"Rustle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us, And black are the waters that sparkled so green. The moon, o'er the combers, looks downward to find us At rest in the hollows that rustle between. ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... cried. She flung the door wide open, and curiously enough a breeze came in and her own gray hair tossed, and a paper blew off the table to the floor with a loud rustle, but there was nobody ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... arrested in their course to turn a saw-mill,—the party collected to return: with two others, I decided upon walking back, and pleasant it is to walk through these quiet wild wood-paths, where the chirp of the birds and the rustle of the leaves alone ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... willing to do so. Mildred looked behind her, every few minutes, while she worked in the garden, to see whether Roger was not there, and at every rustle that the birds made among the trees on the Red-hill,—the eminence behind the house,—she fancied that some one was hidden there. Oliver let his tools and his alabaster lie hidden, much as he longed to be at work with them. ...
— The Settlers at Home • Harriet Martineau
... covered about an acre of ground, but they were tolerably think and full-leaved, and the buck could not be seen from any side. Wherever he was, he was evidently at a stand-still, for not a rustle could be heard among the leaves, nor were any of the tall stalks ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... advantage of a wild chase that had carried them rather a longer distance than usual, I took a sharp turn and strolled away quite by myself. I heard the excited cries die away in the distance, and then for some few moments the forest silence was broken only by the rustle of the breeze through the grass, and the sudden scream of a startled jay. Doves went happily from tree to tree and I never put my gun up. I had heard a very familiar sound, and wanted to be assured that my ears were not deceived. No, I was right; I could hear the cuckoo, calling through ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... Moktader saw in the palace of Bagdad a tree with eighteen branches, some of gold, some of silver, and on them were gold and silver birds, and the leaves of the tree were of gold and silver. By means of machinery, the leaves were made to rustle and the birds to sing. Mirkhond speaks also of a tree of gold and precious stones in the city of Sultanieh, in the interior of which were conduits through which flowed drinks of different kinds. Clavijo describes a somewhat similar tree at ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... be placed in the thickest of danger. When he falls, they find on his breast a withered spray from the pear-tree under which Perrine had first plighted troth. On these simple lines the music builds up a drama. From the opening shimmer and rustle of the garden, through the Gregorian chant that solemnizes the drawing of the lots, and is interrupted by the youth's start of joy at his own luck (an abrupt glissando); through his sturdy resolve to go to war in his friend's place, on through ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... from the sleepy gulfs, but she will rise Often before me in the twilight shade, Holding a bunch of poppies and a blade Of springing wheat: prostrate my body lies Before her on the turf, the while she ties A fillet of the weed about my head; And in the gaps of sleep I seem to hear A gentle rustle like the stir of corn, And words like odours thronging to my ear: "Lie still, beloved—still until the morn; Lie still with me upon this rolling sphere— Still till the judgment; thou art faint ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... were much in that cosy mountain village: the children capered by his side all day; he smelt the woods and flowers; he heard the leaves rustle on the poplar's crest; and had merely to think of a certain room in the tumble-down old Citadelle for a wave of courage and high anticipation to sweep over him like a sea. A new feeling of harmony was taking ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... along the edge of the meadow. Already the cattle were heard to low wildly in the pastures and along the highways, restlessly running to and fro, as if in apprehension of the withering of the grass and of the approach of winter. Our thoughts, too, began to rustle. ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... at his elbow, there was the rustle of silk; and a beautiful figure, all in black velvet, towered above him, then crowded past him, and sank into the empty seat at his side. He was too startled to speak—and Miss Anita Flagg seemed to understand that and to wish to give him time; for, without ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... could hear the rustle of her dress as she moved, probably to lessen the distance between them. "You are honest with me?" she urged. "You do agree with Mr. Packard ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... port and sherry with the sweet biscuits stood always on the sideboard; and the fire had often to be low in the grate that my father's tall hat might shine resplendent and my mother's black silk rustle on Sundays. ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... Applicant No. 179. The superintendent did not look up as Rachel came in. He scribbled busily on a pad of paper at his desk, thus observing rules one and two in the proper conduct of superintendents when interviewing applicants. Rachel Wiletzky, standing by his desk, did not cough or wriggle or rustle her skirts or sag on one hip. A sense of her quiet penetrated the superintendent's subconsciousness. He glanced up hurriedly over his left shoulder. Then he laid down his pencil and sat up slowly. His ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... stole upon her and when she woke again the night was really there. Through the scattered tree-tops she could see the stars shining; close at her feet was the same gentle purring of the little stream, and overhead the soft rustle of pine needles moving lightly in the breeze. But what had wakened her? Something had, she knew. Some sound other than that of the brook or the pines. Queenie too, had heard. She had got to her feet and ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... is sung, and sung again, and then the programmes rustle, as the audience looks to see who has the rashness ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 14, July 2, 1870 • Various
... a fine morning that Mr. Bernard, ushered in by Mr. Peckham, made his appearance in the great schoolroom of the Apollinean Institute. A general rustle ran all round the seats when the handsome young man was introduced. The principal carried him to the desk of the young lady English assistant, Miss Darley by name, and introduced ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Trot, "I think you're better than you were before, for you are fresh and sweet all through and rustle beautifully when ...
— The Scarecrow of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... straining my eyes in the effort to read the superscriptions when I seemed to hear, or, rather, feel, something rustle back of me. I paid no attention, believing that a draught from the window was moving some drapery. But in a minute or so another movement, almost imperceptible, sent a strangely disagreeable little shiver over my skin. It was so stupid ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... moment he watched neon signs blink. In the desertion he walked past Lehman's Drug Store and Otto Kramer's bar, and crossed over to pause for a nameless moment in front of Paul Hendricks' Hobby Center, which was all dark, and seemed little changed. He took to a side street, and won back the rustle of trees and the click of his ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... boys for an outing. What lessons these growing lads will imbibe from the beauty of Nature around them. How can they help but think of the Creator when they dwell so near the primal source of life. The crystal waters of the lake will teach them purity, the leaves of the trees will rustle messages of self-denial, and the majestic mountains will speak to them of endurance and courage, a religion which dwells in Nature until they, "like Moses, will see in the bushes the radiant Deity and know they are treading ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... "Now, let's rustle all the stuff off the cart," urged Dick. "Be quick about it. We want the tent up in good ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock
... morning She wears her oldest things, She doesn't make a rustle, She hasn't any rings; She says, "Good-morning, chickies, It's such a lovely day, Let's go into the garden And have ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... and their rude surprises, have I been so moved by an unexpected noise as I was then, standing with the Black Colonel in the black Pass. Partly this was because the surprise was complete, being unheralded by a rustle or a movement, but, still more, because it was the magic hour at which the womb of night moves to the birth ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... to himself, "to have my way disturbed by the words of a mere child?" And just then he heard the soft rustle of a silk dress, and, looking up, he saw the pretty face of ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... was a slight rustle in the bushes by the hedge. The branches parted. A pale boy ran up to them. He looked quickly at the sisters with his clear, intensely calm, almost dead eyes. There was something strange in the shape of his pale lips, thought Elisaveta. A motionless, ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... Ever the rustle of the advancing foam, The surges' desolate thunder, and the cry As of some lone babe in the whispering sky; Ever I peer into the restless gloom To where a ship clad dim and loftily Looms steadfast in ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume I. • Walter de la Mare
... Wolf took me by the hand and led me on. Then in another moment came the sense of lights and wider spaces, the rustle of many people settling down to attention; and I knew that I was in the presence of the famous secret tribunal of the White Wolf, which had been set up in defiance of the authority of the Duke and against the laws ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... absolute noiselessness he began creeping into the mouth of the cavern. One of the embers fell apart with a soft rustle, which caused him to stop and hold his breath lest the sleepers should awake. But they did not stir, and in a minute ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... within, from the dark hall where he had stationed his men, to be exact. As he listened he was conscious that some living creature had approached the door, touched the handle, and by the swift, low rustle and the sound of hard breathing, that it had been pounced upon and seized. He scrambled out from beneath the table, snicked on the light, whirled open the door, and was in time to hear the irritable voice of Sir Horace say, testily: "Don't make an ass of yourself by your over-zealousness. ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... remaining stairs and went into the dark room at the top. At the door, which stood open, I stopped and listened. To my intense vexation, for the situation was becoming decidedly unpleasant, the pair were still coming up. In silence now, but I could hear their approaching footsteps and the rustle of the lady's dress. Unfortunately, there was no corner on the top landing where I could stand hidden, so I was forced to ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... make their living in similar fashion to yours, because they're not able to do anything better. Somebody's got to do the dirty work, and it might as well be you. You're paid for it, and you ain't got the backbone to rustle cleaner jobs." ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... seats and never stir, We allow our flowers to fade in peace, and avoid the trouble of bearing fruit. Let the starlights blazon their eternal folly, We quench our flames. Let the forest rustle and the ocean roar, We sit mute. Let the call of the flood-tide come from ...
— The Cycle of Spring • Rabindranath Tagore
... the song of birds and the rustle of leaves alone met the ear. Neither man nor beast was stirring to challenge Colonel Philibert's approach, but long ere he reached the door of the Chateau, a din of voices within, a wild medley of shouts, song, and laughter, a clatter of wine-cups, and pealing notes of violins struck ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... that he was being followed, sat down outside a cafe on his way homewards, and bade his guide leave him for a little time. Instantly there was the soft rustle of feminine skirts by his side, and a woman seated ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... a rustle of garments, and a stout, pleasant-looking lady, of perhaps fifty, wearing a small cap set off with ...
— Andy Grant's Pluck • Horatio Alger
... in, and in restless hesitation taken a cigar, and not having yet lighted it, was standing weary and motionless before the open window, gazing at the light feathery white clouds gliding around the bright moon, when suddenly a faint rustle made him start and turn round. Varvara Petrovna, whom he had left only four minutes earlier, was standing before him again. Her yellow face was almost blue. Her lips were pressed tightly together and twitching at the corners. For ten full seconds she looked him in the eyes ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Jack. "Hold on, driver! Keep your seats, ladies, and gents. Just make yourselves free—everything's paid for. Driver, rustle these folks around as long as they're a mind to go—friends of ours, you know. Take them everywheres—and if you want more money, come to the St. Nicholas, and we'll make it all right. Pleasant journey to you, ladies and gents—go ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... adobe wall until the moment came for entering the arena. Near to him, Jose calmed his big, black horse and waited also, cold hauteur the keynote of his whole attitude. Dade waved his hand to them, and they followed him into the empty rectangle. From the crowd came a rustle as of a gust of wind through tree-tops; then they were still again, watching ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... this picture, and they were still more astonished when the real live bear was led into the ring and marched up and down with a wooden gun upon his shoulder, while the performance of his bottle-trick always created a rustle all over the tent. This was the surest sign ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... of the tree and boat to rise and fall with the water had ceased. He was still more struck, when he went outside, by the comparative silence. The wind still whistled overhead and swayed the branches, but the hiss and rustle of ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... was all unreasoning—there was no more to be done than on those other days which he had wakened to with bitterness, because they seemed useless and empty of any worth—but this morning the mere light of the sun was of use, the rustle of the small breeze in the leaves, the soft floating past of the white clouds, the mere fact that the great blind-faced, stately house was his own, that he could tramp far over lands which were his heritage, ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Nor had the promised saddle horse materialised. The boys were too busy to run in any horses, her father had told her shortly when she reminded him of his promise. When the fence was done, maybe he could rustle her another horse—and then he had added that he didn't see what ailed Yellowjacket, for all the riding she was ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... city, I entered at a venture any of the buildings I found open. Here it was a bazaar where they sold cotton materials of alternate colors called "al adjas," handkerchiefs as fine as spider webs, leather marvelously worked, silks the rustle of which is called "tchakhtchukh," in Bokhariot, a name that Meilhac and Halevy did wisely in not adopting for their celebrated heroine. There it was a shop where you could buy sixteen sorts of tea, eleven of which are green, that being the only kind used in the interior of ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... and in a moment the light was shut out as the heavy curtains ran together. Then he heard the rustle of the woman's silk dress as she sat down opposite to him in the dark. He felt unaccountably nervous, and her china blue eyes had made a disagreeable impression upon him. ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... wild, great west wind abroad, flapping above one like an immense banner, and every now and again swooping furiously against my windows. The wind is too strong perhaps, and the trees are certainly too leafless for much of that wide rustle that we both remember; there is only a sharp, angry, sibilant hiss, like breath drawn with the strength of the elements through shut teeth, that one hears between the gusts only. I am in excellent humour with myself, for I have worked hard and not altogether fruitlessly; and I ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... were not, though they came from the same cause—electricity. The glare that dazzled the eyes of the Plush Bear came from the electric lights of a large store, where he was being unpacked, together with other toys. There was a rustle of paper as the Plush Bear was unwrapped, and ...
— The Story of a Plush Bear • Laura Lee Hope
... inspired me. There seemed to me something pitiless and phantom-like in the severity of their enormous bare trunks, stretching on without break or branch into the distance—overhead, and there at length giving birth to a sea of dark waving plumes, the rustle of which reached my ears as the sound of tossing waves. Passing beneath these vast trees we came to others of smaller growth, but still of the same type,—straight-stemmed, with branching foliage at their summit. Here we stood to rest, and as we paused I became aware that the ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... the look of a rattlesnake's when it coils for a spring, and his breast swelled out as if he was summoning all his strength. He stepped forward to a tree so lightly that there came no rustle from the dead leaves he trod upon. Harry took his place on the other side of the tree, ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... away, were clusters of rather brilliant lights. Presumably this pointed to the fact that these lights were placed at points of special importance, such as strongly guarded bridges, in which case it seemed probable that the canal might form part of the boundary line. In order to avoid the slightest rustle which might attract attention, I rolled my raincoat and secured it over one shoulder, "bandolier fashion." I next covered the brass buttons of my tunic with mud, to prevent their reflecting the rays of a possible ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... is a good man. He has a good heart, but there's so many of them that it is all he can do to rustle what must be had. Why," she told me in a burst of confidence, "I've been saving up for a tombstone for ma for twelve years, but I have to help pa once in a while, and I sometimes think I never will get enough ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... with not having the imagination of expenditure that she appeared to charge her friend, but with not having the imagination of terror, of thrift, the imagination or in any degree the habit of a conscious dependence on others. Such moments, when all Wigmore Street, for instance, seemed to rustle about and the pale girl herself to be facing the different rustlers, usually so undiscriminated, as individual Britons too, Britons personal, parties to a relation and perhaps even intrinsically remarkable—such moments in especial determined ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... go up and rustle a few of the boys that know the mine well. I expect before we find him Mr. Wolf Struve will be a lamb and right anxious ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... their buddings and disleafings,—events, things suffered, things done, catastrophes,—stretch through all lands and times. Is not every leaf of it a biography, every fibre there an act or word? Its boughs are Histories of Nations. The rustle of it is the noise of Human Existence, onwards from of old. It grows there, the breath of Human Passion rustling through it;—or stormtost, the stormwind howling through it like the voice of all the gods. It is Igdrasil, the Tree of Existence. It is the past, the present, and ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... By the insult of our presence, By the outrage of our actions. We have found you great and noble. 210 Fail not in the greater trial, Faint not in the harder struggle." When they ceased, a sudden darkness Fell and filled the silent wigwam. Hiawatha heard a rustle 215 As of garments trailing by him, Heard the curtain of the doorway Lifted by a hand he saw not, Felt the cold breath of the night air, For a moment saw the starlight; 220 But he saw the ghosts no longer, Saw no more the wandering ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... and the prayers, while very brief, were so pointed as to be almost startling. They sang, too, a great deal, only a verse at a time, and whenever they seemed to feel like it. Her amazement reached its hight when she felt a little rustle beside her, and turned in time to see the eager light in ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... petted and spoiled was she: A word, and all her life is changed! His wavering love too easily In the great, gay city grows estranged: One year: she sits in the old church pew; A rustle, a murmur,—O Dorothy! hide Your face and shut from your soul the view— 'Tis ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... was filing out along the main corridor of St. Sidwell's. It came with a tramp and a rustle and a hiss and a tramp, urged to a trot by the excited teachers. The First Division first, half-woman, carrying itself smoothly, with a swish of its long skirts, with a blush, a dreamy intellectual smile, or a steadfast impenetrable air, as it happened to be more or less ...
— Superseded • May Sinclair
... George saw him place his hand on the sill and peer through the crack. The moments slipped by, and his eye remained glued to the crack. Suddenly there was a rustle in the bush close by. It passed unnoticed, for George had eyes and ears for nothing but what his chief was doing. Again there was a rustle, this time more pronounced. Still it ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... camp-fires in the snow at Dismal River and a wintry blast was whistling through the bare, brown limbs of the cottonwoods, there were sounds of revelry at the big frontier post, spirited music, merry laughter, the rhythmic beat of martial feet in the measures of the dance, the rustle of silk, and the pit-a-pat of dainty slippers. Only two or three households were unrepresented. It was the first hop Mrs. Stone had missed. It was something that the chaplain and his wife did not care for. It was a nuisance to Leonard, who loved his books ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... Day after day and night after night the drought gets worse. The rivers sink low; brooks run dry; the edges of the lakes become marshes. The marshes dry out to hardened mud. The dry leaves of the trees rustle and crumble. All the animals and wood creatures gather around the muddy pools that once were lakes or rivers. People begin saving water and buying it and selling it as the most precious ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... rustle of fabric, and she laid down the photograph a moment too late, as her aunt came in. As it happened, the elder lady's eyes rested on the picture, and a faint flush of annoyance crept into the face of the girl. It was scarcely perceptible, but Miss Barrington ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... can't take the ripple from the breeze, And she can't take the rustle from the trees; And when I am out of the old girl's sight ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... earth was raked level. Not so much as the hole from which my beet had been ravished remained in circumstantial evidence. The rest of the party arrived while I stood transfixed, the picture of detected guilt. To the rustle of the corn, and the shuffle of feet over the furrows succeeded a horrible hush. Then, a chorus of mocking girlish cackles, led by Paulina Hobson's discordant screech, smote the sunset air and covered me with a pall of infamy. Paulina caught at the fence for support as ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... had been shining down through the trees, had gone under a cloud, and the branches about them began to rustle as the ...
— Sunny Boy in the Country • Ramy Allison White
... world, where immortal clarities sigh past in the perfumes of the blossoms, populate the breathings of the breeze, throng and twinkle in the leaves that twirl upon the bough; where the very grass is all a-rustle with lovely spirit-things, and a weeping mist of music fills the air. The final scenes especially are such a Bacchic reel and rout and revelry of beauty as leaves one staggered and giddy; poetry is spilt like wine, music runs to drunken waste. The choruses sweep down the wind, tirelessly, ...
— Shelley - An Essay • Francis Thompson
... night he sat by the window of his room. Insensible now to the cold, to the wind moaning outside, to the snow whirling against the pane, he lived with phantoms. To and fro, to and fro glided the wraith-forms, vanishing and appearing. The soft rustling sound of the snow was the rustle of their movements. Across the gleam of light, streaking coldly through the pane, flickering fitfully on the wall, floated ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... spreads her mantle green Across the pasture-lands of snow, And Spring's first scarlet breasts are seen Where treetops rustle to and fro; Then come fair fragrant dreams as though Our lightest fancy to entrance And paint us what we fain would know Adown the ...
— The Rose-Jar • Thomas S. (Thomas Samuel) Jones
... sides of the cleft, rested knee and foot on the ledge, and extended a hand. I could not see Cavor, but I could hear the rustle of his movements as he crouched to spring. Then whack and he was hanging to my arm—and no heavier than a kitten! I lugged him up until he had a hand on my ledge, ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... left standing rather helpless before the problem presented by the fact that this competent and diligent young lawyer—whom, forsooth, the rustling leaves of the forest could never for once entice from the rustle of the leaves of his law-books—did nevertheless transact, during his own first four years of practice, probably less than one half as much business as seems to have been done during a somewhat shorter space of time by our poor, ignorant, ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... aired and in good repair, as a caretaker who lived close by used to come and look after it every day. The first night that the family settled there, as the clergyman was going upstairs he heard a footstep and the rustle of a dress, and as he stood aside a lady passed him, entered a door facing the stairs, and closed it after her. It was only then he realised that her dress was very old-fashioned, and that he had not been able to enter ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour
... coachmen, are no longer "curios;" they are persistent in their efforts to establish themselves, having no regard for peculiar races with peculiar occupations. It means that the Negroes must hustle and rustle, create avenues, open new vistas, announce new projects, and thus avoid alms-seeking and poor houses in ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... unintentionally—here he was, prettily trapped; and for the life of him he could see no way out of it again. The darkness began to weigh upon him. He gave ear; all was silent without, but within and close by he seemed to catch a faint sighing, a faint sobbing rustle, a little stealthy creak—as though many persons were at his side, holding themselves quite still, and governing even their respiration with the extreme of slyness. The idea went to his vitals with a shock, and he faced about suddenly as if to defend his life. Then, for the ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... of Salisbury Plain, unshaded for mile after mile, and a dot in the middle distance, the back of the one porter returning to Framlynghame Admiral, if such a place existed, till seven forty-five. The bell of a church invisible clanked softly. There was a rustle in the horse-chestnuts to the left of the line, and the sound of ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... did not present themselves uncalled, it was highly becoming to worship the Lord in fine clothes. So there were broken rainbows in the tall pews, with a soft waving of fans to and fro in the essenced air, and a low rustle of silk. The men went as fine as the women, and the June sunshine, pouring in upon all this lustre and color, made a flower-bed of the assemblage. Being of the country, it was vastly better behaved than would have been a fashionable London congregation; but it certainly saw no reason why Mr. ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... thou shouldst send me greeting in the grave, The cold breath of the grave itself were sweet; Oh, take my life! my life, 'tis all I have, If I should make thee live I do entreat! I think that I shall hear, when I am dead, The rustle of ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... when I do, I strive to get there with both feet. We must either work the campaign funds into their legitimate channels, or every blamed patriot within the sound of my voice will have to fasten on a tin bill and rustle for angle-worms amongst the hens. ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... moment entered Gentle Annie. She walked with little steps; propelling her plenitude silently but for the rustle of her silk skirt. In her hand she held a scented handkerchief, like any lady in a drawing-room; her hair, black at the roots and auburn at the ends, was wreathed, coil on coil, upon the top of her head; ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... thought. A stolid looking servant came to the door, who eyed her 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 ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... vanished in the thicket with the undeliberate and impulsive act of an animal. There was a momentary rustle in the alders fifty feet away, and then all was silent. The hidden brook took up its monotonous murmur, the tapping of a distant woodpecker became suddenly audible, and Mr. Hamlin ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... a cloudy, misty moonlight, and there he saw it!—something white, gliding in! He heard the still rustle of its ghostly garments. It stood still by his bed;—a cold hand touched his; a voice said, three times, in a low, fearful whisper, "Come! come! come!" And, while he lay sweating with terror, he knew ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... He heard a rustle behind him, and there she was. She had on a gray fur coat and a lively little hat. Her cheeks were delicately tinted by ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... terrors returned, and with additional force. Sitting down, she looked fixedly at the hangings till her eyes ached, and then covering her face with her hands, and scarcely daring to breathe, she listened intently for the slightest sound. A rustle would have made her scream—but all was still as death, so profoundly quiet, that the very hush and silence became a new cause of disquietude, and longing for some cheerful sound to break it, she ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the middle of the hall another woman rose. Her motion was accompanied by the rustle of silk, and instantly there was silence, for Elsa Mallaby commanded ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... and delicate rustle of a large, mannerly audience was heard as the janitor opened and closed the door; and stage-fright seized the boy. The orchestra began an overture, and, at that, Penrod, trembling violently, tiptoed down the hall into the Janitor's ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... sound of childish voices chattering, childish feet trotting to and fro, and childish laughter sounding sweetly through the Sabbath stillness of the place. From a room near by, came the soothing creak of a rocking-chair, the rustle of a newspaper, and now and then a scrap of conversation common-place enough, but pleasant to hear, because so full of domestic love and confidence; and, as she listened, Christie pictured Mrs. Wilkins and her husband taking their rest ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... white men who went to the war from Talbotton took Negro men-servants (slaves) along with them. These were usually called body-servants, and it was a body-servant's duty to cook, wash, and do general valet service for his master. In a pinch, he was also supposed to raid a hen roost, or otherwise rustle food for ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... and erect of figure, with a severe cast of countenance, and heavy black curls pinned up under her net cap; her print dresses were always starched until they crackled, and on Sunday her black silk dress rustled as I never heard any silk dress rustle before. ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... unseen by us, and we, therefore, fancied ourselves wiser than he. The wind in the pines, the rustle of the leaves, the murmur of the brook, the growl of the thunder, and the voices of the night were all understood and answered by him. The flowers, the trees, the rocks, the hills, the clouds were to him, not lifeless things, but living friends, who laughed and wept with him ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright
... the table ready, and awaited the Baba Yaga. It began to grow dusky; the black rider appeared for a moment at the gate, and all grew dark. Only the eyes of the skulls sent forth their light. The trees began to crack, the leaves began to rustle, up drove the Baba Yaga. Vasilissa went ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... tumult of the ball, music and the blended harmony of many voices, rustle and whisper of skirt and silk, and the swish! swish! of feet across the ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... fabrics,—avoiding rather than courting observation. The vulgar impression derived in Broadway from an opposite habit is vastly increased by modern fashions; for the apology for a bonnet that leaves brow, cheek, and head fully exposed,—the rustle and dimensions of crinoline,—the heavy masses of unctuous false hair attached to the back of the head, deforming its shape and often giving a coarse monstrosity to its naturally graceful poise and proportions,—the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... of but little nerve or resolution find insupportable. To me, trained to a serenity of stoicism, it could make no demoralizing appeal. I had out my matchbox, opened it at leisure, and, while the whole vaulting blackness seemed to tick and rustle with secret movement, took a half-dozen vestas into my hand, struck one alight, and, by its dim radiance, made my way through the building by the passages we had penetrated in the morning. If at all I shrank or perspired on my ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... foreman. "Tell Sing Foo to rustle in the grub," he went on to one of the cowboys on ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Great West • Laura Lee Hope
... steadily scoured the neighborhood; and the further they went, the worse they fared. There was not a horse standing down by a pool, with his stiff legs shut up into biped form, nor a cow staring blandly across an old rail, nor a sheep with a pectoral cough behind a hedge, nor a rabbit making rustle at the eyebrow of his hole, nor even a moot, that might either be a man or hold a man inside it, whom or which those active fellows did not circumvent and poke into. In none of these, however, could they ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... forms as the microscopic plant which produces the so- called "red snow." On the smooth plain of the interior no rock waste relieves the snow's dazzling whiteness; no streams of running water are seen; the silence is broken only by howling storm winds and the rustle of the surface snow which they drive before them. Sounding with long poles, explorers find that below the powdery snow of the latest snowfall lie successive layers of earlier snows, which grow more ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... be rats. Look at yon fellow, Francis! Be'st as big as Mother Joan's kitten. Give me that stone." He flung it at the rat, and it flew clattering across the floor. There was another pattering rustle of hundreds of feet, and then a ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... of a few autumn days. The bleached foliage is falling all winter long, thus giving the ground near an untidy aspect. With some, the question of absolute neatness is paramount; with others, leaves are clean dirt, and their rustle in the wind does not cease to be music even after ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe
... rest. His eyes were turned toward the black wall of trees. A rustle, ever so faint, reached his ears ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... with the same unchanging smile with which she had first entered the room—the smile of a perfectly beautiful woman. With a slight rustle of her white dress trimmed with moss and ivy, with a gleam of white shoulders, glossy hair, and sparkling diamonds, she passed between the men who made way for her, not looking at any of them but smiling on all, as if graciously allowing ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... hands resting upon the table, the butt-end of a pistol beneath each palm. A rustle like that of a sheet or a gown trailing along the grass was audible on his right, not ten paces from him. He straightened up as ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... wrestling with the thunder-gust; they have made music both glad and solemn; they have attuned my thoughts by their quiet sound as I paced to and fro beneath the arch of intermingling boughs. Now they can only rustle under my feet. Henceforth the gray parsonage begins to assume a larger importance, and draws to its fireside,—for the abomination of the air-tight stove is reserved till wintry weather,— draws closer and closer to its fireside ...
— The Old Manse (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... interlude! no struggling moon, no mist, no long-winded passages upon the genial earth, no the sense of the night, no marvels of the dawn, no rhodomontade, no religion, no rhetoric, no sleeping villages, no silent towns (there was one), no rustle of trees—just a short story, and there you have a whole march covered as though a brigade had swung down it. A new day has come, and the sun has risen over the detestable parched hillocks ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... and the rhythmic jangling of a brass band, while in the piano exhibit a hired performer was playing upon a concert grand with a great flourish. Nearer at hand they could catch ends of conversation and notes of laughter, the noise of moving dresses, and the rustle of stiffly starched skirts. Here and there school children elbowed their way through the crowd, crying shrilly, their hands full of advertisement pamphlets, fans, picture cards, and toy whips, while the air itself was full of the smell ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... little speech, received with applause and a cheer. Then they quieted down behind the scenes, and a rustle and buzz began in front,—kept up for five minutes or so, in gentle fashion, till two gentlemen, in plain clothes, walked quietly in at the open door; at sight of whom, with instinctive certainty, the whole assembly rose. Leslie Goldthwaite, ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... Van, inverting a tub at the feet of the wondering women. "I'll see if I can rustle up ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... this moment something—an instinct of dissembling— causes him to counterfeit sleep; and he lies still, with shut eyelids. He can hear the door turning upon its hinges of raw hide, then the soft rustle of robes, while he is sensible of that inexpressible something that denotes the gentle presence ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... All the buds and bells of May, From dewy sward or thorny spray; All the heaped Autumn's wealth, With a still, mysterious stealth: She will mix these pleasures up Like three fit wines in a cup, And thou shalt quaff it;—thou shalt hear Distant harvest-carols clear; Rustle of the reaped corn; Sweet birds antheming the morn: And in the same moment—hark! 'Tis the early April lark, Or the rooks, with busy caw, Foraging for sticks and straw. Thou shalt, at one glance, behold The daisy and the marigold; White-plumed ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... ignorant of their meaning. After all, I had suggested the "whole bally business," and was entitled to know the means selected for its conduct. So round went my inquisitive head. Then I shook in my glee. Someone had pushed on the hands of the clock, and it was three minutes to twelve. There was a rustle of excitement in the room. The silence of expectancy followed. "Two-minutes-to" narrowed into "One-minute-to"; and after a premonitory click, which produced sufficient excitement to interfere with our breath, the ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... could devise or money could buy was brought into service. It was the life that Watteau painted, with its quaint and grotesque fancies, its sylvan divinities, and its sighing lovers wandering in endless masquerade, or whispering tender nothings on banks of soft verdure, amid the rustle of leaves, the sparkle of fountains, the glitter of lights, and the perfume of innumerable flowers. It was a perpetual carnival, inspired by imagination, animated by genius, and combining everything that could charm the taste, distract the mind, ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... youth, the one terrible night that cut all happiness short, present before her. She could almost have fancied that she heard the long-silent sounds of her father's step, her father's way of breathing, the rustle of his newspaper as he hastily turned it over, coming through the lapse of years; the silence of the night. She knew that she had the little writing-case of her girlhood with her, in her box. The treasures of the dead that it contained, the morsel of dainty sewing, the little sister's golden ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... railing. We were safe there. Nobody but me liked the place. Miss Pinshon and the overseer agreed in shunning it. And there was promise in the blue sky, and hope in the soft sunshine, and sympathy in the sweet rustle of the pine-leaves. Why not? Are they not all God's voices? And the words of the Book were very precious there, to me and many another. I was rather more left to myself of late. My governess gave me my lessons quite as assiduously ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... a rustle on the wall, and looking up he saw a slight figure white against the twilight, beckoning him. He walked along under the wall until he came to a gate, and there someone was waiting for him, and he was gently led into the shadow of a dark cedar tree. ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... sunset with Edward. The autumnal tints were gilding the trees in the park with their glowing hues, and the air had that wintry mildness which is soothing though melancholy. The window was open; and, wrapped up in a thick shawl, I was inhaling the damp moist air, and listening to the rustle of the dried leaves which were being swept from the gravel walk below; the low twitter of some robin-redbreasts was in unison with the scene, and affected me in an Unaccountable manner. My tears fell fast on the book ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... added to his already made discovery, an addition so ingeniously constructed that it will drop the grain in bunches ready for the binder. The discoverer stands by and sees in the form of a human being hands, arms and a band; he watches the motion then starts in to rustle with cause and effect again. He thinks and sweats day and night, and by the genius of thought produces a machine to bind the grain. By this time another suggestion arises, how to separate the wheat as the machine journeys in its cutting process. To his convictions nothing will ...
— Philosophy of Osteopathy • Andrew T. Still
... without a tremor, but put me in the garden of a country house after the strength of the company has gone to roost and the place is shut up, and a sort of goose-fleshy feeling steals over me. The night wind stirs the tree-tops, twigs crack, bushes rustle, and before I know where I am, the morale has gone phut and I'm expecting the family ghost to come sneaking up behind me, making groaning noises. Dashed unpleasant, the whole thing, and if you think it improves matters to know that you are shortly about to ring ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... Mr. Egger was invariably carried on in that language. Now this was a refinement of torture, seeing that it was often impossible to gather a meaning from her remarks, whilst to show any such difficulty was to incur her most furious wrath. Egger trembled when he heard the rustle of her dress outside, the perspiration stood on his forehead as he ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing |
