"Muffled" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... man went over and sat down by the fire. The big room was empty. The sounds outside seemed muffled and distant. The incident that had just passed impressed him. He wondered why people should imagine that a purchasing agent of a jewel house must be a sort of expert in the devices of mystery. As has ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... chair in a twinkling. The doors and windows were all closed (the curtains were pulled down as well, so that no one on the outside could see into the room), but the words, which were uttered in a muffled voice, came distinctly to ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... Virginia, the scene in her bed chamber, the day in the throne room and, more delicious than all, the trip to the monastery. In his dreams, waking or sleeping, he had seen the slim soldier, had heard the muffled voice, and had felt the womanly caresses. His brain now was in a whirl, busy with thoughts of love and fear, distraught with anxiety for her and for himself, bursting with the awful consequences of the hour that was upon them. What was to become of him? What was to be the end ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... instinct of nature, it is his interior autonomy that vanishes, and with it all trace of this autonomy is exteriorly effaced. The animal nature is alone visible upon his visage; the eye is watery and languishing, the mouth rapaciously open, the voice trembling and muffled, the breathing short and rapid, the limbs trembling with nervous agitation: the whole body by its languor betrays its moral degradation. Moral force has renounced all resistance, and physical nature, with ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... who remained in the town, two men were most attentive and most impatient—Nohim Todros, Rabbi, and Hersh Ezofowich, rich merchant. There was a muffled, secret antipathy between them. Apparently they were on good terms, but at every opportunity there burst forth the antagonism which existed between the great-grandson of Michael the Senior, the disciple of Majmonides, and the descendant of ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... muffled drum's sad roll has beat The soldier's last tattoo; No more on Life's parade shall meet That brave and fallen few. On Fame's eternal camping-ground Their silent tents are spread, And Glory guards, with solemn round, ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... the hypocritic Days, Muffled and dumb, like barefoot dervishes, And marching single in an endless file, Bring diadems and fagots in their hands. To each they offer gifts, after his will,— Bread, kingdoms, stars, or sky that holds them all. I, in my pleached ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... Heath," in one of her cousin Godfrey's books! It was like an old miser, decrepit with age, pursued and unable to run! Miserable as was her real condition, it was rendered yet more pitiable by these terrors of the imagination. The distant howl of a dog which the moon would not let sleep, the muffled low of a cow from a shippen, and a certain strange sound, coming again and again, which she could not account for, all turned to things unnatural, therefore frightful. Faintly, once or twice, she tried to persuade ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... probability to this theory. Almost every season a solitary quail visits us, and, unseen among the currant bushes, alls Bob White, Bob White, as if he were playing at hide-and-seek with that imaginary being. A rarer visitant is the turtle-dove, whose pleasant coo (something like the muffled crow of a cock from a coop covered with snow) I have sometimes heard, and whom I once had the good luck to see close by me in the mulberry-tree. The wild-pigeon, once numerous, I have not seen for many years.(1) Of savage birds, a hen-hawk now and then ...
— My Garden Acquaintance • James Russell Lowell
... the water, accompanied by the sound of footsteps running along the decks of the cruiser. Lights flashed. Muffled ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train
... everything to him. Now note, this was on a winter's night; the Rue St. Montfumier is close to the Loire, and in this corner there continually blow in winter, winds sharp as a hundred needle-points. The good hunchback, well muffled up in his mantle, failed not to come, and trotted up and down to keep himself warm while waiting for the appointed hour. Towards midnight he was half frozen, as fidgety as thirty-two devils caught in a stole, and was about to give up his happiness, when a feeble light ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... other now with difficulty, as the snow muffled their voices. Mr. Baxter called to the boys occasionally to learn ...
— The Young Treasure Hunter - or, Fred Stanley's Trip to Alaska • Frank V. Webster
... did not find any fresh tracks, however. And while he was standing in the dark considering how the hills might have carried the sound deceptively to his ear, and how he may have been mistaken, from somewhere on the other side of the ridge came the abrupt report of a gun. The sound was muffled by the distance, yet it was unmistakable. Starr listened, heard no second shot, and ran back up the rocky gulch that led to the ridge he had just left, ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... brazen gong was heard—muffled out of regard for the sick—which announced the hour of prayer to the little congregation. It had sounded every evening without disturbing the sufferer, but to-night it roused her from ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Kazan, I noticed that a huge open barge was being towed upstream alongside us, that it was being filled with these bales, to lighten the steamer for the sand-bars and shallows of the upper river, and that a monotonous but very musical cadence was being repeated at intervals, in muffled tones, somewhere on board. I went down to the cargo department of the lower deck and found the singers,—the herculean porters. One after another they bent their backs, and two mates hoisted the huge bales, chanting a refrain which enabled them to move and lift in unison. ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... all, the desert sky Arches above me, empty as this heart 10 For ages hath been empty of all joy, Except to brood upon its silent hope, As o'er its hope of day the sky doth now. All night have I heard voices: deeper yet The deep low breathing of the silence grew, While all about, muffled in awe, there stood Shadows, or forms, or both, clear-felt at heart, But, when I turned to front them, far along Only a shudder through the midnight ran, And the dense stillness walled me closer round. 20 But still I heard them wander up and down That solitude, and flappings ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... Having thus muffled Cartwright, this man of the world opened his window and looked out. The crowd had followed the captured dogcart, so he had the street to himself. He beckoned to Phoebe, and after considerable ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... voices rise; the screams of thousand night-birds, and wild howls, which they used at first to fancy were the cries of ravenous beasts, till they found them to proceed from nothing fiercer than an ape. But what is that deeper note, like a series of muffled explosions,—arquebuses fired within some subterranean cavern,—the heavy pulse of which rolls up through the depths of the unseen forest? They hear it now for the first time, but they will hear it ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... said Mr Boffin, speaking in a muffled voice, with his hands before his face, as he rocked himself ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... not the only traveller departing; on the truck just laden I saw somebody else's luggage, and at the same moment there came forth a man heavily muffled against the air, who, like myself, began to look about for the porter. We exchanged greetings, and on our walk to the station I learned that my companion, also bound for Taranto, had been detained by illness ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing
... Culloden is lost, and my country deplores. But where is the ironbound prisoner? Where? For the red eye of battle is shut in despair. Say, mounts he the ocean wave, banished, forlorn, Like a limb from his country, cast bleeding and torn? Ah no! for a darker departure is near; The war drum is muffled, and black is the bier; His death bell is tolling; O mercy, dispel Yon sight that it freezes my spirit to tell! Life flutters convulsed in his quivering limbs, And his blood-streaming nostril in agony swims. Accursed be ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... Stumah, who, the bier beside, His master's corpse with wonder eyed— 395 Poor Stumah! whom his least halloo Could send like lightning o'er the dew, Bristles his crest, and points his ears, As if some stranger step he hears. 'Tis not a mourner's muffled tread, 400 Who comes to sorrow o'er the dead, But headlong haste, or deadly fear, Urge the precipitate career. All stand aghast—unheeding all, The henchman bursts into the hall; 405 Before the dead man's bier he stood; Held forth the Cross besmeared ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... his throat. His eyes blurred. The gyrocopter was sluggish, dipped alarmingly when it should have darted, arrow-like, to its mark. With clenched teeth, the Terrestrian forced the whirling lifting vanes to the limit of their power. They bit into the fast thinning air with a muffled whine, raised the ship by feet that should have ...
— The Great Dome on Mercury • Arthur Leo Zagat
... offered to accept it and he hadn't the courage to make the suggestion. The dingey floated off the sand again, headed for the Follow Me, and then the storm broke. It didn't descend all at once, however. At first there were muffled growls of thunder from Harry Corwin. Then came claps from Wink Wheeler. After that the elements raged about Perry's defenceless head, even "Brownie" ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... the shampoo. The barber made his hair creamy with thick soap, then (as Babbitt bent over the bowl, muffled in towels) drenched it with hot water which prickled along his scalp, and at last ran the water ice-cold. At the shock, the sudden burning cold on his skull, Babbitt's heart thumped, his chest heaved, and his spine was ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... he fathered the whole post. Madame Grignon spun and looked to the house. And a thousand changes passed over the landscape. But in all that time no one could see any change in my Cloud-Mother. She sewed like a child. She laughed, and danced gavottes. She trod the snow, or muffled in robes, with Madame Ursule and the girls, flew over it in a French train; a sliding box with two or three horses hitched tandem. Every evening I sat by her side at the fire, while she made little ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... rain was still beating against the window in heavy showers, for it was a stormy night. The door of the bedroom stood wide open. What was that sound coming up the stairs from the hall below? It was certainly not the ticking of the clock. It seemed more like muffled and stealthy footsteps. In an instant Ingred was very wide awake indeed, and listening intently. There it came again! She could not lie still and ignore it. She got out of bed, and with rather shaking knees walked on to the landing ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... a low hum of excited talk came from amidships. Suddenly the raking yard of a felucca started out from amid the haze; then came another, and another. A sailor slipped a cork fender over the side, and there was a muffled bump and a slight scrape. Jack, the mate, whispered, "Now, you cripples!" and a brief scene of wild hurry and violent labour ensued. Bale after bale was whisked aboard; the Englishmen worked as only English sailors can, and the Scorpions excelled ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... 4th he describes the fight between the English and Dutch, the news brought by a Mr Daniel, "who was all muffled up, and his face as black as the chimney, and covered with dirt, pitch, and tar, and powder, and muffled with dirty clouts, and his right eye stopped with okum." The English "found the Dutch fleet at anchor, between Dunkirke and Ostend, ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... can do so," Kennedy went on, "suppose we take the scenes in order, one at a time, from the last photographed to the first, analyzing each in turn. Remember that we seek a situation where there is not only an opportunity to jab her with a needle, but one in which an outcry would be muffled or inaudible." ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... girl like a moth in a room, full of candles, unable to settle down steadily to one particular flame. He did not recognize Arethusa as his lady for the evening. He had been so late in going for her that she had been all muffled and waiting for him when he arrived. And he had not cared to look very closely at the figure in those wrappings. Mr. Harrison asked very little of the damsels he honored with his attention, save that they be pretty. He decided, ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... I want to get out the worst kind! Ouch! they're biting me like hot cakes! I'm getting poisoned, I know I am! Oh! dear!" came the muffled voice that they ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... sorrow, came very near to it. In particular, was the open-air service in Toronto facing the Parliament Buildings and attended by silent masses of people, with respectful and sympathetic addresses, with drapings and evidences of mourning on every hand, with the solemn strains of muffled music from many bands, and the presence of thousands of loyal troops, an indication of the popular feeling shown throughout the Dominion on May 20th, which was appointed to be a day of mourning, a holiday of sorrow for the people. ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... he proceeded to dress himself in Quilt Arnold's clothes, pulled the wig over his face and eyes so as completely to conceal his features, slouched the hat over his brows, drew the huge boots above his knees, and muffled himself up in the best way he could. On searching the coat, he found, amongst other matters, a mask, a key, and a pocket-book. The latter appeared to contain several papers, which Jack carefully put by, in the hope that they might turn out of ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... whitewashed walls. The orchestra consisted of one piece only, an ancient war drum, or tombe, and was located at the farther end of the room. It was beaten by an Indian, who was, if possible, more ancient than the drum. As we approached we heard the muffled sound of the drum within. "Caramba, amigo!" said my friend; "they are at it already, and judging from the sound, they are very gay to-night. Madre santissima! I remember that this is a great night for these ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... head, and gazed up and down the street as if to assure himself that no one was near. All was silence and solitude at that early hour, and presently the door opening wider gave egress to a young man muffled in a shabby cloak, who, with hurried but stealthy step, took the direction of the port. Hastening noiselessly through the deserted streets and lanes, he soon reached the quay, upon which were numerous storehouses of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... upon the garden a broad, strong flame of light—a flame which came so swiftly and suddenly, that a man, creeping along the River Walk, had not time to step out of its influence before I had caught full sight of him. There was not much to see, however. A man about the middle height, muffled in a cloak, wearing a cap, the peak of which was drawn down over his forehead: that was all I could discern, ere, cowering back from the light, he stole ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... dilapidated cottages had been razed to the ground. The fog still hung around them and seemed to bring with it a curious silence, although the dying traffic from one of the main thoroughfares reached them in muffled notes. Lutchester climbed to the top of a pile of rubbish and then, turning ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... been mistaken for a signal. Now she quickly displayed the night-signal of the American blockading fleet, as well as her own private number, but no answer came to either. By the time the Speedy's crew were at quarters it was evident, from muffled sounds borne down the wind, that the stranger was ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... evening I caught a glimpse of the tall gentleman going into the court of his hotel, with a lady closely muffled ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... good-night, and with muffled oar Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore, Just as the moon rose over the bay, Where swinging wide at her moorings lay The Somerset, British man-of-war: A phantom ship, with each mast and spar Across the moon, like a prison-bar, And a huge, black hulk, that was magnified ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... I was quite close to it, I heard some movement inside and I detected something in the yard. This something materialized very soon into a couple of evil faces and rifles with fixed bayonets. Inside of the house there were muffled voices. Near the rear gate (I could see it due to the sloping of the lot) three horses and a snow sledge were standing. A few voices were raised in dispute in the barn, swearing a blue streak. "Arrest"—it was clear. When I was trying to think of something to help,—and ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... have a stubborn soul, That apprehends no further than this world, And squarest thy life according. Thou'rt condemn'd: 480 But, for those earthly faults, I quit them all; And pray thee take this mercy to provide For better times to come. Friar, advise him; I leave him to your hand. What muffled ...
— Measure for Measure - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... was to Dinah the acme of delight, and for ever after the jingle of horse-bells was to recall it to her mind. The sight of the gay red trappings, the trot of the muffled hoofs, the easy motion of the sleigh slipping over the white road, and above all, Isabel, clad in purple and seated beside her, a figure of royal distinction, made a picture in her mind that she was never to forget. She rode in a magic ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... the villa gates into the street, I was aware of a cloaked figure standing at the first corner towards Florence, evidently upon the watch for me. The moment I was clear of the gate he came to meet me, and I saw that he was followed by another muffled man, and that both carried swords. I kept my course, however, as if they were no concern of mine, and made room for them to pass me on the side of the wall. But the first of them ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... was late next morning when some one called at the wicket of the little fold, where my goats are penned. I arose, and saw a peasant of my acquaintance leading a female strangely muffled up, and casting her eyes on the ground. My heart misgave me. I thought this was the very maid who had been the cause of such unheard-of wickedness. Nor were my conjectures ill-founded. Regardless of the clown who stood by in stupid astonishment, she fell ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... himself. He was intensely homesick. Therefore, still on the boundary line, he went to the telephone and called up a certain number. In a confident manner he asked for a limousine. After which he got into his overcoat, muffled himself up well around the ears and nose, for the air outside was cold with a biting north wind, and the rain still drove slantwise in torrents. In a few moments Ah Chang announced that ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... the wood and began to roll noiselessly towards the palisade. The darkness was now profound, the silence as complete as when Pencroft and the reporter crept over the ground. The thick grass completely muffled their footsteps. ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)
... overtook another driving in the direction of the convent. At a short distance from it, Mr Franklin ordered the coachman to pull up, and got out. He and the general then walked leisurely towards the gate, just as they got in sight of which, they caught a glimpse of three muffled figures stepping ...
— Clara Maynard - The True and the False - A Tale of the Times • W.H.G. Kingston
... the depot Alex was halted by a long, muffled whistle from the east. "The Express," he exclaimed, and in keen anxiety awaited the next whistle. Would it be for the crossing this side of the ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs
... muffled tones; and bounding out of bed he saw that there was a lurid light on the water, evidently reflected from something burning pretty near at hand, while there was the distant hum of voices, mingled with shrieks and ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... was Hawk Kennedy's mission now? Where had he gone unless to Black Rock again? And what would he be doing there? Was revenge his motive now, stronger since her revelation of her parentage? And was it Peter that he was going to...? Her cry was muffled in the bandage. He had gone back to Black Rock to lie in wait for Peter—to kill him perhaps. Sobbing anew she struggled again with her bonds, until at last she lay back relaxed and exhausted, and prayed with all her might to the God that ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... Muffled and indistinct the voices sounded through the glass and the mummy-case; but that the searchers were standing within a foot of his hiding-place Sheard was painfully certain. He shrank behind the sarcophagus lid like a tortoise within its shell, fearful lest a ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... nothing here. In the duchess's dressing-room: it is just under the room where I sleep. I awoke about half an hour ago, and I heard sounds from there. There was a sound as of muffled hammering, and then a noise, like the rasping of a file; and I thought I heard people moving about, ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope
... dull muffled explosion—the strange bomb. Instantly the men below began acting like madmen. Throwing away their rifles, they staggered about, tearing at their eyes, their throats, their clothing, and uttering wild cries ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... with a tree and a farm or two. A lovely scene with the sun reddening the veldt in the pure crisp air. I smoked a cigarette in great content of mind. Soon shapeless heaps of blankets began to move down the trucks, muffled heads blinked out from odd corners, and gradually the Battery woke, and thawed, and breakfasted on biscuit and bully beef. We have ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... the hill wound in and out among the trees, and so it happened that Rosemary heard muffled footsteps before she saw him coming. A wayfaring squirrel, the first of his family to venture out, scampered madly up a tree and looked down upon the girl with questioning, fearful eyes. She rose from the ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... either gang. Daggett saw the prudence of Roswell's, or rather of Stimson's system, and fell into it freely, and with hearty good-will. It was during Gardiner's visit to the wreck that our two masters talked over their plans for the winter, while taking their exercise on the schooner's deck, each well muffled up, to prevent the frost from taking hold of the more exposed parts. Every one had a seal-skin cap, made in a way to protect the ears and most of the face; and our two masters were thus provided, in common with ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... thing for an intriguing dame; and, by a stringent custom, bears a sacred inviolate right, for no man dare profane it by a touch, although he may even suspect the bright black eye, it may alone allow to be seen, to be that of his own wife! He can follow, if he likes, the graceful, muffled up figure that he dreads to be so familiar, but woe to the wretch who dares to pull aside a fair Limena's manto! If seen, he would surely experience the resentment of the crowd, and become a regular laughing-stock to ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... them. Methusaleh's spirits and confidence rose tremendously at such appearances. One after the other was silently pronounced "the real Lord Downy." Then came two or three sinister visages—faces half muffled up, with educated features, small cunning eyes, and perhaps green spectacles—conspirators every one—villains who had evidently conspired to reduce Mr Moses's balance at his banker's, and to get fat at his expense. Down went the spirits faster than they had ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... or Chicago. I dare say I ought to have gone to Seattle for it. My first sight of a stock-market roped off in the street was an acute disillusionment. In agitation it could not have competed with a sheep-market. In noise it was a muffled silence compared with the fine racket that enlivens the air outside the Paris Bourse. I saw also an ordinary day in the Stock Exchange. Faint excitations were afloat in certain corners, but I honestly ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... trees were tossed and swung about in the gloomy moonlight, his ears were assailed by a variety of wild sounds which had never reached them before. The deep and repeated crashes of the tempest, as it raged among them, was accompanied by a frightful repetition of hoarse moanings, muffled groans, and wild unearthly shrieks, which encountered him from a thousand quarters in the grove, and he began to feel that horrible excitement which is known to be occasioned by the mere transition from extreme cowardice ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... ever more bewildering sound of music. Time passed, and we still went on; losing little by little all consciousness except that of our own movement. Then it even seemed that we came out of ourselves; we heard nothing but a single beat, marking the cadence with strokes more and more muffled. The lights, melting into one, bathed us in a dreamy glow; we felt not the floor under our feet; we felt nothing but an immense oblivion—the oblivion of a void which ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... "making a tulip." She was running round in a comical enough fashion, her lower limbs being entirely exposed, as she wore no under-clothes; while her arms and the upper part of her body were imprisoned in the woollen skirts, whence issued her muffled protests. ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... short weeks before had gladdened the hearts of its people. Calmly and deliberately with folded arms O'Brien walked through the streets, and entered the Thurles Railway Station. He wore a black hat, a blue boat cloak, in which he was rather tightly muffled, and a light plaid trousers; in his hand he carried a large black stick. He walked to the ticket office and paid his fare to Limerick; then wrapping himself up in his cloak and folding his arms, again he walked slowly ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... back in her chair with a contented sigh. A little tug came snorting up the river. Even the roar of the traffic over Waterloo Bridge seemed muffled and disintegrated by the breeze which swept on its way through the rustling ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... approach. The roaring of the logs in the stove, and the monotonous clicking of the buttons and bullets one against the other as Eyelids shook them, and again as he emptied them upon the floor, like the ominous tapping of muffled hammers at work about a coffin, were the only sounds, and these, at last, by reason of their regularity, began to grow nerve-racking. Between the emptying of the moccasin, and the gathering up and re-shaking of the counters, Granger held his breath. It seemed to him that Eyelids was ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... grown very dark, and Bilh Ahati{COMBINING BREVE}ni became greatly frightened, but he stayed to listen and watch. Muffled strains of songs came from the deep recesses in each canon wall,—the gods were singing—and just within the openings, discernible in the glow of a fire, could be seen many dancers performing in ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... or sun, the landscape swarmed with men and horses; all day long bugle answered bugle from hill to hill; drums rattled at dawn and evening; the music from regimental and brigade bands was almost constant, saluting the nag at sunset, or, with muffled drums, sounding for the dead, or crashing out smartly at guard-mount, or, on dress parade, playing the ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... in the camp upon the mountain the superintendent heard a muffled roar echoing far away, and he laughed softly, turned over and went to sleep. In the morning, with two herders and their collies, he went back to the cienega. There was not much left of the musket, but in front of ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... down alone in the old familiar house which had ceased to be his, taking a calm if somewhat dismal survey of affairs. The pendulum of the clock bumped every now and then against one side of the case in which it swung, as the muffled drum to his worldly march. Looking out of the window he could perceive that a paralysis had come over Creedle's occupation of manuring the garden, owing, obviously, to a conviction that they might not be living there long enough to profit ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... his thick dark covering. It is questionable whether a human eye on the surface of Mercury would ever behold the sun, notwithstanding his near proximity; nor would he be often visible, if at all, from the surface of Jupiter. Nor, yet further, would a warm steaming atmosphere muffled in clouds have been unfavorable to a rank, flowerless vegetation like that of the Coal Measures. There are moist, mild, cloudy days of spring and early Summer that rejoice the heart of the farmer, for he knows how conducive ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... country, the king heard of her; and, thinking she might perhaps be able to suggest something, sent for her. In the dead of the night, lest the princess should know it, the king's messenger brought into the palace a tall woman, muffled from head to foot in a cloak of black cloth. In the presence of both their Majesties, the king, to do her honor, requested her to sit; but she declined, and stood waiting to hear what they had to say. Nor had she to wait long, for almost instantly they ...
— A Double Story • George MacDonald
... regularity. Their character may be tolerably imitated by pronouncing the syllables lubb, dup. One sound is heard immediately after the other, then there is a pause, then come the two sounds again. The first is a dull, muffled sound, known as the "first sound," followed at once by a short and sharper sound, known as the "second sound" ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... and lone! Still the old Swamp-Demon floats O'er the City, as our throats Have long known. And the people—ah, the people— Though as high as a church steeple They have gone For fresh air, that Demon's tolling In a muffled monotone Their doom, and rolling, rolling O'er the City overgrown. He is neither man nor woman, He is neither brute nor human, He's a Ghoul; Spectre King of Smells, he tolls, And he rolls, rolls, rolls. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Nov. 1, 1890 • Various
... again, will you make Mary here listen to me? That's all I ask. I want a few minutes to state my case. Give me that. Whether I win or lose, you men go free, and I'll forget everything that has happened here to-night." There came a muffled guffaw of laughter from the big chest of Chicago Red at this extraordinarily ingenuous proposal, while ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... muffled, they glided, silently and swiftly, towards the offing, edging away a little to the south, or farther side of the bay, to avoid the possibility of observation from the shore. They had proceeded swiftly for some minutes, and had passed the point on which ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... motors told him that the lower hatch was opening, and Jason watched as a hairline crack appeared in the thick metal, then widened as the heavy door ground outwards. Through the opening he had a glimpse of a figure muffled in a heavy-duty spacesuit. That must be Meta's work, she would have contacted the ship by radio while it was on its way down and explained the standing orders that no off-worlders were to be allowed out ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... he had gone to it in strange moods of poetry and romance, and watched the moon like a plate of dull and beaten gold sail above the Cathedral towers, he had sat behind it listening to the organ like a muffled giant whispering to be liberated from grey, confining walls, he had looked out of it on a still golden evening when the stars were silver buttons in the sky after a meeting with Annie; he went to it and gazed, heart-sick, ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... which looked like windows in a cabin on board ship. His wife's father told stories of the famous days when the smugglers came up from the sea at night, rowing through the net-work of rivers with muffled oars till they gained the lonely Broads, and sank their spirit casks in the water, far from the coast-guard's reach. His wild little children played at hide-and-seek with the visitors; and the visitors ranged in and out of the cottage, and round and round the morsel of ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... Mr. Thorwald," said Gascoyne, "I shall swim off to the schooner. If, as I expect, the men are on shore in a place that I wot of, and with which you have nothing to do, well and good. I will send a boat for you with muffled oars; but, mark you, let there be no noise in embarking or in getting aboard the schooner. If, on the other hand, the men are aboard, I will bring a boat to you myself, in which case silence will not be ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... out" at Harwell, and so, when at about nine the two boys beard many footfalls outside their door, and when in response to West's loud "Come" five mysterious and muffled figures in black masks entered they were ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... possibly wanting; they brought to his room everyone with whom he had ever had any sort of more than casual relations—Torrey, among scores of others. But he viewed each object and each person with the same awful despairing look, his immobile lips giving muffled passage to that eternal "Yes! Yes! Yes!" And at last they decided they were mistaken, that it was no particular thing he wanted, but only the natural fierce desire to break through those prison walls, invisible, translucent, intangible, ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... surprise and regret had died away, a sudden sound of alarm ran through the city, in curiously muffled tones that blanched the bravest faces,—a visitant, then feared beyond measure, that science had not been able to cope with. People spoke of it with bated breath. It was not simply among the poor and destitute, or those indifferent to cleanliness and order, but it spread ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... furlough to join their regiments; lascars, or enlisted workmen belonging to the different civil branches of the army; and camp-followers in all their varieties, were everywhere squatted on their haunches, and although muffled up to their eyes in wrappers of cotton-cloth, were all looking miserably cold from the sharpness of the morning breeze. The crew consisted of about twenty sailors—half of whom were Europeans, and evidently ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... sort of hollow muffled roar; and, sending up a fountain of watery spray mixed with blood from its spout- holes, splashed the sea violently with its formidable flukes, after which it rolled over, rocking from side to side in its last dying flurry or ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... dulled vision—all the show with its million actors. He saw for example the pathos in the patient eyes of the old lady yonder—still waiting at eighty; he caught the flash of scarlet ribbon beyond, the silent message of the black one (another long waiting); the muffled laugh and the muffled oath; the careless eyes that tossed the coin to the counter, the sharp eyes that followed it, the dead ones that picked it up and threw it into the nickeled cash box which flew ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... Sumners were walking behind him now with the luncheon-basket between them, talking earnestly in muffled whispers that were too intimate, and behind them again came the Gang itself, laughing, jostling one another, exchanging ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... Ninety millions, with suffused eyes, watch this vanishing remnant of a race, whose regnant majesty inspires at the very moment it succumbs to the iconoclasm of civilization. It is the imposing triumph of solitary grandeur sweeping beyond the reach of militant crimes, their muffled footfalls reaching beyond the margin of ...
— The Vanishing Race • Dr. Joseph Kossuth Dixon
... Local branches were Dens, each headed by a Grand Cyclops. The Den worked usually at night, when the members assembled clad in long white robes and white masks or hoods, discussed cases which needed attention, and then rode forth on horses whose bodies were covered and whose feet were muffled. The exploits of the Klan expanded, in the exaggerated stories common among the negroes, into the most amazing achievements. The members were thought to be able to take themselves to pieces, drink entire pailfuls of water, and devour "fried nigger meat." ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... was there again, that sound—a muffled scream from the other side of the stone door. A woman's scream of desperate entreaty. A shuddering, long-drawn moan, trailing off ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent
... hand impulsively, and then as quickly dropped it and turned away. The muffled chuck, chuck, of a horse's feet stepping past the door smote upon his ear, and a moment later a clear ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... a muffled report, a blinding smother of dust just in front of us, a crack, the noise of rent boughs, and about ten yards of the cliff-side—pines, undergrowth, and all—slid down into the road below, completely blocking it up. The uprooted trees swayed and tottered for a moment like drunken giants in the ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... and propitiate her. Once, for example, on his return from a campaign in which he had been exposed to great dangers, he disguised himself and came home at night in the garb of a courier bearing dispatches. He caused himself to be ushered, muffled and disguised as he was, into Fulvia's apartments, where he handed her some pretended letters, which, he said, were from her husband; and while Fulvia was opening them in great excitement and trepidation, he threw off his disguise, and revealed ...
— Cleopatra • Jacob Abbott
... multitude, one human being stood alone. Muffled in his cloak, and leaning against a column in the portico of St. Marc, an expression of oppressive care and affliction was imprinted on his countenance, and ill accorded with the light and festive scene. Had he been crossed in love, or had he lost at play? Was ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... Riding along a silent road, that passed through a strip of woods, he was trying to think of some new line of procedure, when the silence of the highway, that, hitherto, had resounded only with the muffled explosions of his machine, was broken ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-cycle • Victor Appleton
... With a muffled roar, the grenade shook the earth; sent a brown cloud spattering around us. I had made a desperate leap to get away, but even then I was covered by ...
— The Death-Traps of FX-31 • Sewell Peaslee Wright
... And thou, fierce rain, I need not dread Thy wonted touch upon my head! On, loving brothers! Wreak and spend Your force on all these dwellings. Rend These doors so pitilessly locked, To keep the friendless out! Strike dead The fires whose glow hath only mocked By muffled rays the night where I, The lonely ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... suddenly. His voice which had been raised to overcome the noise of even the muffled motor, sounded unnaturally loud, and no wonder, for ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Glider - or, Seeking the Platinum Treasure • Victor Appleton
... he begins his illimitable work. His life now is grafted upon the Infinite, and will be fruitful as no earthly life can be. Pass on, thou that hast overcome! Your sorrows O people, are his peace! Your bells, and bands, and muffled drums sound triumph in his ear. Wail and weep here; God makes it echo joy and triumph there. Pass ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... Turkey go naked for devotion's sake?" a certain man demanded of one of our loitering rogues whom in the depth of winter he saw wandering up and down with nothing but his shirt about him, yet as blithe and lusty as another that keeps himself muffled up to the ears in furs. "And have not you, good sir," answered he, "your fate all bare? Imagine ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... road thither he was overtaken by a stranger, whom he remembered as one of the passengers on the second car. He appeared to be about forty years of age, and though it was a warm summer evening he was muffled up about ...
— The Erie Train Boy • Horatio Alger
... Winford started up out of a sound sleep. He listened tensely. There was a murmur through the big freighter. He recognized it as the clanging of the great alarm gongs through the hull of the big ship, muffled by the walls of his stateroom. ...
— The Space Rover • Edwin K. Sloat
... their own force do they create; They climb to light, in her their root. Your brutish cry at muffled fate She smites with ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the street, under the arching ailantus, their footsteps muffled by the carpet of the fallen blossoms; and there was a thoughtful look on his face when he went into his office, and, lighting his lamp, sat down to look over some papers. "How is that going to come out?" ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... continuous—a soft melodious warble, full of sweetness and suggestion; but suggestion of June meadows and a summer sunrise, rather than of snow-packed evergreens and Christmastide. To add to the unreality, no ear could tell where the song came from; its own muffled quality disguised the source perfectly. I searched the trees in front; there was no bird there. I looked behind; there was no place for a bird to sing. I remembered the redstart, how he calls sometimes ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... my dear child, you will, I am sure, excuse me now and henceforth, from entering into details of all the horrible beasts which swarm in the shallows of the animal world, and whom learned men have in their wonderful wisdom muffled up in terrible names, in order to prevent children from coming near them! What would you have thought of the poor little squilla, so prettily baptised by the fishermen, if I had taught you that it belonged to the order of Stomatopoda? You will scarcely be able ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... Brown, he muffled up his anger pretty well, He said, "I have a notion, and that notion I will tell; I will nab this gay young sorter, terrify him into fits, And get my gentle wife to ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... his generosity every time he and his ship appeared in the harbor the bells were rung in his honor. They were rung on market days to please the farmers who came into town with their wagons loaded with poultry and vegetables. They were rung muffled in times of public disaster and were kept busy in that way in the French and Indian wars. They were also rung muffled for Franklin when it was learned that while in London he had favored the Stamp Act—a means of expressing popular opinion ...
— The Quaker Colonies - A Chronicle of the Proprietors of the Delaware, Volume 8 - in The Chronicles Of America Series • Sydney G. Fisher |
