"Muffled" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... knocking. He has declared since—but, perhaps, confounding the feelings gained from better knowledge with the feelings of the moment—that from the moment he drew the bolt he had a misgiving that he had done wrong. A man entered in a horseman's cloak, and so muffled up that the journeyman could discover none of his features. In a low tone the stranger said, "Where's Heinberg?"—"Upstairs."—"Call him down, then." The journeyman went to the door by which Mr. Heinberg had left him, and called, ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... instead of an old bumping-mule down in a coal-mine. Derrick ran after him, and for some time could see the reflection of the collar-lamp, which was swung violently to and fro by the animal's rapid motion. The disappearance of this light in the distance was followed by an angry shouting and a muffled crash. ...
— Derrick Sterling - A Story of the Mines • Kirk Munroe
... But the blood rushed back to its courses with his still quicker consciousness of safety, and he could make out, as he recovered his balance, that his emotion struck her simply as a violent surprise. He gave a muffled murmur: "Ah, it's you, my beloved!" which lost itself as he drew her close and held her long, in the intensity of his embrace and the wonder of his escape. It took more than a minute for him to say over to himself often enough, ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... twelve, were concealed in the hold; to invite attack, the vessel advanced boldly up-stream, and at nightfall cast anchor in the narrow channel in front of Turkey Island. About midnight the Indians stealthily boarded their canoes and cautiously, but confidently, swept towards her with muffled paddles. The Gladwyn was ready for them. Not a sound broke the silence of the night as the Indians approached the schooner; when suddenly the clang of a hammer against the mast echoed over the calm waters, the signal to the soldiers ...
— The War Chief of the Ottawas - A Chronicle of the Pontiac War: Volume 15 (of 32) in the - series Chronicles of Canada • Thomas Guthrie Marquis
... street was black with people. Great crowds of womenfolk, tucked and muffled in black hooded cloaks, tramped as in a dream along the houses, over the squeaking snow. They shuffled from door to door, stuck out their bony hands and asked plaintively for their God's-penny. They disappeared at the end of the street and went ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... unsuspecting sleep I lay, Some midnight ruffians rush'd into my chamber, Sent by Egisthus, who my presence deem'd Obstructive (so I solve it) to his views, Black views, I fear, as you perhaps may know, Sudden they seiz'd, and muffled up in darkness, Strait bore me to the sea, whose instant prey I did conclude myself, when first around The ship unmoor'd, I heard the chiding wave. But these fel tools of cruel power, it seems, Had orders in a desart isle ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... is devoted to the otter family. These ingenious animals are found in the four quarters of the world. Here are the common European otter; the otters of Java and India; the clawless African otter, from the Cape of Good Hope; and the sea and muffled otters, from America. Next to these interesting animals, are some of the bears, including the savage Arctic white bear, the Malay bear, and the Indian sloth bear. Next to these bears, the racoons are grouped, and they close the collection illustrative of the bear tribe. In the case ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold
... natural freshness; it thunders again, and the thunder is followed, not by rain, but by torrents, which pour down from the convulsed sky. The forest groans; the whizzing rustle of the waving leaves becomes a hollow murmuring sound, which at length resembles the distant roll of muffled drums. Flowers are scatterd to and fro, leaves are stripped from the boughs, branches are torn from the stems, and massy trees are overthrown; the terrible hurricane ravishes all the remaining virgin charms of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, No. - 537, March 10, 1832 • Various
... struck her that this must be the night of the 14th of May, the night on which Henry of Navarre was to be killed. She gave a scream of terror, or what she fancied a scream; in reality it was the faintest of muffled sounds, like the tiny squeal of a distressed mouse, which seemed to startle the owner of the hand into quicker measures. He threw back the hangings and came towards Sylvia, addressing her distinctly. The voice was so ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth
... war was over a spy informed Lord Augustus Loftus, then Her Majesty's Ambassador at Berlin, that a certain channel or waterway existed unguarded by any fort at all, by which a British flotilla with muffled oars could have got quietly into the Neva without taking the trouble to destroy the Russian fleet or to blow the seven forts of Cronstadt into the air. The revelations of the spy went for nothing; and, after the cutlasses of the lads in blue-jackets had been ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... The muffled, helmeted figure of a pilot climbed down the spider ladder, nestled into the foremost scout's cockpit and pressed the starting button. The motor spat out a wisp of smoke, then burst into its full-throated roar: the automatic clamp above loosened: the scout dropped plummet-like, bobbed to the ...
— Raiders Invisible • Desmond Winter Hall
... and gloom of those dark days in Washington, when the suspense was breathless and the heart of the nation responded in muffled beats to the dull booming of the cannon of Meade and Lee at Gettysburg, an episode occurred, with Lincoln as the central figure, which reveals perhaps more poignantly than any other in his whole career the depths of feeling in that ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... came a muffled cry, then the tent began to pitch and toss. Evidently a savage struggle was ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... I look through, I see most clearly poor Miss Loo, Her tabby cat, her cage of birds, Her nose, her hair, her muffled words, And how she would open her green eyes, As if in some immense surprise, Whenever as we sat at tea She made ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume I. • Walter de la Mare
... again quite yet," said Rose, glancing at her mother's exposed shoulders, but speaking as if they were muffled in crape. ...
— The Chaperon • Henry James
... her removal. The boys dragged her along the passageway, and, nearing the stairs, noticed a peculiar sound, something like a muffled explosion, followed by a sudden lurch of the ship, which destroyed their balance so that they were compelled to drop ...
— The Boy Volunteers with the Submarine Fleet • Kenneth Ward
... fellows had lost that. The regiments passed on in turn, the sunlight glittering on their arms. Through the vista of the boulevard the eagles of the Second Empire rose above, the grave colonels were conspicuous at the head, and the drum-beats, choked by the towering buildings, sounded a melancholy muffled march that was befitting. It was the scene pictured by Detaille in Le Regiment qui Passe. Could he have been with us on the curbstone making his studies? It was indeed for them a funeral march, for they were on they way to Sedan. The Prussians, ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... in the smoke-room the conversation was limited to the announcement of bids and orders to the stewards. This group had about exhausted available discussion when the ship gave a sudden lurch sideways and forward. There was a muffled noise like the slamming of some large door at a good distance away. The slightness of the shock and the mildness of the report compared with my imagination was disappointing. Every man in the room was on his ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... believe it firmly) to expand our faculties in every line, and, with our powers of comprehension, increase our powers of admiration. I shall never feel the real beauty of military music, or the full sense of the muffled roll of the drum, till it leads me to battle, or marshals me to execution. Is it the same with my affections? Perhaps it is. Perhaps it is not in my nature passionately to love where I have never suffered. ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... was worn and weak, and the mystery of the night and the dark silent garden wove a spell upon him and his heart leaped at the touch of his lips upon her fingers. Their figures were only blurs in the dark, and their low tones died instantly, muffled by the night. She opened the gate as he began to promise not to appear before her again in any way to bring her trouble; but her ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... while resenting that the courtliness of his wife had been accused in the midnight gossip of guest, he found that her mother had been a bondmaid. For Amleth said he had noted in her three blemishes showing the demeanor of a slave; first, she had muffled her head in her mantle as handmaids do; next, that she had gathered up her gown for walking; and thirdly, that she had first picked out with a splinter, and then chewed up, the remnant of food that stuck in the crevices between her teeth. Further, he mentioned that the king's mother had ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... communicate, then helplessly motion with his hands. But even while she held her breath, gazing at him, a change came over the radiant features. He looked at her again, his face worked; at last John Berber with a muffled groan burst into ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... Elizabeth paused to say, in a somewhat muffled voice, entirely owing to plum cake and not grief, "that one of us ...
— What Two Children Did • Charlotte E. Chittenden
... breaks, chill and pallid, a change has come in the aspect of affairs. During the earliest hour of the dawn the red light of a light-draught river-boat startled the outlying pickets down-stream, and the Far West, answering the muffled hail from shore, responded, through the medium of a mate's stentorian tones, "News that'll rout you fellows out." The sun is hardly peeping over the jagged outline of the eastern hills when, with Rayner's entire ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... whom was Benjamin Franklin, Paul Jones decided to attack the town of Whitehaven, which had been well known to him as a boy. In the depth of night the Ranger stole into the entrance of the harbor and dropped anchor. Then two boats put off from her with muffled oars, Paul Jones in command of one and his lieutenant, whose name was Wallingford, in charge of ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... A muffled voice, coming as from the bowels of the earth, said, "Walk inside. Liberty Hall.... Free ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... shadows—it was quite dark—into the flickering light of the lamp came somebody all muffled up. I started horribly. It was a girl, quite a pretty girl, too, but very pale, and with over-bright eyes. She gave one quick glance up into my face, muttered something, an apology, I think, and drew back again into ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... and there was silence; then came sounds of cars being coupled—and meantime Samuel was kicking and beating upon the wall. He was almost exhausted and in despair—when suddenly from outside came a muffled call—"Hello!" ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair
... and the doctor and the ambulance sledge did not arrive. Instead of going the way the others had disappeared, they tried a route they thought easier and took too high a line in the forest. The trees muffled sound, and though both parties were shouting and whistling, they heard nothing till at about 6.30 p.m. one of the watchers heard a runner near and went off after him in the dark and luckily found him. This man was scouting for the doctor and sledge ...
— Ski-running • Katharine Symonds Furse
... them walking down 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?" he said to himself. "Neither ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... transferred the pocket-book to the coat he was wearing, picked up the bomb, came out into the smoking-room, and listened. A muffled roaring thumping came from the well of the lift. It almost sounded as if, in their exasperation, Guerchard and Dieusy were engaged in a struggle to the death. Smiling pleasantly, he stole to the window and looked out. His eyes brightened ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson
... speechless and motionless, gazed at the tremendous spectacle. The babe crept to its mother's feet, its cheeks like marble, and appealed to her for protection. Mrs. McMurray, in helpless terror, had closed her eyes and ears to the storm, and sat upon a chest, muffled in a shawl. ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... time of year, and as she used to have more frequently when Horace spoke of incautious early risers getting nipped by the cold. One of the first things that strikes us as we make our way to the place of general rendezvous muffled in our thickest and heaviest cloaks and shawls is the apparent insensibility of this people to the cold. One would have expected it to be just the reverse. But whether it be that their organisms have stored up such a quantity of sunshine during the summer ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... again for some moments. The great inky mass was extending toward the eastward, and approaching the fire burning on the mountain-top, and the moon rising above and to the left of it; and from beneath its black shadow came a heavy, muffled sound that ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... Marmaduke, but I'm not in London much of the time, so London's stalest gossip is news to me." The end of this sentence was muffled in the folds of her riding skirt that she was drawing off over her head, and the landlord of The Jolly Grig took occasion ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... white stick, with the pincers, which he carefully laid upon the fire. Then with his left hand he gently fanned the flames, and his mouth being protected by the linen cloth in such a manner that his breath could not defile the sacred fire, he began slowly and in a voice muffled by the bandage he wore, to recite the ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... the progress of the flood. The noise was a distinct combination of two kinds of sound: one, an uniform continued roar; the other, like rapidly repeated discharges of cannon. The first of these proceeded from the violence of the water; the other, which was heard through it, and as it were muffled by it, came from the numerous stones which the stream was hurling over its uneven bed of rock. Above all this was heard the shrieking of the wind. The leaves were stripped off the trees and whirled into the air, and their thick boughs and stems ...
— The Rain Cloud - or, An Account of the Nature, Properties, Dangers and Uses of Rain • Anonymous
... muffled in a cloak, which he wore in such a manner as to conceal his face, drew near, and stooping over the bed, gazed at the features of Louis. For a moment D'Artagnan thought that this person had some evil ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... detail that did not interest Dink in the least. He had clashed with The Roman and not retreated. He had his first moment of triumph, attested by the admiring glances of the class and the muffled ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... Jeekie when a light coming from behind him attracted his attention and he turned to see her standing in a corner of the great room, holding a lamp in her hand and looking towards him. Her gold breastplate and crown were gone, with every other ornament, and she was clad, or rather muffled in robes of pure white fitted with a kind of nun's hood which lay back upon her shoulders. Also on her arm she carried a shawl or veil. Standing thus, all undecked, with her long hair fastened in a simple knot, she still looked very beautiful, ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... little tidy scrumptious lookin' sleigh, a real clipper of a horse, a string of bells as long as a string of inions round his neck, and a sprig on his back, lookin' for all the world like a bunch of apples broke off at gatherin' time, and a sweetheart alongside, all muffled up but her eyes and lips—the one lookin' right into you, and the other talkin' right at you—is e'enamost enough to drive one ravin' tarin' distracted mad with pleasure, ain't it? And then the dear critters say the bells ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... his terrible axe flashed incessantly and every time it fell a shriek or a muffled groan showed that it had found its fatal mark. The huge form of the warrior black seemed, however, to bear a charmed life. Again and again one of the attacking force would fire at him, but the bullets ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... was so far from being admirable in the eyes of these distant connections, had happened to say this very morning (not at all with a defiant air, but in a low, muffled, neutral tone, as of a voice heard through cotton wool) that she did not wish "to enjoy their good opinion." She was seated, as she observed, on her own brother's hearth, and had been Jane Featherstone five-and-twenty years before she had been Jane Waule, which entitled her ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... the valley, mist no less That muffled every cry Across the soul's grey wilderness Where faith lay down to die; Buried beyond all hope was I, Hope had no meaning there: A yard above my head the sky ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... word as a piece, there are more pieces in an average copy of verses than in a violin. The poet has forced all these words together, and fastened them, and they don't understand it at first. But let the poem be repeated aloud and murmured over in the mind's muffled whisper often enough, and at length the parts become knit together in such absolute solidarity that you could not change a syllable without the whole world's crying out against you for meddling with the harmonious fabric. Observe, too, how the drying process takes place in the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... were pronounced with such an accent of truth that the fisherman was struck by them. An unexpected gleam of hope suddenly dawned in his thoughts; he cast upon the stranger a glance of hate and distrust, and muttered in a muffled voice, "Do not flatter yourself, in any case, that you will be able ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... ambassador from Tripoli and his son were carried to see that chamber. The procession through a line of foot-guards, every seventh man bearing a torch, the horse-guards lining the outside, their officers with drawn sabres and crape sashes on horseback, the drums muffled, the fifes, bells tolling, and minute guns,—all this was very solemn. But the charm was the entrance of the abbey, where we were received by the dean and chapter in rich robes, the choir and almsmen bearing torches; the whole abbey so ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... From the dark recesses of the stone portico emerged three muffled figures, and one of them laid his rough grasp upon the delicate arm of the countess and dragged ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... time was almost directly overhead and was descending rapidly. Presently two ropes were thrown out, and a muffled voice cried, "Catch hold of ...
— Dick, Marjorie and Fidge - A Search for the Wonderful Dodo • G. E. Farrow
... husband. After listening to them for some time, with thoughtful attention, I at length succeeded perfectly in translating their import. They were sounds occasioned by the artist in prying open the oblong box, by means of a chisel and mallet—the latter being apparently muffled, or deadened, by some soft woollen or cotton substance in which ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... been speaking with his voice somewhat muffled under the bed, but now emerged, bearing a dusty bottle ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... hear the sound of the wearing action as the wave goes to and fro. We can often see that the water is discoloured by the mud or powdered rock. When, however, the waves tumble on a sandy coast, they make but a muffled sound, and produce no mud. In fact, the particles of sand do not touch each other when they receive the blow. Between them there lies a thin film of water, drawn in by the attraction known as capillarity, which sucks the fluid into a sponge or ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... personally towards an alliance with France; his people had their eyes "opened to the dangers" —incurred by Europe from the arms of Louis XIV. "Certain persons of the greatest influence in Parliament come sometimes to see me, without any lights and muffled in a cloak in order not to be recognized," says a letter of September 26, 1669, from the Marquis of Ruvigny to M. de Lionne; "they give me to understand that common sense and the public security forbid them to see, without raising a finger, the whole of the Low ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... an important journey was very evident. They were muffled up in ulsters, and wore gloves and top hats—a vanity no Mountjoy boy ever succumbed to, except under dire necessity. Yet it was clear they were not homeward bound, for no trunks encumbered the lobby, and no suggestion of Dulce Domum betrayed itself in their dismal ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... aside from being locked up in this deserted villa with its broken chairs and vacant picture frames and general air of hasty abandonment there's nothing to disturb the tranquillity of my reflections except the recurring tramp of the muffled sentry below my broken window ... this building has a sort of Byzantine cut in its architectural design.... On the other side of the valley there's a minaret or two visible through the smoky haze.... Off to the ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... but to 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 they are to the young growth ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... its latest recruit, continued remote. Wilbur would happily observe his one-time brother, muffled in robes of fur, glide swiftly past in a sleigh of curved beauty, drawn by horses that showered music along the roadway from a hundred golden bells, but there were no direct encounters save with old Sharon Whipple. Sharon, even before winter came, had formed a habit of stopping to speak ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... slouched along with their hands deep in their pockets; the fourth carried a bag of some kind, which apparently was no burden to him, for it swung lightly backwards and forwards on two of his fingers. The men's faces were all muffled in scarves, and their caps pulled down over their eyes. As they walked along the field-path in single file they preserved a profound silence. At last they reached a stile which brought them out close to the end of ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... the shades of Death's deep night, Departed Whigs enjoy the fight, And think on former daring: The muffled murtherer of Charles The Magna Charter flag unfurls, All deadly ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... there was a tremendous crash and Mary Louise found herself thrown off into the water, while a muffled roar rolled through the ...
— The Iceberg Express • David Magie Cory
... 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. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... his lips, he sprang upon a stool, where, with his mouth twisted spasmodically and his hair streaming behind him, he could force nothing more than unintelligible hisses from his parched throat. And in the meantime, up above, the collector of municipal dues, a little old man, muffled in a collar of imitation astrachan, remained with nothing but his nose showing under his black velvet skullcap. And the tall, dark-complexioned female clerk, with eyes shining calmly in her face, which had been slightly reddened ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... plunged into a whirlpool, swinging out of Broadway to meet the rapids which poured in from east, west, and north. On Fifth Avenue all the automobiles in the world were gathered together. On the sidewalks, pedestrians, muffled against the nipping chill of the crisp air, hurried to and fro. And, above, that sapphire sky spread a rich velvet curtain which made the tops of the buildings stand out like the white minarets of some eastern ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... seat, muffled in the way which he described, and after a few minutes' reflection, with a trepidation which argued the patient still to be under the nervous feeling of extreme horror mixed with terror, he addressed Douban thus: "The operation of wrong and cruelty, ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... for he has just discovered that an elegantly attired gentleman leaning over the balcony near him was none other than the amiable deputy Duthil. He had at first fancied that a woman muffled in wraps who stood close beside the deputy was the little Princess de Harn, whom he had very likely brought to see the execution since he had taken her to see the trial. On closer inspection, however, he had found that this woman was Silviane, the perverse creature ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... lad, of very small stature, who had a kind of charge of the poultry under the old henwife; for in a Scottish family of that day there was a wonderful substitution of labour. This urchin being sent for from the stubble-field, was hastily muffled in the buff coat, and girded rather to than with the sword of a full-grown man, his little legs plunged into jack-boots, and a steel cap put upon his head, which seemed, from its size, as if it had been intended to extinguish him. ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... refuse to allow two shipwrecked lads to enter the house for shelter on such a day; and it seemed well nigh impossible that his tale of the place being too full to hold us could be true. However, we started to walk. On our way we met four horsemen going towards the house, closely muffled up in cloaks." ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... windows facing the Schloss Platz rejoiced for days beforehand in open draperies and freshly cleaned plate glass, giving an unwonted look of cheer and human habitableness to the majestic and venerable pile through which we had walked, a few weeks before, with hushed voices and muffled footsteps, gazing on the rich decorations of the public rooms, the glittering candelabra, the silver balustrades, the ancient plate, the historic paintings and monuments which recall past centuries ...
— In and Around Berlin • Minerva Brace Norton
... long wanderings in the twilight solitudes of Canadian forests; of dangers from wolves and the wild coyotes, half-dog, half-wolf, heard nightly howling round the Indian camp-fires; and from the intangible malice of the skunk, a beautiful but dreadful power, to be propitiated with bated breath and muffled footstep. He told, too, of the chip-munks, with their sharp twittering bark; and he contrived to invest even these tiny creatures with an atmosphere of terror—for it is well known that their temper is atrocious, and that a colony of them will set upon the unfortunate ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... been done without noise; not loud enough to be heard across the hall, perhaps, but enough to be heard by a light sleeper, or, indeed, any one who did not sleep too soundly and with muffled ears, say, in that room," pointing through the curtained arch which divided the dressing from ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... 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
... also carried a flash-light and whistle. He shouldered first one mine and then the other, each the weight of a big man, took them up the hill, and put them under a little brickwork bridge within a hundred and fifty yards of the Turkish sentries, who were talking round their fire. Though he muffled the fuse pistol it was heard by the Turks, who came running toward him, firing as hard as they could. He let them have his first clip of seven shots slap in the face and then raced a mile along the line, doubled back a bit down the cliff, and swam off toward the submarine. His whistle ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... apart, and left us face to face with one man. He was a little below middle height, and all muffled in a thick coat with a fur collar. He wore a silver helmet with an eagle atop of it, and kept his left hand resting on his sword. Below the helmet was a face the colour of grey paper, from which shone curious ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... how much he would like to tie his little sledge behind a cart, when a big sledge, painted white, drove by. In it sat some one muffled in a white fur coat and cap. Twice the sledge drove round ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... is lying very deep. My house is sheltered from the blast. I hear each muffled step outside, I hear ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... so far, had disturbed the stillness of the night. Save for the muffled throb of the rare all-night cars passing the front of the house, our vigil had been a silent one. The full moon had painted about the floor weird shadows of the clustering ivy, spreading the design gradually from the door, across ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... this apparition, its thin voice curiously muffled by the tenuous air. "Petway fell in ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay
... so quickly; he takes a great deal of dying,—the whole of the third act being occupied by that inevitable operation. Newgate—a "stock" scene at this theatre—an execution, a lady in black and a state of derangement, a muffled drum, and a "view of Kennington Common," terminate the life of "James Dawson," who, we had the consolation to observe, from the apathy of the audience, will not be put to the trouble of dying for more ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... so an exchange could be effected. Col. Barton of the Rhode-Island militia, a brave and cautious officer, was charged with the capture of Major-Gen. Prescott, commanding the royal army at Newport. On the night of the 9th of July, 1777, Col. Barton, with forty men, in two boats with muffled oars, evaded the enemy's boats, and, being taken for the sentries at Prescott's head-quarters, effected that officer's capture—a Negro taking him. The exploit was bold ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... the stream to beat linen on the stones. The stream made loops of water round their ankles. But none of that could show clearly through the swaddlings and blanketings of the Cambridge night. The stroke of the clock even was muffled; as if intoned by somebody reverent from a pulpit; as if generations of learned men heard the last hour go rolling through their ranks and issued it, already smooth and time-worn, with their blessing, for the ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... huddled sheep, wildly scampering over the slaty shingle, emerged from the leaden mist that muffled the fell-top, and a shrill shepherd's whistle broke the damp stillness of the air. And presently a man's figure appeared, following the sheep down the hillside. He halted a moment to whistle curtly to his two dogs, who, laying ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various
... leader stopped and raised his hand. Standing still, they heard a muffled sound that might have been made by the fall of hoofs ahead, and they hastily turned toward a clump of spruce. The trees concealed them and the sound grew nearer, until they could see the dim shapes of men and horses moving through the driving ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... with the idea of becoming a recluse, of living in some hushed retreat where the turmoil of life would be muffled—as in those streets covered with straw to prevent any sound from ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... him up on a lamp post!" "Bring him out!" "He'll get away if left to the officers!" And over all the cries, the shouts, the curses, the noise of shuffling feet, the very sound of heavy breathing— that—the numbers of the mob magnified to a muffled, formidable undernote, pealed louder and louder the Monumental bell, which now Bert Taylor—or some one else—was ringing ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... the banks of buttons and switches. Muffled thunder from the stern jets trembled through the hull as the ...
— This World Must Die! • Horace Brown Fyfe
... the depths of her clothes closet. Her voice sounded muffled. "Pinky, you're talking the way they did at that tea you gave for father and me when we visited New York last winter." She emerged with a cool-looking blue kimono. "Here. Put this on. Father'll ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... of Aunt Prue's hands. She herself, as Cap'n Ira had warned her, was cast, face downward, into the half-filled clothes basket. The blue dress was whirled high in the air, skirt downward. Before the old man was warned by Prudence's muffled scream that something had gone wrong, the starched dress plumped down over his head and shoulders, and he was bound fast and ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... who had just appeared from the booking-office. She was, perhaps, a year or two over thirty, tall, dark, and of rather full figure. As George talked, I saw her glance at me, and my vanity was hurt by the thought that, muffled in a fur coat and a neck-wrapper (for it was a chilly April day) and wearing a soft travelling hat pulled down to my ears, I must be looking very far from my best. A moment ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... I was very close to him, at such times; And that his thick-ribbed lips, —Gone to dust for unknown centuries— Had met mine inscrutably, By a magic hid in the pipestem, Making me his familiar and hail fellow. Almost I felt his breath, And the muffled sound of his heart-beats; Almost I grasped his hand, And shook the antediluvian, With a shake of grimmest fellowship Trying to cozen him of his grim secret. But sudden the gusty wind came, Laughing away the illusion, And I ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the Dale; while the snow fell relentlessly; softly fingering the windows, blocking the doors, and piling deep against the walls. Inside the house there was a strange quiet; no sound save for hushed voices, and upstairs the shuffling of muffled feet. ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... outside the arch—an ordinary-looking close carriage, drawn by a light-colored horse, and driven by a coachman who was singularly muffled up, considering the heat of the night. The Doctor mechanically noticed that there were no lamps to the carriage, as, in obedience to the eager pressure of his companion's hand, he got in. The other followed, shutting the door ...
— A Bachelor's Dream • Mrs. Hungerford
... not clear as before, although close at hand, for the thick woods muffled it. For another three minutes we waited—the Princess silent, standing a little apart, with thoughtful brow, the two men conversing in rapid guttural undertones; then far up the track beneath the boughs a musket-barrel glinted, and another and another, glint following glint, as ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... streets, from the tearful eyes, and the audible prayerful ejaculations that escaped the lips of bystanders (many of them the poorest of the poor), as the orphans filed past, following the hearse; from the suspension of all traffic in the principal streets, the tolling of muffled bells, and the half-masted flags, and from the dense crowds in the cemetery that awaited the arrival of the funeral company, it seemed as if the whole city had spontaneously resolved to do honour to the man who had not lived for himself, but for the glory ...
— Answers to Prayer - From George Mueller's Narratives • George Mueller
... When I get up I'll give you a sound thrashing. Women will lead you to no good." So saying, he leaned his hand upon his hand and gazed intently at the muffled form ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... with my wife, I out, leaving her and Mrs. Ferrers there, and I to Captain Cocke's, there to do some business, and then away with Cocke in his coach through Kent Streete, a miserable, wretched, poor place, people sitting sicke and muffled up with plasters at every 4 or 5 doors. So to the 'Change, and thence I by water to the Duke of Albemarle's, and there much company, but I staid and dined, and he makes mighty much of me; and here he tells us ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... any rate men do not hate others more than themselves. After a half-satirical apology for duelling, he concludes with one insurmountable objection; duelling is wholly repugnant to religion, adding with the muffled scepticism characteristic of the 18th century, 'how to reconcile them must be left to wiser ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... the heat, And murmur in mine ears unceasingly The surging tides of that vast human sea— The billows of life that break with muffled beat And vibrate through this high and lone retreat; While over all, serene, and fair, and free, Thy dome is reared in naked majesty Grey, old St Paul's ... In thee the Ages meet, Slumbering amidst the ...
— Elves and Heroes • Donald A. MacKenzie
... mistaking him either, though he was muffled up to the chin. With his tight-waisted greatcoat, a glimpse of an olive face with two piercing dark eyes, which flashed an inquiring glance as they passed—there was no excuse for error. It was Colonel Prince Serganoff ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... awoke before daylight. It might have been the middle of the night except that, far down in the still house, he heard a muffled scrape and clank as Martin set the furnace in order for the day. Bobby knew six o'clock by these dull, distant, comfortable sounds. The air in the room was very frosty and Bobby's nose was as cold as a dog's; but underneath the warm double blanket and the eider-down quilted ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... was calling him. Its beat, muffled and irregular, yet urged him forward. A flag waved dazzlingly before his eyes; its folds stifled him. He tried to move, yet could not—the drum called ever more urgently. He started awake, to find himself on his ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... Albans, and Tom is enjoying the ride, though half-frozen. The guard, who is alone with him on the back of the coach, is silent, but has muffled Tom's feet up in straw, and put the end of an oat-sack over his knees. The darkness has driven him inwards, and he has gone over his little past life, and thought of all his doings and promises, and of his mother and sister, and his father's last words; and has made fifty good resolutions, ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... I heard you," Micheals said in a muffled voice, his eyes still closed. "You found ...
— The Leech • Phillips Barbee
... expectant and Jim well muffled, must have presented a picture I would give anything to have preserved ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... scissors-grinder. I know not what skill is required, yet it needs a pretty eye and even foot. The ragman takes to an ancestral business and chants the ancient song of his fathers. When distance has somewhat muffled its nearer sharpness, the song bears a melody unparalleled among tradesmen's cries. Window glass, too, is hawked pleasantly from house to house and requires but a knife and putty. In the spring the vegetable vender, standing in his wagon, utters melodious ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... vertigo, for one feels at first a sort of terror mingled with sensuous delight as though peering down from some dizzy height. While shameful secret dissipation ruins the noblest of men, in frank and open irregularities there is some palliation even for the most depraved. He who goes at nightfall, muffled in his cloak, to sully his life incognito, and to clandestinely shake off the hypocrisy of the day, resembles an Italian who strikes his enemy from behind, not daring to provoke him to open quarrel. There are assassinations in the dark corners of the city under shelter of the ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... the wall beside him, sharp tappings muffled by distance, the faintest whispering echo of rock striking upon rock. Tap-tap ... tap. A longer pause.... Tap. They were making dots and dashes that blurred with the ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin
... you're paying him," came Eliza's muffled voice. She freed herself from Murray's embrace and rearranged her hair with tremulous fingers. Surreptitiously she wiped her eyes. "You gave us an awful fright; it's terrible to be evicted in winter-time." She tried to laugh, but ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... and saddled up the Squadron waits for the advance to begin and to drop into its place in the line of march as the Brigade moves past. Voices in the darkness, then shadowy forms, and, their horses' hoofs muffled by the dust, Brigade Headquarters passes by. Then the three regiments, one British and two Indian, each of the latter followed by crowds of donkeys looking ghostly white in the gloom. At length ...
— Through Palestine with the 20th Machine Gun Squadron • Unknown
... with raiment of white waves, Thy brave brows lightening through the gray wet air, Thou, lulled with sea-sounds of a thousand caves, And lit with sea-shine to thy inland lair, Whose freedom clothed the naked souls of slaves And stripped the muffled souls of tyrants bare, Oh, by the centuries of thy glorious graves, By the live light of the earth that was thy care, Live, thou must not be dead, Live; let thy armed head Lift itself up to sunward and the ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... You leave me alone. I ain't stoppin' here. I ain't hungry. I just grubbed at the school. Sleepin' at Missouri Pete's to-night. Got to make the railroad tomorrow." The old man stopped his precipitate statements. He sat in his sledge deeply muffled, blinking at Drake and the buccaroos, who had strolled out to look at him, "Done a big business this trip," said he. "Told you I would. Now if you was only givin' your children a Christmas-tree like that I seen that feller yer ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... rumbling sound was to be heard. Time and again they halted to listen. It was a changeless, sullen, muffled roar. Finally, when they reached the sixth lake, later in the afternoon, their curiosity got the better of them and they climbed a barren eminence to investigate. As they neared the summit the roar increased in volume, and when they reached the top and looked to ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... the same time wondering who it could be, because there did not seem to be anything familiar about the half muffled tones. ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... Sometimes he met a staring face beyond the heads about him, or under the arms of his conductors, or peering down upon him from a waggon-top or coach-box; but this was all he saw, being surrounded by so many men. The very noises of the streets seemed muffled and subdued; and the air came stale and hot upon him, like the sickly breath ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... Mrs. Fulton had invited to help entertain the children, were stationed in the various rooms. Dressed in queer costumes, they played bits of weird music on the piano, or struck occasional clanging notes from muffled gongs. ...
— Marjorie's Busy Days • Carolyn Wells
... sea and the overhanging cliff muffled the sound of his fall. And no one heard or saw—save ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... hear the hungry Winter prowling round the outer door, And the tread of muffled footsteps on the white piazza floor; But the sounds came to me only as the murmur of a stream That mingled with the ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... bury the visitor in the gloomy depth beneath. The desolation and decay impress themselves on all the senses. The air has a mouldering smell, and an earthy taste; any stray outer sounds that straggle in with some lost sunbeam, are muffled and heavy; and the worm, the maggot, and the rot have changed the surface of the wood beneath the touch, as time will seam and roughen a smooth hand. If ever Ghosts act plays, they act ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... it all: over the country with them, dropped it countless times, forgot its pelisse on wet days, muffled it up when it was hot, gave it the most astounding things to eat, and yet it was the if healthiest; prettiest, and most sunshiny baby that ever ...
— Seven Little Australians • Ethel Sybil Turner
... here," he answered, "there is a roar of life in London, a vibrating pulse, a muffled thunder." I began to be afraid that Delancey's book would be very bad indeed. It was, it appeared, to be a novel. "Not exactly a novel," he explained, "a large canvas with figures moving on a back-ground of world conditions." I thought of "War ...
— Balloons • Elizabeth Bibesco
... at his muffled form and crept under the quilts that remained on the bunk. By and by the moonlight appeared through the window. The stove grew cold. The howling of the coyotes circled nearer and nearer. Suddenly a rifle-shot rung out, then another. The shots did ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... across the water, accompanied by the sound of footsteps running along the decks of the cruiser. Lights flashed. Muffled orders were shouted. ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train
... I left a director's meeting and vital engagements, with indecent firmness, to meet that ship. At crack of dawn on a raw morning in March I arose and drove miles to a freezing pier to meet it. And presently, as I stood muffled in a fur coat, an elderly, grizzled, small man, grim and unexhilarating—presently the soul of this monotonous person broke into song. For out of the early morning, out from behind a big anchored vessel near the pier, poked the nose ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... "Leo!" and I heard a muffled voice saying, as I thought, "Come." What it really said was—"Don't come." But indeed—and may it go to my credit—I did not pause to think, but face outwards, just as I was sitting, began to slide ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... and the rain, Georgina, Beats and gurgles on roof and pane; Over the Gardens that once were green a Shadow stoops and is gone again; Only a sob in the wild swine's squeal, Only the bark of the plunging seal, Only the laugh of the striped hyaena Muffled with poignant pain. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 19, 1919 • Various
... replied the other, with keen impatience. 'A gentleman muffled up from head to foot—strangely muffled up for such a morning as this—like an invalid, with his hand to his face at this minute, perhaps. No, no, no! not there,' he added, following Tom's gaze; 'the other way; in that direction; down yonder.' Again he indicated, ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... formed in two divisions, the first commanded by Flag-Captain Crosbie and the second by Captain Gruise,—my boat leading. The strictest silence and the exclusive use of cutlasses were enjoined; so that, as the oars were muffled and the night was dark, the enemy had not the least suspicion of the ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... of the great retail stores, lived down-stairs in the building. The young man, rather consequential but interested, strolled out in the backyard and surveyed the corn. The widow, who was consumptive, thrust her head and shoulders, muffled in a white shawl, out of her kitchen window ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... another! another! the muffled bang of fire-arms, and the vengeful yell and whoops of savage foeman float down to the breathless listeners at the station on the Chug. The Sioux are here in full force, and a score of them have swept down on that brave, hapless, helpless fellow ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... and the inner hearing, which can be increasingly developed by psycho-physical culture; by such habits of life as make the physical body more flexible, more subtle, and which thus raise to a far higher rate its degree of vibration, and enable the organs of sight and hearing to be far less "muffled" than they are in those who live more in the mere life of the senses. This unseen world that lies about us may be explored; the unseen friends who encompass us may be recognized by those who will so live as to develop the psychic senses, and so as to allow the psychic body ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... through the centre, whence sprung Gothic arches, supporting the low vaulted ceiling. Here was a set of rustics dressed up in something of the style represented in the books concerning popular antiquities. One was in a rough garb of frieze, with his head muffled in bear-skin, and a bell dangling behind him, that jingled at every movement. He was the clown, or fool of the party, probably a traditional representative of the ancient satyr. The rest were decorated with ribbons and armed with wooden ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... no better," answered another, as a strong, red flash followed close after the sledge-hammer blow of the clap. The officer of the watch gave some command in muffled tones, and immediately afterwards the man at the helm muttered ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... never comes, 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 made it echo joy and triumph there. ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... detained at some of the Lake ports, and the continuance of navigation at that time of year being so uncertain; and the greater part of the women on board having come from places much further west than Cacouna, formed a crowd of strangers, among whom two veiled and muffled ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... wasting no time over preliminaries, but plunging directly into the subject, "that the prominent robberies of late have been at seacoast resorts, especially on the shores of Long Island Sound, within, say, a hundred miles of New York. There has been a great deal of talk about dark and muffled automobiles that have conveyed mysterious parties ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... and the stars were serenely brilliant. The dusty, rutted road past the hotel, dim gray in the starlight, muffled the tread of an occasional Navajo pony passing in the faint glow of light from the doorway. Bartley was content with things as he found them, just then. But he knew that he would eventually go away from there—from the untidy town, the railroad, the string ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... in tones which there could be no mistaking, although the broken twigs and herbage which covered the mouth of the pit muffled them a good deal, and accounted for the strangeness of the creature's howls when ...
— Jarwin and Cuffy • R.M. Ballantyne
... Critics have gone still farther, and imagined that the child is a figure of the soul of a dead child (souls were sometimes painted by the old painters as new-born children), or of the soul of the elder and somewhat muffled-up woman who might have been recently dead. Mr Ruskin regards the picture as an offering for the recovery of a sick child, and thus ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... of Time, the hypocritic days, Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes, And marching single in an endless file, Bear diadems and fagots in their hands. To each they offer gifts after his will Bread, kingdoms, stars, and sky that hold them all. I, in my pleached garden watched the pomp, Forgot my ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... in the Palazzo Rospoli had recalled to Franz the conversation he had overheard the preceding evening in the ruins of the Colosseum between the mysterious unknown and the Transteverin, in which the stranger in the cloak had undertaken to obtain the freedom of a condemned criminal; and if this muffled-up individual proved (as Franz felt sure he would) the same as the person he had just seen in the Teatro Argentino, then he should be able to establish his identity, and also to prosecute his researches respecting him with perfect facility and freedom. Franz passed the night in confused dreams ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... weirdly muffled call—from the south! Had the animals found a new exit? Was this niche more than just a niche? A cave of some length, or even a passage running back into the interior of the peaks? With that faint hope ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... a sense of utter solitude, of an immensity of space. There was no sound save the soft, even swish of the runners over the snow, and the regular muffled pounding ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... became darker and darker. All at once in the distance a small light flickered. A queer sound could be heard, soft as a little bell, and faint and muffled like the ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... Beulah was spending her Sabbath evening in her own apartment, she was summoned to see her friend for the last time. It was twilight when she reached Mr. Graham's house and glided noiselessly up the thickly carpeted stairway. The bells were all muffled, and a solemn stillness reigned over the mansion. She left her bonnet and shawl in the hall, and softly entered the chamber unannounced. Unable to breathe in a horizontal position, Cornelia was bolstered up in her easychair. Her mother sat near her, with her face hid on her husband's ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... was remarking to Christine in muffled tones that he thought they must have lost, when the voice ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... call, the troops mustered on parade in full uniform. The prisoner in irons was brought forward and marched round the hollow square, accompanied by muffled drums. ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... passengers came from Connecticut, and she talked with a nutmeg dialect that made her garrulity oftentimes quite spicy. We two sat back to back, and when the vehicle lurched heavily her chignon took me "amidships" (if I may be permitted the expression) with a concussion that felt like the impact of a muffled ball from a six-pound field howitzer. "Goodness gracious, dew git eout of the way and give me some room, man!" she would exclaim as our wagon plunged into a three-foot "gore" and the coachee plied his pointed ramrod with increased vigor to the attenuated haunches ...
— Punchinello, Volume 2, No. 37, December 10, 1870 • Various
... straightened themselves under their burden, but they did not move, at least only to start slightly, while their faces changed from gravity to horror. Lady Rusholm uttered a short cry, and there was consternation in the faces of the guests in the hall. There could be no mistake; the sound, though dull and muffled, was too loud for that. It was a ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... the door, sniffing eagerly. A muffled sound of voices became audible, and Irvin, following a moment of hesitation, crossed and opened the door. The dog ran out, yapping in his irritating staccato fashion, and an expression of hope faded ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... the church tower were ringing a muffled peal, and as I listened to the sad, sweet music, I thought of Margot, lonely Margot, who had seen her father laid under the ilex trees, and then gone to visit a distant relative at Chateau Belair in the West ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... question. I shrugged in the darkness and banged longer and louder. Finally, listening at the flimsy panel, I detected muffled footsteps. ...
— Fee of the Frontier • Horace Brown Fyfe
... creature," interrupted a deep voice, muffled, almost as if by intent disguised, "if it be a liberty to call me dear, I find myself craving the ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... "the best funeral march ever written for the pianoforte," but the most intrinsically beautiful and sad funeral march ever composed. Its opening suggests the solemn tolling of great bells, the heavy march rhythm gives the effect of the slow procession of mourners; and the dirgelike music, soft and muffled at first, grows in power like the measured, inflexible rhythm of fate. Then it seems as if the mourners had arrived at the open grave, for the music voices a weeping melody, pure and tender and sweet; then the march rhythm makes itself heard again and the procession leaves the ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb
... "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 By its own reflection ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... hour of midnight approached the men were mustered on deck, the cable was cut, and the muffled sweeps got out. These sweeps were immensely large oars, each requiring a couple of men to work it. In a few minutes we entered the mouth of the creek, which was indeed the mouth of a small river, and took about half-an-hour to ascend it, although the spot where we intended to land ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... still to glorify the miserable conceits of life; but the silent snow-laden pine-trees, the few words of prayer read in the flickering light of the lantern, the hush of nature and of night, made accessions full as fitting, as all the muffled music and craped ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... a snow-storm are, as a rule, gentle and quiet; a marked hush pervades both the earth and the sky. The movements of the celestial forces are muffled, as if the snow already paved the way of their coming. There is no uproar, no clashing of arms, no blowing of wind trumpets. These soft, feathery, exquisite crystals are formed as if in the silence and privacy of the inner cloud-chambers. Rude winds would break the spell and ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... crunch of wheels on the red soorkee drive outside, and a switch past the bunch of sword-ferns that grew beside the door. The muffled crescendo of steps on the stair and the sound of an inquiry penetrated from beyond the portiere, and without further preliminary Duff ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan) |
