"Plash" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his feet. Could he but reach it! His arms were snatched from those who held them with a sudden violence, for which they were unprepared; and, with one desperate bound, the prisoner gained the steep bank of the broad dark stream. Another moment, and a heavy plash was heard in ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... Scott's poems, and rowed into the middle of St. Mary's Loch. Every hill, every tuft of heather was reflected in the lake, as in a silver mirror. There was no sound but the lapping of the water against the boat, the cry of the blackcock from the hill, and the pleasant plash of a trout rising here and there. So I read "The Lay of the Last Minstrel" over again, here, in the middle of the scenes where the story is laid and where the fights were fought. For when the Baron ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... the forest glades, where the beechen pillars led the eye away into innumerable vistas, each grandly mysterious as a cathedral aisle. The sun shot golden arrows through dark boughs, patching the moss with translucent lights, vivid and clear as the lustre of emeralds. The gentle plash of the forest stream, rippling over its pebbly bed, made a tender music that was wont to seem passing sweet to Violet Tempest's ear. To-day she heard nothing, saw nothing. Her brain was ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... I when I reached the other bank. Now for a better country. Vain presage! Who were the strugglers, what war did they wage, Whose savage trample thus could pad the dank 130 Soil to a plash? Toads in a poisoned tank, Or wild cats in ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... through his nightly ordeal. When his hands are properly hardened like his horny feet, he is allowed to row the coble with crossed oars; and then he becomes very useful, for the men are left free to haul nets and plash on the water to frighten the trout. When he reaches the age of sixteen, the fisher-lad clothes himself in thick pilot-cloth and wears a braided cap on Sundays. He pierces his ears too, and his thin golden rings give him a foreign ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... of straining rowlocks and the even plash of dripping oars, muffled by the numbing curtain of the fog, broke through the silence. Then followed the gentle thudding noise of a boat as it bumped against the jetty and a ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... off, the oars fell in the water, and the galley glided down the creek with a velocity that soon rendered her but a shadow in the grey tide. In a few minutes I lost sight of her altogether; but I still distinguished the faint measured plash of the oars, and the feeble wail of the infant's voice float ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... bedroom into the cabinet de toilette. She moved about in the cabinet de toilette thinking that the waltz out of The Rosenkavalier was divinely exciting. The delicate sound of her movements and the plash of water came to him across the bedroom. As he played he threw a glance at her now and then; he could see well enough, but not very well because the smoke of the shortening cigarette was ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... flows by upon one side, separated only by the high way of the quays. The bed of the Seine is above the floor of the prison. The surrounding earth was consequently saturated with water, and the oozing moisture diffused over the walls and the floors the humidity of the sepulcher. The plash of the river; the rumbling of carts upon the pavements overhead; the heavy tramp of countless footfalls, as the multitude poured into and out of the halls of justice, mingled with the moaning of the prisoners in those solitary cells. There were one or two narrow courts ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... the stir of life around me in the dark, and there in that mine—after we struck the spring of water—I thought I heard voices all the time in the plash of the water. I suppose it seemed like insanity, for I ruined Dan and Biddy without mercy. I couldn't stop. I was sure if we could only hold out a little while we would reach it. But we didn't. Biddy had to go to work as a cook, and Dan and I went ...
— The Spirit of Sweetwater • Hamlin Garland
... do—making a prodigious fuss about their small affairs. Watching these objects, I still am under no obligation to think about them, or even so much as to see them, unless it perfectly suits my humour. As little am I obliged to hear the plash and flop of the tide, the ripple at my feet, the clinking windlass afar off, or the humming steam-ship paddles further away yet. These, with the creaking little jetty on which I sit, and the gaunt high-water marks and low-water marks in the mud, and the broken ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... estuary, arm of the sea, bayou [U.S.], fiord, armlet; frith^, firth, ostiary^, mouth; lagune^, lagoon; indraught^; cove, creek; natural harbor; roads; strait; narrows; Euripus; sound, belt, gut, kyles^; continental slope, continental shelf. lake, loch, lough^, mere, tarn, plash, broad, pond, pool, lin^, puddle, slab, well, artesian well; standing water, dead water, sheet of water; fish pond, mill pond; ditch, dike, dyke, dam; reservoir &c (store) 636; alberca^, barachois^, hog ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... reaching its height. The flashes of lightning were more frequent, the crashes of thunder followed fast, sound overlapping sight. The rain became a flood. The girl watched, with the intense, self-forgetful delight of a child, the plash of the great blobs of rain on the macadamized road outside. They came to look to her exactly like little figures chasing one another in an unintermittent race of annihilation. She smiled, watching them. Anderson, looking from the ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... vale, or scale the giant Alp, Where roses list the bulbul's late, or snow-wreaths crown the scalp; I'd pause to hear soft Venice streams plash back to boatman's oar, Or hearken to the Western flood in wild and falling roar; I'd tread the vast of mountain range, or spot serene and flower'd, I ne'er could see too many of the wonders God has shower'd; Yet though I stood on fairest earth, beneath the bluest heaven, Could I ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... is the snare, the ash clusters glow, Ducks plash in the pools; breakers whiten below; More strong than a hundred ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... black desert of their shore lies in its nakedness beneath the night, pathless, comfortless, infirm, lost in dark languor and fearful silence, except where the salt runlets plash into the tideless pools and the sea-birds flit from their ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... heard the plash of oars quite near to the Fatma and deep voices of men chanting, almost muttering, a monotonous song that set the time for the oars. And although it rose up to him out of a golden world, it was like a ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... towards the west. As he progressed the pungent odour of seaweed refreshed him and grew stronger every moment. Suddenly he became aware that although high land lay upon his left hand there was to his right a hollow darkness without shadow or depth. No merry plash of waves came to explain this; the smell of the sea was there, but the joyous tumble of its waters was not to be heard. The traveller stooped low and peered into the darkness. Gradually he discerned ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... to bewail her hard lot in being allowed to take the air only in walks with her governess, or drives with her mamma, in being obliged to wear fine clothes, to learn music and dancing, "and other tiresome things," and never being free to run wild on the hills and heaths, wade in the ponds, and plash in the ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... an end; a stream of long-coated spectators sets towards the town, mingled with the parti-coloured, muddied figures of the players. I have been strolling half the afternoon along the river bank, watching the boats passing up and down; hearing the shrill cries of coxes, the measured plash of oars, the rhythmical rattle of rowlocks, intermingled at intervals with the harsh grinding of the chain-ferries. Five-and-twenty years ago I was rowing here myself in one of these boats, and I do not wish to renew the experience. ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... awake until midnight, but there was no disturbance; nothing was heard but the plash of the mill-stream, and the dripping ooze from the rocks. His old enemies, no doubt, were intimidated, and he was about commencing a snug nap on the idea—when, lo! there came a great rush of wind. He heard it booming on from a vast distance, until ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... monotonous plash of the waves, when the tide served, was his favourite resort. He could stand still and look out over the expanse of ripples, or wander on, as he pleased, watching ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... brink of the stream, and the plash of the ferryman's oar could be heard plainly; the world behind him had already grown distant and dim; even of the book which had been in his mind so long, he thought but little—he had done with it all; whether it brought him praise or blame from man, he would never learn now, and ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... make an agreeable change from the habits of the pestering drones that infest the beach and the neighbourhood of the hotels. The whole of the steep rocky gorge of that tiny torrent the Canneto is full of mills, each emitting a whirring sound which mingles with the continual plash of the water as it descends in miniature cascades the full length of the ravine, providing in its headlong course towards the sea the motive power required to turn all this quantity of machinery. Bridges span the Canneto at several points, whilst either bank is occupied ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... one evening on the balcony of the diminutive inn known as "The Hungarian Crown," watching the sunbeams on the broad current of the Danube and listening to the ripple, the plash and the gurgle of the swollen stream as it rushed impetuously against the banks. A group of Servians, in canoes light and swift as those of Indians, had made their way across the river, and were struggling vigorously to prevent ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... gazed in one another's face with mute astonishment, they heard a dull thud against the ship's side—the stroke of a boat-hook as the pinnace was shoved off—then a rattle, as the oars commence working in the tholes, succeeded by the plash of the oar-blades in the water. After that, the regular "dip-dip," at length dying away, as the boat receded, leaving the abandoned vessel silent as a graveyard in the ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... said. He started for the Platz. "How uncertain life is. It seems that I did not come to Bleiberg carelessly in the way of amusement, but to work out a part of my destiny." He arrested his steps at the fountain and listened to the low, musical plash of the water, each drop of which fell with the light of a dazzling jewel. The cold stars shone from above. They were not farther away than she. A princess, a lonely and forlorn princess, hemmed in by the fabric of royal laws; a princess yet possessing less liberty than the ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... bottom of the pit, where the great drops of water fell plash. Many colliers were waiting their turns to go up, talking noisily. Morel gave ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... adventure reappears, and his idealization of primitive life, caught from Rousseau and Chateaubriand. There is more repose about this poem than in any of the author's other compositions. In its pages the sea seems to plash about rocks and caves that bask under a southern sun. "'Byron, the sorcerer,' he can do with me what he will," said old Dr. Parr, on reading it. As the swan-song of the poet's sentimental verse, it has a pleasing if not pathetic calm. During the ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... waded years—ago— After those water-lilies, till the plash, I know not how, surprised us; and you dared Neither advance nor turn back: so, we stood Laughing and crying until Gerard came— Once safe upon the turf, the loudest too, For once more reaching the ...
— A Blot In The 'Scutcheon • Robert Browning
... and soothing as the scarcely audible plash of a distant fountain; but the incident she cited struck ominously on the Archbishop's recollection, rousing memory and causing him to dart a quick glance at the countess, in which was blended sharp enquiry and awakened foreboding; ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... enchanted despair of love, time was not marked for them except by the cool plash of the water, which at intervals broke under the half-open window. To the caressing praise of her ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... a graceful and nearly nude woman standing there, and some display of will power on the girl's part was called for before she approached nearer and stifled the first breath of apprehension. Then, delighted by the vague beauty of the scene, with senses soothed by the soft plash of the cascade, she decided to walk around the lake to the spot where Trenholme must have been hidden when he painted that astonishingly vivid picture. Its bold treatment and simplicity of note rendered it an easy subject ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... hot June day, and out of the welter of din and rumble the cool plash of falling water came to his straining ears refreshingly. At once he considered the dog and, thankful for the distraction, stepped beneath the portico of a provision store and indicated the marble basin with ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... minutes had elapsed, when the plash of another paddle was heard, and a second canoe made its appearance, carefully approaching that of the Huron. In it was seated an Indian boy, not more than twelve years of age, who handled it with a skill scarcely second to ...
— Oonomoo the Huron • Edward S. Ellis
... crystal waters spanned By other marbles: founts may plash on stone, And fashionably-branched trees may stand As thieves upon a scaffold. Yet, how cold! ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... a melancholy scene. A luxuriant growth of reeds fringes the margin of the lagoon, and heat and moisture combine to throw up a rank vegetation on its marshy banks. The peasants fly from its pestiferous exhalations, and nothing is heard or seen but the plash of the fish in the still waters, the sharp cry of the heron and gull, wheeling and hovering till they dart on their prey, and some rude fisherman's boat piled with baskets of eels for the ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... embowered in fragrant bloom. There is a runnel of water at the roadside, and in one place this water is collected in a round stone basin that looks immensely old; from this it trickles forth again with coolness and musical plash. Having reached this spot, we may as well pass over into Fowey by the ferry here instead of by that from Polruan. If we had already come from Fowey to Bodinnick we should find that the ferryman would carry us back without further payment; the outward fee included a return—not like ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... Plash fences thy plantation round about, And whilst yet young, be sure keep Cattel out; Severest Winters, scorching sun infest, And sheep, goats, bullocks, all young plants molest; Yet neither cold, nor the hoar rigid frost, Nor heat reflecting from the rocky coast, ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... on their backs; macaws and humming-birds, winged jewels, flew from tree to tree. As they neared Paramaribo, the river became a smooth canal among luxuriant plantations; the air was perfumed music, redolent of orange-blossoms and echoing with the songs of birds and the sweet plash of oars; gay barges came forth to meet them; "while groups of naked boys and girls were promiscuously playing and flouncing, like so many tritons and mermaids, in the water." And when the troops disembarked,—five hundred fine young men, the oldest not thirty, all arrayed in new uniforms and ...
— Black Rebellion - Five Slave Revolts • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... a gun in my very ear. Flame, smoke—much of both—and the stifling smell of sulphur. Jorian had fired at the face of the pop-gun knave. That putty-white countenance had a crimson plash on it ere it vanished. Then came back to us a scream of dreadful agony and the sound of ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... half the distance, however, another flash announced the quick coming of the tempest, and the first premonitory drops began to plash down heavily upon the pavement. Still I ran on, thinking that I should find a cab in the Place de la Madeleine; but the Place de la Madeleine was empty. Even the cafe at the corner was closed. Even the omnibus office was shut up, and the red ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... The paddles plash, The wavelets dash, We see the summer lightning flash; While now and then, In marsh and fen Too muddy ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... surprise back at his comrade, but the obedient gondola shot by the gloomy, though rich abode, as if the little bark had suddenly obeyed an inward impulse. In a moment more it whirled aside, and the hollow sound, caused by the plash of water between high walls, announced its entrance into a narrower canal. With shortened oars the men still urged the boat ahead, now turning short into some new channel, now glancing beneath a low ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... made his way through the deserted and sleepy paths of the town to the old philosopher's house. He was wet, chilled, weary, and sick enough at heart as he leaned against the cold stone doorway and waited for an answer to his knock. The plash of the heavier rain-drops from the tiled leaves was the only sound he heard for many minutes, until, at last, pattering feet neared him on the inside, and a child's voice asked who was there. To his friendly response the door was opened half-wide, and Voegelein's blank, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... fountains, and the dark arches of its storerooms; or the door of a mosque, with its mosaic floor and pillared corridor. The interminable lines of bazaars, with their atmospheres of spice and fruit and fragrant tobacco, the hushed tread of the slippered crowds; the plash of falling fountains and the bubbling of innumerable narghilehs; the picturesque merchants and their customers, no longer in the big trowsers of Egypt, but the long caftans and abas of Syria; the absence of Frank faces and dresses—in ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... ower her head; and the man that she since wadded does not think her a pin the waur for the misfortune. They live, Mr. Mannering, by the shoreside at Annan, and a mair decent, orderly couple, with six as fine bairns as ye would wish to see plash in a saltwater dub; and little curlie Godfrey—that's the eldest, the come o' will, as I may say—he's on board an excise yacht. I hae a cousin at the board of excise; that's Commissioner Bertram; he got his commissionership in the great contest for the county, that ye ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... lantern which madame had hung against the arbor shed a yellow light, throwing into clear relief the sharply cut features of monsieur. Up and down the silent stream drifted here and there a phantom boat, the gleam of its light following like a firefly. From some came no sound but the muffled plash of the oars. From others floated stray bits of song and laughter. Far up the stream I heard the distant whistle of the ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... Venice—human voices calling in ceaseless interchange from shore to shore, resonant in the brilliant atmosphere, quarrels softened to melodies across the water, cries of the gondoliers telling of ceaseless motion, the constant lap and plash of the wavelets and the drip of the oars making a soothing undertone ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... bright, Nor by tally nor price shall their worth be replaced; Ah, boded the morning of our brave unreturning, When it drifted the clouds in the rush of its blast. As we march'd on the hill, such the floods that distil, Turning dry bent to bog, and to plash-pools the heather, That friendly no more was the ridge of the moor, Nor free to our tread, and the ire of the weather Anon was inflamed by the lightning untamed, And the hail rush that storm'd from the mouth of the gun, Hard pelted the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... the noise of the waterfall behind Casa Felice died away, the spectral facade faded and only the plash of the oars and the tinkle of fishermen's bells above the nets, floating here and there in the lake, were audible. The distant lights of mountain villages gleamed along the shores, and the lights of the stars gleamed ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... fish knows the lures, the fun is mainly over. In April, no doubt, something may still be done, and in the silver twilights of June, when as you drift on the still surface you hear the constant sweet plash of the rising trout, a few, and these good, may be taken. But the water wants re-stocking, and the burns in winter need watching, in the interests of spawning fish. It is nobody's interest, that I know of, to take trouble and incur expense; and free fishing, by the constitution ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... out their trails together. But always, under him and over him on all sides of him, there had been life. And tonight there was no life, nor smell of life. There was no chirp of night bird, or flutter of owl's wing, no plash of duck or cry of loon. He listened in vain for the crinkling snap of twig, and the whisper of wind in treetops. And there was no smell—no musk of mink that had crossed his path, no taste in the air of the strong scented fox, no subtle breath ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... at intervals with cries of delight at the success of their efforts; of the wind roaring in the chimney; of the church-bells ringing in the distance; of the ever-increasing moaning of the sea about St. Mary's Rock; and finally of the rumbling of the rubber wheels of several carriages and the plash of horses' hoofs on the gravel of ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... time there was nothing to be heard save the light plash of the water into which little Aulus was throwing pebbles to frighten the fish; but after a while Vinicius began again in a voice still softer and lower,—"But thou knowest of Vespasian's son Titus? They say that he had scarcely ceased to be a youth when ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... acquainted with: considerable little moorland river, with several branches coming down from Ruppin Country, and certain lakes and plashes there, in a southwest direction, towards the Elbe valley, towards the Havel Stream; into which latter, through another plash or lake called GULPER SEE, and a few miles farther, into the Elbe itself, it conveys, after a course of say 50 English miles circuitously southwest, the black drainings of those dreary and intricate Peatbog-and-Sand countries. "LUCH," it appears, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Appendix - Frederick The Great—A Day with Friedrich.—(23d July, 1779.) • Thomas Carlyle
... the scattered and smouldering fires, the rude shelter-tents of the men, the white tops of the army wagons; beyond these the dark outlines of the massive hills; above them all the brilliant, placid stars; around them the hush of nature, broken only by the drowsing swish and plash of rapid, running waters, the stir of the night wind in the scattered trees, the stamp and snort of some startled troop-horse, the distant challenge of the night sentries. Something important had come, and the group looked eagerly at Stannard and ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... vainer than the plash Of these wave-whimsies on the shore: "Give us a pearl to fill the gash — God, let our dead ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... and their voices went well together. Her favourite song was "Come, Lasses and Lads"; his was "John Peel"; and they would sing them off and on for an hour at a spell. Thus on a summer evening, when the bay was lying like a tired monster asleep, and every plash of an oar was echoing on the hills, the people on the land would hear them coming around the castle ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... out of the thick second crop of clover, and the bees hummed as if it still were June. There was a flashing of white gulls over the water where the fleet of boats rode the low waves together in the cove, swaying their small masts as if they kept time to our steps. The plash of the water could be heard faintly, yet still be heard; we might have been a company of ancient Greeks going to celebrate a victory, or to worship the god of harvests, in the grove above. It was strangely moving to see this and to make part of it. The sky, the sea, have watched poor ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett
... "Something works hard for us in our lives to make them all come right," she thought with wistful gratitude, and looked with new interest at the busy maze of wheels and hoppers and rude machinery that joggled on steadily from the touch of the hidden wheel and the plash of its live water. She wandered out into the sunshine and down the river side a little way. There was a clean yellow sandy bottom in one place with shoals of frisky little minnows and a small green island only a little way out, and Betty ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett
... stranger quitted the house, while Fenwolf lingered to offer some attention to Mabel, which was so ill received that he was fain to hurry forth to the boathouse, where he embarked with his companion. As soon as the plash of oars announced their departure, Mabel went forth to watch them. The stranger, who was seated in the stern of the boat, for the first time fixed his large melancholy eyes full upon her, and did not withdraw ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... waters, multitudinous, Lip the dry beach, and rippling every pool, Embathe the limpets in their swirling cool, And plash upon the rocks, returning thus To their old haunts with ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... across was a transitory reek of burnt lubricating oil, and the hint of a cigar so faint that it was gone before he could be sure of it. . . . The lumbering creak of the mill-wheel rose assertively above the drone and plash of the stream; a shiver of rain and a gentle sigh of wind in the top branches of the trees behind him were suddenly swallowed by the ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... fair and lovely Sultan's daughter in the twilight, - In the twilight by the fountain, Where the sparkling waters plash. ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... rolled slowly, half-afloat and half-ashore, was bordered by a fringe of silver. When at one moment a gentle breeze lifted the water into ripples, countless stars floated, down a white waterway from yonder argent moon. Not a house on the banks of the mere; not a sign of life; only the low plash of wavelets on the pebbles. Hark! What cry was that coming clear and shrill? It was the curlew. And when the night bird was gone she left a ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... to and fro, from the gate to the door, in a state of agitation which permitted no repose; and at length took up a permanent situation on one side of the wall, near the road: where, heedless of my expostulations and the growling thunder, and the great drops that began to plash around her, she remained, calling at intervals, and then listening, and then crying outright. She beat Hareton, or any child, at a good ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... beautiful moonlight night, warm, and sweet with the breath of flowers; away in the distance, beyond the wide-spreading lawn, they could see the waters of the bayou glittering in the moonbeams, and the soft plash of oars came pleasantly to ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley
... The plash and bubble of waters swooned dreamily about my ears, and far off it seemed I heard the wild, sad songs of her native land, that now in tinkling tune, and now in long, slow rise and fall of mellow sound, swathed me with sweet satiety to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... now and then a ghostly lighter with a large dark sail, like a warning arm, would start up very near them, pass on, and vanish. At this time of their watch, the water close to them would be often agitated by some impulsion given it from a distance. Often they believed this beat and plash to be the boat they lay in wait for, running in ashore; and again and again they would have started up, but for the immobility with which the informer, well used to the river, kept ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... upon the roof of the house, and catching it as it came down; but by and by it did not come down—it bounded into the tin eave-trough and rolled slowly along till it came to the big pipe that led to the cistern, and into this it dropped, and went whirring down, and stopped somewhere with a faint plash. ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... delay. The sun peeped into the new-made graves and made blistering hot the gallows' floor. The old pump made its familiar music to the cool plash of blessed water. The grass withered in the fervid heat. The bronzed faces of the soldiers ran lumps of sweat. The file upon the jail walls looked down into the wide yard yawningly. No wind fluttered the two battle standards condemned to unfold their trophies upon this coming profanation. ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... defiant, mocking expression. He looked as though he wanted to say: "Yes, in a minute I will tell you something that will make you split your sides with laughing." The little round window was open and a soft breeze was blowing on Pavel Ivanitch. There was a sound of voices, of the plash of oars in the water.... Just under the little window someone began droning in a high, unpleasant voice: no doubt it was a ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... and the dash of the rain. But she was safe and unharmed. Gradually the wind decreased, the vivid gleam of lightning stopped flashing in her frightened eyes, the thunder rolled farther and farther away; the birds began chirping softly; there was but a gentle plash of drops from the dripping leaves; long rays of sunshine stole in between the branches. The storm ...
— The Princess Idleways - A Fairy Story • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... blood was up, and I rushed fiercely at him. With the quickness of a cat he dodged me, spat in my face as I turned, and, with a horrible laugh, sprang headlong into the well. Down deeper and deeper sank the laugh—then it died away—then a faint plash—and all was silent. Rama Ragobah was gone! For fully ten minutes I stood dazed and irresolute and then returned mechanically to the house. I at first thought of informing the authorities of the whole affair, but, when I realised ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... dreams as I walked along, I heard through the plash of the waves and the sizzle of the foam the ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... to have a great idea of our power," whispered Hollis, hopelessly. And then again there was a silence, the feeble plash of water, the steady tick of chronometers. Jackson, with bare arms crossed, leaned his shoulders against the bulkhead of the cabin. He was bending his head under the deck beam; his fair beard spread out magnificently over his chest; he looked ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... and in another moment were on top of the big rock. It was almost as good as being at sea; for when they turned their backs to the shore nothing could be seen but water and sails and flying birds, and nothing heard but the incessant plash and dash of ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge
... there was a faint rattling of bits of stone, and plish, plash, plosh, three fragments ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn
... roar of the river, the plash of the dipping oars, was heard the piteous wailing of the wounded, the loud oaths and jeers of the soldiers who had rushed down to the shore, and, with clenched fists, hurled execrations after the emperor, accusing him, with angry scorn, of perfidy because ...
— A Conspiracy of the Carbonari • Louise Muhlbach
... of the upper valley of the St. Lawrence and of the valley of the Mississippi remembered as distinctly its origin we should everywhere hear the plash of the oar in all the hospitality of their settlements. But all such traces have disappeared, or all but disappeared, in the Mississippi Valley. The only one that comes to me now, as possibly of the old French days, is one which ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... and lumps of ice float on the dark surface, looking like white marble on a black ground. Occasionally there is a larger dark-colored pool, where the wind gets a hold of the water and forms small waves that ripple and plash against the edge of the ice, the only signs of life in this desert tract. It is like an old friend, the sound of these playful wave-lets. And here, too, they eat away the floes and hollow out their edges. One could almost imagine one's self in more southern latitudes. But all ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... bent; when first, before its moonlike circumference was all risen, the gondolier's cry, 'Ah! Stali!" struck sharp upon the ear, and the prow turned aside under the mighty cornices that half met over the narrow canal, where the plash of the water followed close and loud, ringing along the marble by the boat's side; and when at last the boat darted forth upon the breadth of silver sea, across which the front of the Ducal palace, flushed with its sanguine veins, ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... shadows fall Like balm upon me from the boughs o'erhead. My coming strikes a terror on the scene. All the sweet sylvan sounds are hushed; I catch Glimpses of vanishing wings. An azure shape Quick darting down the vista of the brook, Proclaims the scared kingfisher, and a plash And turbid streak upon the streamlet's face, Betray the water-rat's swift dive and path Across the bottom to his burrow deep. The moss is plump and soft, the tawny leaves Are crisp beneath my tread, and scaly twigs Startle my wandering eye like basking snakes. Where this thick ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... increased the hard brilliancy of the light in Milo's eyes. The great chamber was silent as a mausoleum in the intervals between the clashing and tinkling of gold and stones in the chest; from the outside, by way of the rock tunnel, came only the sigh and murmur of the crooning breeze, the softened plash of the tide on the shore, the scream of wheeling seabirds. All sound of the schooner had departed; there was no human ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... conceiv'd, To deck his fortune with his virtuous deeds: And therefore, Tranio, for the time I study, Virtue and that part of philosophy Will I apply that treats of happiness By virtue specially to be achiev'd. Tell me thy mind; for I have Pisa left And am to Padua come as he that leaves A shallow plash to plunge him in the deep, And with satiety seeks ...
— The Taming of the Shrew • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... and venous system circulates the life-blood of the plants, hot water being the vehicle of warmth in winter. These invisible streams will flow when the brooks at the foot of the hill are sealed by frost and the plash of the open-air fountains is heard ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... lake in the soft light, the glory of the setting sun still reflected from the surrounding peaks, the music of their boat songs accompanied by the dip and plash of ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... moving across one of the Canadian lakes, during a season of profound calm. The uniform and steady pull of the crew, directed in their time by the wild chaunt of the steersman, with whom they ever and anon join in fall chorus—the measured plash of the oars into the calm surface of the water—the joyous laugh and rude, but witty, jest of the more youthful and buoyant of the soldiery, from whom, at such moments, although in presence of their officers, the trammels of restraint are partially removed—all ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... he was quite content to remain in passive enjoyment of the same, to feel the gentle current of air softly fanning his brow, to yield himself to the easy, luxurious swing of the cot in which he was lying, and to listen dreamily to the soothing sough of the wind and the plash and gurgle of the water along ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... admittance to the moist outer world; tree ferns, springing to sudden life on moss-clad trunks and boughs, showed brilliant as emeralds on velvet. The whole earth was quick with hidden stirrings and strivings, the whole air quick with living sound—plash of rain-drops; evensong of birds; glad shouting of cicadas among the branches, and the laughter of a ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... two he heard nothing but the ripple and plash of the ice-brook descending the side of the berg fifty yards away; but with the burial of his enemy, the lad's self-control had deserted him, and he burst into a passionate ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... captain, were anxious to discover the mystery, if mystery there was,—and we all, by one instinct, pressed to the gangway as he descended the companion ladder and entered the boat, which glided away immediately with a low and rhythmical plash of oars. We could watch it as it drew nearer and nearer the illuminated vessel, and our excitement grew more and more intense. For once Mr. Harland and his daughter had forgotten all about themselves,—and Catherine's customary miserable expression of face ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... of a country is like that of a woman. It tells the story of its past. The many-windowed English mansion sleeping among turfy lawns to the plash of a fountain, and the cawing of rooks in the beechwood, tell of a tranquil past life-record broken only by transient unrest; whereas the towers on the Continent with their meurtrieres and frowning machicolations, bristling on every hill, frequent ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... never saw one, but often fancied that I heard them rustling, at daybreak, by these bright clear waters, stretching out in such smiling promise, where no sound broke the deep and blissful seclusion, unless now and then this rustling, or the plash of some fish a little gayer than the others; it seemed not necessary to have any better heaven, or fuller expression of love and freedom than in the ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... rippled over their rocky bed, murmuring to each other in tones so low that only an attentive ear could catch them, sparkling in the sunlight as though for very joy. Suddenly, near the edge of the narrow plateau over which they ran, they turned, and, with a tinkling plash of farewell, plunged in opposite directions,—the one eastward, hastening on its way to the Great Father of Waters, the other westward bound, towards the ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... here, Selah. Of course I'd have enjoyed it all far better in your society—I don't think I need tell you that now, dear—but the sunshine, and the sea breeze, and the song of the larks, and the plash of the waves below, and the shouts of the fishermen down there on the beach mending their nets and putting out their smacks, have all been so delightful after our humdrum round of daily life at Oxford, that I only wanted your presence here to make it ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... join their colours and melt subtly into distant purple. After crossing this we reach L'Isle, an island village girdled by the gliding Sorgues, overshadowed with gigantic plane-boughs, and echoing to the plash of water dripped from mossy fern-tufted millwheels. Those who expect Petrarch's Sorgues to be some trickling poet's rill emerging from a damp grotto, may well be astounded at the rush and roar of this azure river ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... sultry August evening. No breeze was stirring in the garden; no cool dews refreshed the parched and heated earth; yet from the languishing flowers rich sweets exhaled. The plash of a fountain fell pleasantly upon the ear, conveying in its sound a sense of freshness to the fervid air; while deep and drowsy murmurs hummed heavily beneath the trees, making the twilight slumberously musical. The ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... pass the night here, and go on to Naples early on the following day. All the party were tired and went to rest at an early hour. The night was calm, and beautiful, and bright; and as they went to sleep, they were lulled by the plash of the waters as they gently ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... had swum over, and his fingers were on the window-ledge. Robert never knew how the man had managed to climb up out of the water. But he saw the clinging fingers, and hit them as hard as he could with an iron bar that he caught up from the floor. The man fell with a plop-plash into the moat-water. In another moment Robert was outside the little room, had banged its door and was shooting home the enormous bolts, and calling to Cyril ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... boat. Gigantic forest trees were about me; through which, like a silver snake, twisted and twined the great river. The little waves, when I moved in the boat, heaved and fell with a plash as of molten silver, breaking the image of the moon into a thousand morsels, fusing again into one, as the ripples of laughter die into the still face of joy. The sleeping woods, in undefined massiveness; the water that flowed in its sleep; and, ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... run away with a man, and got left. Come on." Or, "There's a big dance over on the beach to-night, and a keg of rum, and the native women. Jump in." "No, I think I'll stay on board and read." "Come on. Don't be a fool." "No, go ahead and enjoy yourselves. I'll stay on board." And there would be the plash of oars as they rowed shoreward, and maybe a song raised.... And he would make himself comfortable under the awning of the after deck, and read the bundles of newspapers from home, of how Thomas Chalmers, the great Scottish preacher, was dead, or how a new great singer had been ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... the channel by which the whole pit was drained. Beyond the light the three men encountered another wall of sand, and from behind it and through it there came to them the dull thud and the plash of heavy water. ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... drear November evening of 1715. Throughout a melancholy day, clinging mist had blurred the outline of even the nearest hills; distance was blotted out. Thin rain fell chillingly and persistently, drip, dripping with monotonous plash from the old inn's thatched eaves; a light wind sobbed fitfully around the building, moaning at every chink and cranny of the ill-fitting window-frames. "A dismal night for any who must travel," thought the stableman of the inn, as he looked east and then ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... pliant lash he touch'd The sleek-skinn'd horses; springing at the sound, Between the Greeks and Trojans, light they bore The flying car, o'er bodies of the slain And broken bucklers trampling; all beneath Was plash'd with blood the axle, and the rails Around the car, as from the horses' feet, And from the felloes of the wheels, were thrown The bloody gouts; yet on he sped, to join The strife of men, and break th' opposing ranks. His coming spread confusion ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... almost deserted, save for the presence of several copper-colored, blue- shirted individuals who were commencing the work of taking down and rolling up the silken awnings, accompanying their labors by a sort of monotonous chant that, mingling with the slow, gliding plash of the river, sounded as weird and mournful as the sough of ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... fast-approaching summer night, the Baron and Flemming walked forth along the borders of the stream. As they heard it, rushing and gushing among the stones and tangled roots, and the great wheel turning in the current, with its never-ceasing plash! plash! it brought to their minds that exquisite, simple song of Goethe, the Youth and the Mill-brook. It was for the moment a nymph, which sang to them in the ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... and when he got to the side of the well, he, without a moment's hesitation, flung it headlong down, and, listening attentively, he heard it fall with a slight plash, as if there was some water at the ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... island, with deep folds of a darker green, in which you divine silent valleys; there is mystery in their sombre depths, down which murmur and plash cool streams, and you feel that in those umbrageous places life from immemorial times has been led according to immemorial ways. Even here is something sad and terrible. But the impression is fleeting, and serves only to give a greater acuteness to the enjoyment ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... was erst my rock, II 2 From darkling fears and 'mid the battle-shock To screen me with huge might: Now he is lost in night And horror. Where again Shall gladness heal my pain? O were I where the waters hoary, Round Sunium's pine-clad promontory, Plash underneath the flowery upland height. Then holiest Athens soon would come in sight, And to Athena's self ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... this action not one word was spoken, even the sturdy boatmen were mute, and the fall of the oar in the rowlock, the plash of the water, and the crushing sound of the yielding rushes as the "watery bier" made its way through them were the only sounds which broke the silence. Still Gustavus betrayed no emotion; but by the time they reached the open stream, and that ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... with the thorns of the marine needle, making it round and oblong in shape like a fisherman's basket, and after deftly and closely weaving it together, subjects it to the action of the sea waves, that its surface may be rendered waterproof by this plash and cement, and it is hard for even iron or stone to break it. And what is more wonderful still, so symmetrically is the entrance of the nest adjusted to the kingfisher's shape and size, that no beast either greater or smaller can ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... the green earth renewed 5 With the bright sea-wind and the yellow blossoms. From the cool shade I hear the silver plash Of the blown fountain at ...
— Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics • Bliss Carman
... they lay between banks now overhung by mangrove thickets, now receding in plains dotted with gloomy clumps of gumtrees, as far as the eye, from our low position and by the imperfect light afforded, could reach. As we advanced, the measured plash of the oars frightened from their roosting places in the trees, a huge flock of screeching vampires, that disturbed for a time the serenity of the scene by their discordant notes; and a few reaches further up, noisy flights of our old friends, the whistling-ducks, greeted our ears. ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... she turned her face to her mother's bosom. And as we went softly out from the room and stood upon the path with the lofty palm-plumes rustling above us, we saw the first swirling wave of the incoming tide ripple round Matautu Point and plash on Hamilton's beach. And from within the silent house answered ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... was addicted to a sort of dreaming of his own, even when the sun stood in the zenith, and he was walking the poop, in the midst of a circle of his officers. Still, he could not refrain from glancing back at the past, that morning, as plash after plash was heard, and recalling the time when magna pars quorum FUIT. At this delectable instant, the ruddy face of a "young gentleman" appeared in his state-room door, and, first ascertaining that the eyes of his superior were ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... a few paces, looking straight before him as if he were trying to find words suitable for the answer; then he turned his face to her and looked at her steadily, though his head was burning and the plash of the fountain sounded like the roar of ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... lay the twilight world he loved. Nature had ceased her noise and commenced her melody. From the brook below came the dull plash of the rising trout; now and then one could catch a stealthy rustle in the herbage—the beetles were abroad, ay and the mice and the beasts of prey; a hare paced by with easy lilting stride; his gentle footfall hardly stirred the dust. In the distance sounded the cry of a lost ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... is constantly taking new shape before our eyes, being rearranged in kaleidoscopic combinations, and transported from port to port, from town to town, from sea to sea. One can look nowhere without seeing this ceaseless activity progressing. Everywhere there is a whir of wheels, a plash of waves, a din of assembly, as the ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... absorbed in the "Marriage a la Mode"; days when even Giorgione's Pastoral may (as in Rossetti's sonnet) mean nothing beyond the languid pleasure of sitting on the grass after a burning day and listening to the plash of water and the tuning of instruments; the same thought and emotion, the same interest and pleasure, being equally obtainable from an inn-parlour oleograph. Then, as regards scientific interest and pleasure, there may be days ...
— The Beautiful - An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics • Vernon Lee |
