offended in many ways against the customs and prejudices of the people, especially the searching and disinfection of houses, and the forcible ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... were employed in putting the finishing touches to our preparations for the long land journey and our precautions against the Masika, which was now ominously near, and ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... contrary, he might be circling round and round. He had only one thing to direct him, the sweep of the continually rising wind and the wash of the gathering waves. So long as these struck the canoe, which now began to roll ominously, on the starboard side, he must, he thought, be keeping a right course. But in the turmoil of the rising gale and the confusion of the night, this was no very satisfactory guide. At length, however, a broad and brilliant flash sprung out across the ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... luncheon?" he demanded. Matt nodded. "Tell him to come in here. I want to see him," Cappy continued ominously. "And you might stick ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... of the latter theme mutters ominously in the bass as the second scene is disclosed. When Golaud, lying wounded on his bed, describes to Melisande how, "at the stroke of noon," his horse "swerved suddenly, with no apparent cause," and threw him, as he was hunting in the forest ...
— Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande - A Guide to the Opera with Musical Examples from the Score • Lawrence Gilman
... discouraging circumstances, the "treason of Toulon" struck a staggering blow at the Convention. The siege of Lyons was still in progress; the Piedmontese were entering Savoy, or the department of Mont Blanc, as it had been designated after its recent capture by France; the great city of Bordeaux was ominously silent and inactive; the royalists of Vendee were temporarily victorious; there was unrest in Normandy, and further violence in Brittany; the towns of Mainz, Valenciennes, and Conde had been evacuated, and Dunkirk was besieged by the Duke of York. The loss of Toulon would put a climax to ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... cyclone or not. When I got there I found the wind was sweeping past the entrance in such fearfully violent gusts as to make it quite impossible for me to venture outside into the street, and I also detected that ominously sinister, weird and moaning sound that unmistakably warned me of the impending fact that a cyclone of considerable intensity was rapidly approaching. I immediately returned to my rooms and made everything as secure as I could for withstanding the fury of the storm. I had invited that ...
— Recollections of Calcutta for over Half a Century • Montague Massey
... every evil passion in her nature; and out of her deadly hatred she meditated a sure revenge when the opportunity came in her way. What form it would take she hardly knew; events would shape themselves somehow; and then—the cold blue eyes glittered ominously at the thought of what she termed ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... effect; they have folded their arms and gone to sleep again. I am, of course, gratified by your favourable appreciation of my effort, but I differ with you as to its result. The surging waves of Northern faction and fanaticism already break ominously against our time-honoured constitutional dykes, and if the South would strengthen her bulwarks, there is no time to ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... flanked by heavy walls. Had her experience included Europe, her imagination might have seized the medieval parallel,—the arched bridges flung at intervals across the water, lacking only chains to raise them in case of siege. The place was always ominously suggestive of impending strife. Janet's soul was a sensitive instrument, but she suffered from an inability to find parallels, and thus to translate her impressions intellectually. Her feeling about ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... ominously calm and unruffled while Elas Peterman told of his meeting with Bull Sternford. He gave no sign whatever. There was just the flicker of a smile of appreciation of Bull's effrontery when he heard of his response to Peterman's invitation to ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... itself from the bough and whirl through the air as though some warning of the gale had reached it? So it was then in Lombardy. All round was the silence of decay; but now and then a word, a look, a trivial incident, fluttered ominously through the stillness. It was in '45. Only a year earlier the glorious death of the Bandiera brothers had sent a long shudder through Italy. In the Romagna, Renzi and his comrades had tried to uphold by action the protest set forth ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... they all shook emphatic and disapproving heads. The proprieties in Grosvenor Square, to be sure, loomed rather dim through the distance; but that immediate propriety in Hong-Kong, toward whom he was speeding with every turn of the screw, towered ominously. ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice
... it meant that I was a man whose gift for self-fooling promised ably to survive his hair. Gravitation would presently pull down my shoulders, my face would flaunt "the wrinkled spoils of age", my voice would waver ominously, and I should forfeit the dignities befitting even this decay by still playing childish games of belief with some foolish dog. I would be a village "character" of the sort that is justly said to "dodder." And the judicious would shun observation by me, or, if it befell ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... not to conceal even from you that our democracy has great weaknesses, as well as great strength. Mean, mercenary, and stolid men are not found in England alone; they are ominously abundant here also. We have lunatic radicalisms as well as sane, idiotic conservatisms as well as intelligent. Too much for safety, our politics are purulent, our good men over-apt to forget the objects of government ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... of shouting to him to stop, for I observed the summit of the cliff begin to tremble ominously, as if it felt the effect of the camel's feet at its base; but in another instant down came the avalanche of sand, entirely surrounding the sheikh, who in vain endeavoured to force his way out. Higher and higher it rose, his camel struggling violently—while he clung to its back, ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston
... but his face grew ominously dark as they passed in silence between the long rows of loose-boxes in the soft spring twilight. As they neared Jake's room he drew himself together with the action of a man who braces his muscles for a sudden strain, and in a moment he was ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... hat. "I guess I better be goin'," he said, a lump rising ominously in his throat. He got the gate open and made his way half dazed around the corner. As he did so, he saw a procession of small Ridders ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... soldier, his muscular hand clutching ominously at the wooden rail; his jaw setting ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... face grew white with anger, he clenched his hands as if he would strike his son and by main force reduce him to obedience, then with a great effort he controlled his anger and said in an ominously calm voice: "Then, Ivan McAllister, I tell ye, never mair shall ye set foot in this house, at least, when I am above ground; never mair call yourself son of mine, and may——" raising his right hand solemnly as ...
— Marie Gourdon - A Romance of the Lower St. Lawrence • Maud Ogilvy
... and young, squaws and papooses, every one deserted the little settlement by the river and went in wild haste up the eastward hills to look upon this strange wonder. It was a lowering day with overcast skies and water of a sullen gray and with ominously little wind. In speechless wonder the Indians stood gazing, for there indeed were three white-sailed ships, moving slowly before the lazy breeze, stanch little fishing vessels of English build, come to see whether this unexplored stretch of coast would yield ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... provisions were all in favour of the Boers, and a second successful war could hardly have given them more than Lord Derby handed them in time of peace. Their style was altered from the Transvaal to the South African Republic, a change which was ominously suggestive of expansion in the future. The control of Great Britain over their foreign policy was also relaxed, though a power of veto was retained. But the most important thing of all, and the fruitful cause of future trouble, lay in an omission. A suzerainty is a vague term, but in politics, ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... intervals. The brick walk leading to the door of Captain Elkanah Daniels's fine residence held undignified puddles in its hollows. And, through the damp stillness, the muttered growl of the surf, three miles away at the foot of the sandy bluffs by the lighthouse, sounded ominously. ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... sniffed contemptuously, Mrs. Luke began to rehearse a time worn tale, how once a carriage had driven up to the Hart house at nine o'clock at night, and a distinguished looking man alighted, went in, stayed about ten minutes and finally drove off with a great clatter. Heads that had shaken ominously over this story before began to shake again, and tongues that had wagged themselves tired with conjectures started now with some brand new ideas and theories. The children of the square, tired of fishing for minnows in the ditches, and making mud-pies in the street, ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore
... our carriage, we expect to see streets filled with crowds of turbulent people, or dotted with knots of persons conversing ominously in suppressed tones; and streets deserted, with shops closed; and streets barricaded. But in this matter we are agreeably disappointed. The shops are all open, the street venders are quietly tending their tables, people go about their ordinary affairs, and wear ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... to his side, some evil purpose plainly enough written in his pasty face and unwholesome eyes. Laverick gave him his left shoulder and sent him staggering across the floor. He was angry at having been outwitted and his eyes gleamed ominously. ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... set in. The little cascade was beginning to roar ominously, almost savagely, behind the curtain of ice which had concealed almost the whole of it during winter. The ice on the edge of the Saint Lawrence had already given way, and was being swept out to sea in variously-sized ...
— Wrecked but not Ruined • R.M. Ballantyne
... for there, owing probably to the dark oak which lined both walls and floor, a generous supply of lamps did little more than illumine the surface of the darkness, leaving unfathomed and unexplained mysterious shadows that brooded in distant corners, or, towering giant-wise to the ceiling, loomed ominously overhead. Will-o'-the-wisp-like reflections from our lighted candles danced in the polished surface of panel and balustrade, as from the hall we went upstairs, I helping myself from step to step by Atherley's arm, as instinctively, as unconsciously almost, as he offered ...
— Cecilia de Noel • Lanoe Falconer
... Harding sat down again and refilled his pipe, noticing that the stem was nearly bitten through. He gathered from Clarke's expression that they would soon know what to expect, and he feared the worst. Now, however, he was growing cool; his eyes were very stern, and his lips had set in an ominously determined fashion. Benson, glancing at him once or twice, thought it boded trouble for the doctor if things went badly. The American had ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... to thank him for the wish, but suddenly found I could not control my voice, so lay there in silence and with throat contracted, looking at this man whose marred young life lay all behind him, and whose future, even to me, lowered strangely and ominously veiled. ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... on the weathervane—when you are Mrs. Inglesby. A chap like Mayne would be valuable, properly expurgated. Come, Miss Eustis, that's fair enough. If you refuse—well, it's up to you to make Eustis understand that he must eliminate himself from politics—and look out for himself," he finished ominously. ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... in the camp-stove which turned the chimney red-hot and made it possible to see dimly stretched out on a bed of fir boughs the long, thin form of a man whose drawn, unshaven face showed that he was suffering much pain. His right foot was swaddled in an ominously stained bundle of rags—evidently some ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... a jab at his thinning hair with the thickest and stiffest of brushes. "That does bring us to close quarters, doesn't it?" Then with provoking deliberation he rearranged his necktie and began pulling on his coat. "Hum, let's see," he went on, his eyes twinkling and his lips twitching ominously, "anything wrong about Mrs. B., mother mine, or with the millionaire husband? No? I see: just some of those people one meets at the ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... but shook his head ominously. "Mother, do you know these last fought for Stuart pretenders against the house of Hanover? George III., in your creed, has no right to the place he holds. Do I not then follow my ancestors in ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... ominously, and some even ventured to counsel the mother to a wiser course; but she ever resented such advice. The son was the image of his lost father, and her one impulse was to lavish upon him everything that ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... stepped out from behind the furnace, and confronted us. A red bandana covered the lower part of his face and his hat was pulled down over his eyes. But I recognized him instantly. It was the fellow with the villainous pipe! Something glittered ominously at the end ...
— Hearts and Masks • Harold MacGrath
... sorrows so badly?" they would say. "There is something heathenish in such utter want of resignation. Oh, yes, it was very sad, her losing her husband and children, but it all happened four or five years ago; and you know"—And here people's voices dropped a little ominously, for there were vague hints afloat that things had not always gone on smoothly at the White House, even when Mrs. Cheyne had her husband. She had been an only child, and had married the only survivor of a large family. Both ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... the moon which had been for some time risen, presented a strange and alarming aspect. She seemed red as blood; and directly across her centre there went a black bar—a bar so ominously and intensely black, that it was impossible to look upon it without experiencing something like what one might be supposed to feel in the presence of a supernatural appearance; at the performance of some magic or unnatural rite, where the sorcerer, by the wickedness of his spell, ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... left the room. When she did so the two younger girls looked at their elder sister. Betty's face was very white, and her chest was working ominously. ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... buying our robes, not daring to add to our weight. The man at the ferry-boat gave us an extra binding up, and by going cautiously we got home, though we feared every moment would be our last, as regards driving, as the bound-up parts creaked most ominously all the way, and we fully expected at every rough bit to go in half. The horse is generally so quiet that we never mind where we leave him standing. I luckily have just given A—— a new carriage, which will come in very handy. It is to be a "democrat," ...
— A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba • Mrs. Cecil Hall
... I'll teach you—" A blow would follow. M. Barboux was getting liberal with his blows. Once he struck Muskingon. Menehwehna growled ominously, and the growl seemed to warn not only Barboux but Muskingon, who for the moment ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... perversity and greed of the fetish-man; and the unexpected danger roused him to the bottom of his soul. His swarthy face assumed the same expression which it had when he shot Gebhr, Chamis, and the Bedouins. His eyes glittered ominously; his lips were compressed and his ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... the muscles of her square, almost masculine jaw hardened ominously as she looked the intruder up and down. Then a flicker of contempt modified the grimness of her countenance. She took three steps forward, pausing on the other side of the desk, ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... bang your old castle to pieces, in order to satisfy a masculine curiosity, Mr. Smart, I have nothing more to say," she said, facing me again—still ominously, to my despair. Confound it all, she was such a slim, helpless little thing—and all alone against a mob of burly ruffians! I could have kicked myself, but even that would have been an aimless enterprise ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon |
