"Rustling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Much rustling and coughing took place; then solemn silence prevailed. Not a deacon there, or officer of any sort, had the least idea of audibly hoping that the pastor's words would receive thoughtful attention; not a person arose; the silence ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... presently a servant brought in the tea, placed the tray on a small table, and departed. Madame de Cintre, from her place, busied herself with making it. She had but just begun when the door was thrown open and a lady rushed in, making a loud rustling sound. She stared at Newman, gave a little nod and a "Monsieur!" and then quickly approached Madame de Cintre and presented her forehead to be kissed. Madame de Cintre saluted her, and continued to make tea. The new-comer was ...
— The American • Henry James
... Hardy now, just as heartily as did Tip McCay. And even if he had not given his word to the dying cattleman, he would not have left a stone unturned to bring the rustling saloon keeper to justice. More than once before, Kid Wolf had used the law of the Colt when other measures failed to punish. And now, even although handicapped and outnumbered, he planned to strike. ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... ears, that little scene in the rose-lit chamber seemed for a moment very far away. Adrea, with her soft, passion-lit eyes, and dusky, oriental face, her lithe, voluptuous figure and the faint perfumes of her rustling draperies, seemed less to him then than a short while ago he could have believed possible. He could not think of that scene without a shudder,—it had left its mark in a certain way for ever,—but it was not so constantly present ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... these words, my courage creeping back, a sudden rustling among the pines at our back startled us to glance around. Out of the gloom of the rock shelter a figure uplifted itself on all fours, and the faint light of a star glimmered directly down upon an upraised, terror-stricken face. Before ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... the marks of anxiety and grief. Her chocolate calico was very clean, and her palm-leaf shawl and black bonnet were decent in their poverty. The vague excitement created by her coming continued in a rustling like that of leaves. The troubles of Hannah Prime's life had been very bitter—so bitter that she had, as Deacon Pitts once said, after undertaking her conversion, turned from "me and the house of God." A quickening thought sprang up now in the little assembly that she was "under ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... I thought daybreak was near, a great mopoke flits close over our heads without any rustling or noise, like the ghost of a bird, and begins to hoot in a big, bare, hollow tree just ahead of us. Hoo-hoo! hoo-hoo! The last time I heard it, it made me shiver a bit. Now I didn't care. I was a desperate man that had done ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... there was in that time a great pine-tree, of which the rustling upon windy nights disturbed the emperor's rest. And he spoke to the pine-tree, and said to it: 'Be still!' And never thereafter was that tree heard to rustle, even ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... in from the ocean and the brittle sand grass kept up a constant rustling. This sound served admirably to cover the approach of a stealthy figure that had followed the boys at a distance ever since they had left Bartanet. This figure crept closer and closer to the sand dune, until only a projecting hump concealed it from the five ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... had but to change the position of a ribbon to set all the ribbons in Christendom to rustling. A single word from her convulsed the whalebone market ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... and slept, awoke, moved her body for more comfort, slept again. And through her sleep and dreams and wakeful moments she heard the quiet voices of the men who had no beds to go to; that monotonous sound and an occasional clink of glass and bottle neck or the rustling of shuffled cards. Once she got up and looked through a hole in the canvas; she had taken off her shoes and made no noise to draw attention to her spying. It must have been chance, therefore, which prompted Thornton ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... not the only one they received that week. Christie had come home in the middle of the day, to see how his old master was, and was just preparing to start again on his rounds when they heard a gentle rustling of silk on the stairs, and a low knock at the door. Christie opened it quickly, and in walked little Mabel, and little Mabel's mamma. They had brought with them many little comforts for old Treffy, which Mabel had great pleasure in opening ...
— Christie's Old Organ - Or, "Home, Sweet Home" • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... up, when a faint "cranch, cranch, cranch," sounded in the dry leaves. At first the boys thought it was a squirrel, and both of them grasped their guns. Then the sound came again, but this time there appeared to be, not one, but a number of animals, rustling slowly along. ...
— Two Little Confederates • Thomas Nelson Page
... that rustling noise outside the tent? Probably some small creature, a squirrel or a rabbit. Rabbit stew would be good for breakfast. But it sounds louder now, almost loud enough to be a fox,—there are no wolves left in the Adirondacks, ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... all he took out the notes and laid them upon the table. Then he felt the pocket-book all over and his heart gave a little leap. It was true what Mademoiselle Idiale had told him. On one side there was distinctly a rustling as of paper. He opened the case quite flat and passed his fingers carefully over the lining. Very soon he found the opening—it was simply a matter of drawing down the stiff silk lining from underneath the ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... it grew. It grew with paralyzing rapidity into a low but steady murmur, blended soon with voices raised in quick cries. There was one piercing, ragged shriek, and all the time an undertone of the indefinite, peculiar sound of something rustling, creeping, growing. ...
— Hawk Carse • Anthony Gilmore
... at the least noise, when the sound of a footstep or the rustling of a leaf may mean instant death to me? The forest is full of enemies. They lurk in every by-path. Behind every bush or fair spreading tree may be seen their leering faces. What, then, has a poor captive girl to expect ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 4, April, 1886 • Various
... loomed a forest, darkly, and from its depths came those nameless sounds that are a part of the night life of the jungle—the rustling of leaves in the wind, the rubbing together of contiguous branches, the scurrying of a rodent, all magnified by the darkness to sinister and awe-inspiring proportions; the hoot of an owl, the distant scream of a great cat, the barking of wild dogs, attested the presence of the myriad ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... becomes fragrant with odours, and faintly stirs with the rustling of approaching wings. The Daughters of Ocean, aroused from their grots below, are come to console the Titan. They utter many complaints against the dynasty of Jove. Prometheus comforts himself by the prediction that the Olympian shall hereafter require his services, and that, until himself released ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Although it was not the call of the kakur, another sound interrupted the stillness—a sound equally welcome to the ear of the young hunter. It was a rustling among the leaves on the opposite side of the glade; just such as might indicate the passage of an animal through ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... cricket-ground and noisy eight, At Bagley, where the rustling bluebells come Almost before the blackbird finds a mate And overstay the swallow, and the hum Of many murmuring bees flits through the leaves, Have I lain poring on the dreamy tales ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde
... heard the church clock far away. A step so quick, so light, that, but for the rustling of leaves, it would scarcely have sounded on the wood-walk, checked his impatience. The wind blew fiercely now, and the thickening white storm waxed bewildering; but on she ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... Doctor Toole's solemn injunction; and there was no attempt to use violence. But a brisk knocking began thereat and Moggy, encouraged by hearing the voices of Betty and the vender of splendours at the little parlour window, and also by the amber sunlight on the rustling ivy leaves, and the loud evening gossip of the sparrows, took heart ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... impulse of the coming Spring, For ripening Summer, and the harvesting; For all the rich Autumnal glories spread,— The flaming pageant of the ripening woods; The fiery gorse, the heather-purpled hills; The rustling leaves that fly before the wind. And lie below the hedgerows whispering; For meadows silver-white with hoary dew; For sheer delight of tasting once again That first crisp breath of winter in the air; The pictured pane; the new white ...
— Bees in Amber - A Little Book Of Thoughtful Verse • John Oxenham
... plastered hair and an aggressive voice and rustling silks, dominated the conversation. She is the wife of the brother of the late Mr. ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... the door had closed on the rustling skirts of the dancer's juvenile frock, Jimmy rushed over to ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... sound struck some equally inarticulate chord of sense, and fell full-fraught with association. The breeze, murmurous amongst the branches, set the leaves rustling like silk attire. Did I imagine it, or was there really a faint sweet perfume of yellow gorse in the air? A thrush on a bough below began to flute softly, trying its tones before it burst forth, giving full ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... the most part concerned with civil matters. Now and again there was a warrant for stock-rustling, but the rustlers carried on their business in the open at that time and there were few who dared to testify against them. Bail was always arranged by the accommodating cattle-buyer at Galeyville, so that such arrests invariably turned out to be ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... leave the cries of this unfortunate woman, and hasten into another district. And what do we first see here? Who is he that just now started across the narrow pathway, as if afraid of a human face? What is that sudden rustling among the leaves? Why are those persons flying from our approach, and hiding themselves in yon darkest thicket? Behold, as we get into the plain, a deserted village! The rice-field has been just trodden ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... Lucetta's door he did not knock but opened it, and walked straight up to her sitting-room, expecting to find her there. But the room was empty, and he perceived that in his haste he had somehow passed her on the way hither. He had not to wait many minutes, however, for he soon heard her dress rustling in the hall, followed by a soft closing of the door. In a moment ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... anger came down from his throne—took off his pearl chain and put it on Pundarik's head. Everybody in the hall cheered. From the upper balcony came a slight sound of the movements of rustling robes and waist-chains hung with golden bells. Shekhar rose from his ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... resumed in this singular way; there was something piquant in not seeing his companion, her presence manifested only by her sweet breath, the slight rustling of the glazed cloth which afforded her such scanty room, and the prattle which flowed ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... yearning as if he would impress the image on his mind for the time when she would be with him no more. Each had a curious sense of understanding the other's thoughts, and needing no words. But as they neared a great rustling stretch of corn he looked at ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... diffused. She heard one of the windows opened with a grating noise. The court was a sounding board. It carried to her even the shuffling of the old man's feet as he must have approached the bed. The glow of his candle vanished. She heard a rustling as if he had stretched himself on the bed, a sound like ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... would not answer. Then came a voice, saying, "Katharine." It was Aunt Barbara's, but it was rather wavering. She would not answer, so the door was opened, and the steps, scarcely audible in the rustling of the silk, came in; and Kate felt that her aunt was looking at her, wondered whether she had better put out her head, ask pardon, and have it over, but was afraid; and presently heard the moire antique go ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... comfort when rendered despondent by contemplation of the weakness of our outer walls. "Seeing that everything was all right" is how my mother would explain it. She would lay the lilac silk upon the bed, fondly soothing down its rustling undulations, lingering lovingly over its deep frosted flounces of rich Honiton. Maybe she had entered the room weary looking and depressed, but soon there would proceed from her a gentle humming as from some small winged thing when the sun first touches it and warms it, and sometimes ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... spare time he built a lean-to of odds and ends, and beneath it Chance drowsed away the long, sunny hours while Sundown was rustling firewood or holding hot argument with an obstreperous dutch-oven. And Chance became the pet and the pride of the outfit. Riders from distant ranches would stray over to the lean-to and look at him, ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... Reginald; his lips moved at some of the responses that the two made audibly, but sound there was none. At length, when there was a total cessation of the voices of the other, and a silence so great in that vast apartment that the rustling of the lawyer's parchments was distinctly heard, even where I stood— even this hardened wretch seemed to feel the general awe of the moment, and ceased to disturb the ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... a nurse, rustling in starched white. I tried to speak, croaked once, and then paused to ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... and there two or three bashful youths sat together. The young men had their coats off, and the round white arms of the girls twinkled distractingly as with swift deft motions they freed the shining yellow ears from their incasements and tossed them into the baskets. The noisy rustling of the dry husks, the chatter and laughter of the merry workers, ever and anon swelling into uproarious mirth as some protesting maiden redeemed a red ear with a pair of red lips, made altogether a merry medley that caused the cows and horses munching their suppers in the neighboring stalls ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... soul-lit grey eyes, gazing once more into mine; the loving little hand that penned each darling sentence. In fancy, I could mark the changing expressions that swept across the sweet Madonna face, whose every line I knew so well, as, down-bent on the rustling paper, some sad or happy recollection filled her mind for awhile, in detailing those little events of her daily life which she related to please me. She wrote to me easily and naturally, just as if she were talking to me—the greatest ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... was I frightened? The silence probably ... the night ... anyhow, a nameless fear was creeping over me. My heart beat quickly, as though some danger was near. I glanced fearfully around me, and then in the distance I saw a great form moving amongst the trees. At the same time I could hear the rustling of branches. I tried to tell myself that it was fear that made me fancy I saw something unusual. Perhaps it was a shrub, a branch. But then, the branches were moving and there was not a breath of wind or a breeze that could shake them. They could not move unless swayed by the breeze ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot
... he could have made himself seen at the doorway, a tremor seemed to pass over the figure; it fluttered to its feet, and then it vanished into the farther dark of the room. When Jeff disappeared within, there was a sound of rustling skirts and skurrying feet and the crash of a closing door, and then the free rise of laughing voices without. After a discreet interval, Westover said: "Mr. Whitwell, I must say good-night. I've got another day's work before me. It's been a most ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... jerking tails and sideway, speculative heads; or upon the ground, pecking at it here and there with their little bills, as if under the impression that it was summer's grave, and they might chance to dig her up again. But once in a while they got discouraged, and took a sudden, rustling flight to the roof-tree of the barn, seemingly half inclined to continue on indefinitely southward. Then, a reluctance to leave the old place coming over them, they would dip back again on their elastic little wings, to ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... come and gone, Monsieur the Marquis walked to and fro in his loose chamber-robe, to prepare himself gently for sleep, that hot still night. Rustling about the room, his softly-slippered feet making no noise on the floor, he moved like a refined tiger:—looked like some enchanted marquis of the impenitently wicked sort, in story, whose periodical change into tiger form ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... Liu, with suppressed voice and ear intent, waited in perfect silence. She heard at a distance the voices of some people laughing, whereupon about ten or twenty women, with rustling clothes and petticoats, made their entrance, one by one, into the hall, and thence into the room on the other quarter. She also detected two or three women, with red-lacquered boxes in their hands, come over on this ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... there rises a vision of a cattle-camp on an open plain, the blue sky overhead, the long grass rustling below, the great mob of parti-coloured cattle eddying restlessly about, thrusting at each other with their horns; and in among the sullen half-savage animals go the light, wiry stock-riders, horse and man working together, watchful, quick, ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... reading his books[1] at night when he heard a strange sound coming from the north-west. He paused and listened intently, saying to himself: "How strange, how strange!" First there was a pattering and rustling; but suddenly this broke into a great churning and crashing, like the noise of waves that wake the traveller at night, when wind and rain suddenly come; and where they lash the ship, there is a jangling and clanging as ...
— More Translations from the Chinese • Various
... was full, and murmurous with the pleasant chat and rustling movement of well-dressed persons of both sexes who waited patiently the coming of the orator, looking at the expanse of stage, which was carpeted, and covered with rows of settees that went backward from the footlights to a landscape of charming ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... people were never married until they had laid in a good foundation to carry them through the ceremony. Well, they were all seated round the table, the men dressed in the best of broadcloth, and the ladies rustling in their silks and satins—their heads, necks, and arms hung round with jewels both rich and rare; but of all that were there that day, there wasn't the likes of the bride and bridegroom. As for him, nobody ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... the heathen crept betwixt me and the camp, surrounding it as a cloud that lies upon the ground. The rain fell upon us all, and there was not so much sound as the rustling of grasshoppers in tall grass. I said they will surprise the camp and slay the sleepers, not knowing that they who were to possess the land watched every man with his weapon. But when I would have sounded the trumpet of warning, I heard a rifle shot, and all ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... Then I shut my eyes, so tired I could not even think; but I heard a rustling sound, and a voice, that sounded a long way off, murmur, "Thank God!" The voice sounded familiar, but I could not recall whose it was. I tried to do so, but the effort wearied me. A spoon was put to my lips, ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... Sighing above, Rustling below, Through the woods The winds go. Beneath, dead crowds; Above, life bare; And the besom winds Sweep the air. Heart, leave thy woe; Let the ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... lovely night in the country in which I am now writing, where the distant horizon is soft and undulating in the moonlight, and the nearer trees sway gently to and fro in the night-wind with something of almost human motion; and the rustling air makes music among their branches, as if speaking soothingly to the weary ones who lie awake in heaviness of heart. The sights and sounds of such a night lull pain ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... next, shooting out again where least expected, then vanishing into darkness deeper than before; now they seem like vast floating banners of variegated flame, then as crescents, again as majestic columns of light, ever changing in form and color. It is said that a rustling sound like that of silk accompanies ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... Arcadia. The mind cannot conceive any thing more hushed, more sylvan, more entirely removed from the slightest evidence of proximity to a town. Nothing is audible there except the songs of birds and the rustling of leaves. Kensington gardens, beautiful as they are, have no seclusion so perfect ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... calf well-hidden, had slipped away to the spring for a drink. She was on the point of stepping forward to admire the little new-comer and see if it was yet strong enough to be led home to the barn, when a stealthy rustling at the farther side of ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... to say that Signora Dessalle was waiting for them in her apartment. There was much movement in the hotel. The rustling of long skirts, the muffled beat of footsteps mingled on the carpets of the corridors; subdued foreign voices, gay, plaintive, flattering or indifferent, came and went; the lifts were being taken by storm. Each member of the little silent group experienced the same bitter ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... beds of spices and orchards of pomegranates. The daily toil among your parsnips and carrots is plucking May violets with the dew upon them to meet the eyes you love upon their first awaking. In the burden and heat of the day you hear the rustling of summer showers and the whispering of summer winds. Everything is lifted up from the plane of labor to the plane of love, and a glory spans your life. With your friend, speech and silence are one,—for a communion mysterious and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... or more sane. Their wearisome heads went up and down at the same rate, in hot weather and cold, wet weather and dry, fair weather and foul. The measured motion of their shadows on the walls, was the substitute Coketown had to show for the shadows of rustling woods; while, for the summer hum of insects, it could offer, all the year round, from the dawn of Monday to the night of Saturday, the whirr ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... moonlight shifted; a long irregular cape, like a shining finger, stretched out across the floor and touched the hem of her dress. From behind the screen in the fireplace came a little sound, as though a mouse were rustling ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... all the Table Round were back again, At peace with God and with their fellow-men. Their shields hung idly on the pictured wall; Their blood-stained banners decked the festal hall Light footsteps, rustling on the rush-strewn floors, And laughter, rippling down long corridors, Attested minds at ease and hearts at play,— Rude Mars unharnessed for love's holiday. In the great hall the Christmas feast was done. The level sunbeams from the setting sun Stretched ...
— Gawayne And The Green Knight - A Fairy Tale • Charlton Miner Lewis
... reported, only that he succeeded in lengthening the "moment" into a quarter of an hour, and then half an hour; and it might, perhaps, have lasted the whole evening, had they not, in the midst of a most interesting conversation, been startled by a rustling ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... with you that she was stronger and wider in her conversation and letters than in her books. Oh, I have said so a hundred times. The heat of human sympathy seemed to bring out her powerful vitality, rustling all over with laces and flowers. She seemed to think and speak stronger holding a hand—not that she required help or borrowed a word, but that the human magnetism acted on her nature, as it does upon men born to speak. Perhaps if she had ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... word was uttered, and profound silence reigned around, only interrupted by the occasional muttering of the thunder-clouds. Suddenly, Alvarez, who had been intently listening, raised his hand with a significant gesture; presently, a sound was heard - a rustling like the waving of trees, or the rushing of distant water; it gradually increased, and seemed to proceed from the narrow street which led from the principal gate into the square. All eyes were turned in that direction. ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... at this conclusion, he heard the rustling of his mother's dress on the stairs, and Mrs. Thorpe, with her handkerchief to her eyes, presented herself woefully at his bedside. Profoundly and penitently wretched, he tried to gain his mother's forgiveness before he encountered his father's wrath. To ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... garments he carried over one arm; "also a bracer to be administered to him," and he drew a flask from his pocket and handed it to me. "Maybe you need one, yourself," he added, smiling drily, "since you've taken to hearing rustling robes." ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... the poplar trees unfold Their buds, yet close and gummed and blind, In airy leafage of the mind, Rustling in silvery whispers the twin-hued scales That fade not nor ...
— The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems • Aldous Huxley
... girl's heart is ever yearning for and trembling at the future. In its innocent depths the things that are to be are sometimes rustling and whispering secrets, and sometimes keeping an exquisite, haunting silence. In the midst of the mystery the solemn young creature is sighing to herself, "What am I meant for? Am I everything? Am I nothing? Must I wait till my future comes to me, ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... running perhaps somewhat in the train where poor little Fleda's had been so busy last night; and wrapped up in broadcloth as he was to the chin, he shivered when he heard the chill wind moaning round the house and rustling the paper hangings, and thought of little Fleda's delicate frame, exposed as Cynthia had described it. He made up his mind it must ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... that comes from." His quick ear had caught the rustling sound inside the handbag. "There's other notes in there, old lady;" and, laughing, he tried to snatch the bag from her. "How much? Here's a ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... stones, through mosses flowing, See the brook and brooklet springing. Hear I rustling? hear I singing? Love-plaints, sweet and melancholy, Voices of those days so holy? All our loving, longing, yearning? Echo, like a strain returning From the ...
— Faust • Goethe
... stripped to the waist, stirring the molten iron with their long levers or standing amid showers of sparks as the brilliant metal slips to and fro among the rollers that mould it into the forms of commerce. If upon a summer evening one shall rest amid the sweet air and the rustling trees upon the hill-top, he may hear coming up from this dusky, grimy blackness of the mills and the railway the soughing of the blowers of the blast-furnaces, the sharp crack of the exploding gases in the white-hot iron, the shriek of the locomotive whistle and all night long the roar ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... Navona, where the immortal gods were worshipped—the immortal gods now dead; but the Pantheon in Oxford Street. Have not Selwyn, and Walpole, and March, and Carlisle figured there? Has not Prince Florizel flounced through the hall in his rustling domino, and danced there in powdered splendour? O my companions, I have drunk many a bout with you, and always found 'Vanitas Vanitatum' written on the bottom of the pot." This is the mind in which ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... was there all the time, an' I heard Walter an' Jenks calling. I cocked a snook at them an' the wood-ladies laughed like leaves rustling." ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... time to catch the sound of rustling skirts in the adjoining apartment and to see a door closed ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... louder and louder; but the old woman answered not a word; on the contrary she seemed only the more earnestly intent on her spinning. At length a little rustling was heard; by some artifice the door was unbolted from the outside; and somebody stepped in. Even then the old woman did not stir from her seat; and the man who had entered, flinging down a heap of old drift ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... way, we could hear the rustling sound of the leaves, as the rogue, as we supposed, moved his head or perhaps only his ears among them. I held my breath. There were no tall trees near behind which we could run should he espy us. Our only chance of safety was in bringing him down by a shot. We were well to windward ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... called and came; and I could not help thinking how insignificant she looked with her pale face and plain dark frock, standing stiffly beside this shining lady in her rustling clothes. ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... groves where the solemn leaves of the sacred trees are talking sweetly; and presently mount a knoll by some suburban farm buildings, then look back to find that slight as is the elevation, here is a view of marvelous beauty across the city, the Acropolis, and the guardian mountains. From the rustling ivy coverts come the melodious notes of birds. We are glad to learn that this is the suburb of Colonus, the home of Sophocles the tragedian, and here is the very spot made famous in the renowned chorus of his "idipous at Colonus." It is too early, of course, to enjoy the nightingale which ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... seen any one, but a rustling, grating noise in the shadow of the nearest tree told him where the immediate danger lay. Believing that an unexpected course was best he wheeled and ran at full speed toward the tree, which contained a large ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... that followed moved slowly, weighted as they were with hard work and monotony for Marg'et Ann, and by the time the voice of the corn had changed three times from the soft whispering of spring to the hoarse rustling of autumn, she felt herself old ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... long luxuriant garden-ground was a rustic seat abutting upon the low wall that topped the lane. The branches of the English trees (planted long ago) hung above it, and between their rustling boughs one could see the reach of the silver river. Sitting with her face to the bay and her back to the house, Sylvia opened the manuscript she had carried off from Meekin, and began to read. It was written in a firm, large ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... went to sleep on the seashore, but were awakened by the noise of a serpent of surprising length and thickness, whose scales made a rustling noise as it moved itself along. It swallowed up one of my comrades, in spite of his loud cries and his efforts to save himself. Dashing him several times against the ground, it crushed him, and we could hear it gnaw and ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... chief the spacious hall Thick swarm'd, both on the ground and in the air, Brush'd with the hiss of rustling wings. As bees In spring time, when the sun with Taurus rides, Pour forth their populous youth about the hive In clusters; they among fresh dews and flow'rs Fly to and fro; or on the smoothed plank, The suburb of their ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... have the old days back again—back, with their very tints, and atmosphere, and sounds and odors—now no more the same. Thus I love to hear the young girl's low, merry song, floating from the window of a country-house, half-broken by the cicala, the swallow's twitter, or the rustling leaves;—I love to hear the joyous ripple of the harpsichord, bringing back, with some old music, times when that merry music stamped the hours, and took possession of them—in the heart—forever more! I love a ringing horn, even the stage-horn—now, alas! no more a sound of real life, only memory!—the ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... was drying herself on the fleecy towels she suddenly heard a sound outside her door. After the housekeeper left her the whole building had seemed as silent as a tomb. Now there was a steady rustling noise in the short corridor on which ...
— The Girl from Sunset Ranch - Alone in a Great City • Amy Bell Marlowe
... had passed the statue of Achilles she had the rapt look of one brushing through crowds on a summer's afternoon, when the trees are rustling, the wheels churning yellow, and the tumult of the present seems like an elegy for past youth and past summers, and there rose in her mind a curious sadness, as if time and eternity showed through skirts ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... calm he loved to rest, and hear The soft wind-angels, clear And sweet, among the uppermost branches sighing: Voices he heard replying (Or so he dreamed) far up the mystic height, And pinions rustling light." ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... of all the sweet scents which belong to an early summer morning in the country. What nice, curious noises, too, all mixed up together! The bees buzzing in the flowers beneath, the little winds rustling in the leaves, the cheerful chirps and scraps of song from the birds, the crow of a distant cock, the deep, low cooing of the pigeons in the stable-yard near. Anna longed to be out-of-doors, among these pleasant sights ...
— Thistle and Rose - A Story for Girls • Amy Walton
... of their country they had no heart to rejoice; they could not insult over the misery of all around them. "Soon, oh soon," cried the impatient shepherd, "may the wrath of heaven be overpast! Extend, all-merciful divinity, thy benign influence to the shores of Arvon! Once more may the rustling of the shower refresh our longing ears! Once more may our eyes be gladdened with the pearly, orient dew! May the fields be clothed afresh in cheerful green! May the flowers enamel the verdant mead! May the brooks again brawl along ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... touched, when there was a rustling in the bushes directly before him, and the next instant Kent stood ...
— The Ranger - or The Fugitives of the Border • Edward S. Ellis
... wood, whereto the sunlight scarce can penetrate; altars stand there stained with dark rites of human sacrifice; no bird or beast will approach it; no wind ever stirs its leaves; if they rustle, it is with a strange mysterious rustling all their own: there are dark pools and ancient trees, their trunks encircled by coiling snakes; strange sounds and sights are there, and when the sun rides high at noon, not even the priest will approach the sanctuary for fear lest unawares he come upon his lord and master. ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... the stone stairs, when a rustling and chattering, as of maids descending, caused her and her brother to stand aside to make way, and down came a pair of heads and candles together over a green bandbox, and then voices in vulgar tones half suppressed. 'I ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... black pilot having heard any sound, beyond that of the breeze rustling against the sail of the Catamaran or the hollow "sough" of the water as it surged against the empty ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... murky dell, But till your harvest hill at morn; Stoop to no words that, rank and fell, Grow faster than the rustling corn. ...
— Along the Shore • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... half a second things seemed just as they were. There was the tree, the balcony, the shining river, the distant church tower. Then he noticed that the acacia was displaced about a foot to the right, and that it was quivering, and the leaves were rustling. The tree was shaken violently, and a heavy ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... shall I describe my terror when, on the fourth night, a party of Indians lying round a small fire which I had not seen, hearing the rustling I made among the leaves, started from the ground, seizing their arms, and ran out into the wood? I did not know, in my agony of fear, whether to stand still or rush on. I expected nothing but a terrible death; ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... trousers which hung, neatly folded, across the back of a chair by the centre table. He was in the act of withdrawing the bills from the bottom of one of the trouser-pockets when right at his feet there was a quick, queer sound of rustling. As he glared down, startled, out from under the crumpled newspaper came timorously creeping a half-grown, sickly looking rat, minus its tail, having lost its tail in a trap, perhaps, or possibly in a battle ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... she went about seeking the garden, which she found at last, but failing to find the gate or any gap in the walls she sat down and began combing her hair. Nor was she long combing it before Lucifer, attracted by the rustling, came by, saying: I would be taken captive in the net thou weavest with thy hair, and she answered: not yet; for my business is in yon garden, but into it I can find no way. Wilt lend me thy sinewy shape, Lucifer? for in it I shall be able ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... nut-trees was rustling over our heads as I spoke, and the sharp skiff, borne on the current, glided smoothly on till her bow struck the rock. With high-beating hearts we clambered up the little cliff; and as we reached the top, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... said, then stopped abruptly. The blaze died down, and the twinkle came instead into her bright eyes. She laughed her little rustling laugh, and turned to go. "Good-by, Jinny," she said; "you don't mean to be funny, but you are. Ethan Tree is in heaven; but if you think he would come back from the pit to see ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... from the stalls to the roof. Something was being done to the lights on the ceiling. Tired-looking men in overcoats were creeping into the orchestra, thrusting white faces under screened lights, and rustling papers ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... sentimental; autumn is here, and has already begun to hush everything into sleep and torpor. The flies and insects have received their first warning. Up in the trees and down in the fields the sounds of struggling life can be heard rustling, murmuring, restless; labouring not to perish. The down-trodden existence of the whole insect world is astir for yet a little while. They poke their yellow heads up from the turf, lift their legs, feel their way with long feelers ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... They had not seemed to her to differ noticeably from her delicate, esthetic mother, lying in lavender silk negligees on wicker couches, reading the latest book of Mallarme, or from her competent, rustling aunt, guiding the course of the summer colony's social life with firm hands. There was as yet no summer colony, this week in May. Even the big hotel was not open. Virginia was lodged in the house of one of the farmers. ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... interval, when two solemn "boys" stole in with curry and beer. Eat he could not in this lazaret, but sipped a little of the dark Kirin brew, and plunged again into his researches. Alone with his lamp and rustling papers, he fought through perplexities, now whispering, now silent, like a student ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... for about half an hour, and then it ceased with that abruptness which seems so characteristic of the tropics. But it had scarcely come to an end when there arose a loud rustling of leaves among the trees in the garden and round about the house, a blast of hot wind poured in through the open doors and windows, violently slamming the former and causing the latter to rattle furiously; and I had barely time to ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... to himself when the step on the stair and the rustling gown introduced Mrs. Yorke's portly figure was: "Heavens! it's the old lady! I wonder what the old dragon will do, and whether I am not to see Her!" He observed her embarrassment as she entered the room, ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... on too high a plane. Most of us are admitted into truantry by the accidents, merely, of our senses. By way of instance, the sniff of a rotten apple will set a man off as on seven-league boots to the valleys of his childhood. The dry rustling of November leaves re-lights the fires of youth. It was only this afternoon that so slight a circumstance as a ray of light flashing in my eye provided me an agreeable and unexpected truantry. It sent me climbing the mountains of the North and in no less company than that of Brunhilda ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... out except on button-balls and celtis, and putting on its dark green summer color, solid shadows under the trees, and stretching down the slopes. A few indolent summer clouds here and there. A day of gently rustling and curtsying leaves, when the breeze almost seems to blow upward. The fields of full-grown, nodding rye slowly stir and sway like vast assemblages of people. How the chimney swallows chipper as they sweep past! The vireo's cheerful ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... hush of the wind—though it still indulged in occasional brief gusts—the river seemed to me to grow blacker, the willows to stand more densely together. The latter, too, kept up a sort of independent movement of their own, rustling among themselves when no wind stirred, and shaking oddly from the roots upwards. When common objects in this way become charged with the suggestion of horror, they stimulate the imagination far more than things of unusual appearance; and these bushes, crowding ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... not long before they heard a rustling in the tree near the place, and then a chirp of fright and distress. "Ah!" said their mamma, "there is the mother! poor things, we will go a little distance to let her come to the nest; perhaps she will be able to save ...
— Fanny, the Flower-Girl • Selina Bunbury
... the day. And it is full of half-heard whispers—whispers that startle—ghosts of sounds long dead. There are living sounds, too, such as are never heard under other conditions: notes of strange night-birds, the cries of small animals in sudden encounters with stealthy foes or in their dreams, a rustling in the dead leaves—it may be the leap of a wood-rat, it may be the footfall of a panther. What caused the breaking of that twig?—what the low, alarmed twittering in that bushful of birds? There are sounds without ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... occurred on a late afternoon, in a small side street just off the Strand, while I was casting about for one of those letter-pillars. Raymond was approached, as was proper to the locality and the time of day, by a young woman of thirty who had a hard, determined face and who was clothed on with a rustling black dress that jingled with jet. I was near enough ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... glanced around, as he slowly turned his head from side to side, and he saw everything in front, rear, at his right, left, and above, among the limbs and on the ground. He heard the silken rustling of several leaves in the top of a beach overhead, and he knew it was caused by one of those slight puffs of wind which make ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... gentle rustling of skirts. Softly she rose to her feet. He felt her warm breath upon his cheek, the perfume of her hair as she leaned over him. He did not look up, so he did not know that in her other hand she held a ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... clear to the distant roof. But I know the place was enormous; I said something to Leroy and a million thin echoes came slipping back to us out of the darkness. And after that, we began to hear other sounds—slithering rustling noises, and whispers, and sounds like suppressed breathing—and something black and silent passed between us and that far-away crevice ...
— Valley of Dreams • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum
... American crow, in the full vigor of his three-score years, maybe, (he lives to be a hundred) caws lustily from the bare white branches of a big sycamore, that queer anomaly of the forest which disrobes itself for the winter. The merry chickadees divide their time between the rustling, ragged bark of the red birches and the withered heads of heath-aster and blue vervain below. In the one they get the meat portion of their midday meal, and in the other the cereal foods. No wonder they are ...
— Some Winter Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... once he heard the door creaking upon its hinges. There was a slight rustling of muslin, a low sigh, and then momentary silence. "What, in the name of John Bright, can that be?" thought the terrified traveller; but he had not to wait long for explanation. The door opened slowly—a female figure, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... noisom, that can be distinguish'd among such a Quantity of natural Sweets, as every Inch of that Land produces: so that they concluded they should find him dead, or some body that was so; they pass'd on towards it, as loathsom as it was, and made such rustling among the Leaves that lie thick on the Ground, by continual falling, that Caesar heard he was approach'd; and though he had, during the Space of these eight Days, endeavour'd to rise, but found he wanted Strength, yet looking up, and seeing his Pursuers, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... tautology in the music of the heart to which the words are, as it were, set, and that it is the heart that lifts itself up to God. Our words and thoughts are but parts of the enginery which remains with ourselves; and logic, the rustling dry leaves of the lifeless reflex faculty, does not merit even the name of a pulley or lever ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... uncertain rustling of each purple curtain Thrill'd me—fill'd me with fantastic terrors never felt before; So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating, "'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber-door,— ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... harsh noise as it turned in the lock, and when the door swung open into a lofty hall they heard a confused sound of rustling and whispering, as of a great throng of people pressing forward to meet them. The air seemed full of swaying movement, and Jones was certain he saw hands held aloft and dim faces claiming recognition, while in his heart, already oppressed by the approaching ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood
... watched through the night. The silent steersman heard him frequently rustling papers on the chart table or clumping to the bridge or lolling on the port sills—a restlessness that had about it something of the ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... tte—tte, she smiled across the table at me with such perfect friendliness, it seemed as though a magic barrier separated our two selves from all the chattering, rustling crowd around us. When she spoke, a little quiver of feeling blended adorably with the low, sweet tones of her voice. We talked, indeed, of trifles, but with just that charming hint of intimacy which men friends have who may have known one another from ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... bride on our hands, or a bride-elect, for she isn't married yet. The happy man to be is rustling for a home out here in the wilds of Idaho while she is waiting in the old country for success to crown his efforts. How much success in her case is demanded one does not know. She is a little English girl, upper ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... moment he stared without seeing anything, and then a slight rustling in a far corner diverted his attention. He looked sharply and saw a woman rise from a lounge and come toward him with ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... age... She has been laid up, poor child... at the Razumovski's ball... and Countess Apraksina... I was so delighted..." came the sounds of animated feminine voices, interrupting one another and mingling with the rustling of dresses and the scraping of chairs. Then one of those conversations began which last out until, at the first pause, the guests rise with a rustle of dresses and say, "I am so delighted... Mamma's health... ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... deep and oppressed note, as if bewailing the departure of autumn. Among the scattered copses which here and there fringed its banks, the oak-trees only retained that pallid green that precedes their russet hue. The leaves of the willows were most of them stripped from the branches, lay rustling at each breath, and disturbed by every step of the mule; while the foliage of other trees, totally withered, kept still precarious possession of the boughs, waiting the first ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... sprang to his feet, jerking another cartridge from the magazine, there was a sharp crackling amidst the thicket and a rustling of the fern. A blurred shape that moved with incredible swiftness sailed into the air, and vanished as he fired again. The smoke blew back into his eyes, and there was a low rustling that rapidly grew fainter. He ran to the thicket, and found what he had expected—a few red ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... dear!" said she, amid a feverish rustling of papers; "the whole world is out of sorts to-night! I never did know how much seven times eight is, and I hate everybody, and I've left that list of unpaid dues in Uncle Fred's room, and I've got to go after it, and I don't want to! Bother those ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... soft, covered with brown dead leaves, and he tried to see the rabbit rustling among them, or the hasty springing of a squirrel. The long branches of the briar entangled his feet; and here and there, in sheltered corners, blossomed the primrose and the violet He listened to the chant of the birds, so joyous that it seemed impossible they sang in a world of sorrow. Hidden ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... some one approached through the grain, and when she raised her head, she looked up into the face of Kenkenes. It was Kenkenes, indeed, but Kenkenes in robes of rustling linen and trappings of gold. Never had she seen so stately an Egyptian, nor any so entitled to the name of nobleman. In quick succession she experienced the moving sensations of surprise, pride in him, and depression. The last fell on her with the instant recollection of duty, when his face bent ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... hastily shut the kitchen doors, but doors would not hold it in. It captured the whole house. Aunt Nabbie, in the sitting-room, perceived it and came rustling out to ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... courage when a disaster had really happened. She could not move. She was pinned down among the short, stiff branches of a thorny shrub; but she screamed again as loud as she could—not a scream of terror, but a call for help. Then she lay and listened. All about her there was no sound but the rustling murmur of the leaves and the tiny, mysterious noises of the little creatures of the night whose realm she had invaded. Now and again she tried to move and disentangle herself from the strong branches that held her; but they pressed her down, the thorns pinned her clothes, and her bruised side ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... attached to the old rumbling rattle-trap of a carriage, and it is creak, pull, yell, and cheer, until you find yourself above the clouds—serene and calm—away from dust, heat, turmoil, bustle, in an old locanda, in a shaded room, a flask of cool red wine before you, the south wind rustling the leaves in the lattice, the bell of the old Franciscan convent sending its clear silver notes away over valley and mountain from its sleepy old home under the chestnut trees, the crowing of cocks away down the mountain, the hum of bees ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... who approached them, and they were glad now that they had decided to put the issue to the test of battle. They lay close together, watching in front and also for a flank movement, but for a while they saw nothing. The hound had ceased to bay, but, after a while, both Henry and Sol saw a rustling among the bushes, and they knew that the savages were ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... direction of the attenuated and sallow-faced personage who had accompanied him, he graciously permitted Madame Patoux to humbly precede him by a few steps, and then followed her with a soft, even tread, and a sound as of rustling silk in his garments, from which a faint odour of some delicate perfume seemed wafted ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... was full of deepening mist. Cuckoo was but a fantastic shadow in the room. Her dress rustled with an uneasy sound as the doctor came in. His first act was to turn on the electric light. In a flash the rustling shadow was converted into substance. Cuckoo and the doctor stood face to face, and Cuckoo's tired eyes fastened with a hungry, almost a wolfish, scrutiny upon this stranger. She wanted so much of him. ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... chest, new strength began to flow into his muscles, and, as the body was renewed, so the spirit soared up and became sanguine once more. He put his ear to the earth and listened long, but heard nothing, save sounds natural to the wilderness, the rustling of leaves before the light wind, the whisper of the tiny current, and the occasional sweet note of a bird in brilliant dress, pluming itself on a bough in its pride. He drew fresh courage from the peace of the woods, and resolved to remain longer there by the stream. Settling himself ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... glided down the aisle, her dress rustling along the seats, and an odor of "new mown hay" exhaling from her clothing. "Dodd" hung his head as she approached—perhaps it was to ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith
... other end of that passage, and memorable enough in its way. In a great airy ward of a Far Eastern hospital, lying on my back, I had plenty of leisure to remember the dreadful cold and snow of Amsterdam, while looking at the fronds of the palm-trees tossing and rustling at the height of the window. I could remember the elated feeling and the soul-gripping cold of those tramway journeys taken into town to put what in diplomatic language is called pressure upon the good Hudig, with his warm fire, his ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... craft leak more or less, and it was a considerable time since he had pumped her out. Clambering wearily on board, he made the dingy fast; and then stood still a moment or two, looking about him with his hand on the cabin slide. Thin flakes of snow drifted past him; the firs were rustling eerily ashore, and ragged wisps of cloud drove by low down above their tops. Little frothy ripples flecked the darkening water with streaks of white and splashed angrily against the bows of the craft. ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... picket duty when the attack opened. "It was a little after midnight," he said "when the men ahead suddenly fell back to report strange sounds and movements along the front. The report had just been made when we heard a rustling in the bushes near us. We challenged and, receiving no reply, fired into the darkness. Immediately the enemy rushed upon us, but the sleeping camp had been awakened by the firing, and our men quickly stood ...
— Tommy Atkins at War - As Told in His Own Letters • James Alexander Kilpatrick |
