"Rustle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... seemed wide-awake. Keen eyes saw every moving thing, from the bees in the bluebells to the slow fishing-boats far out at sea; sharp ears that were cocked like a collie's heard every chirp and trill and rustle, and a nose that understood everything was holding up every vagrant breeze and searching it for its message. For the cubs were coming out for the first time to play in the big world, and no wild mother ever lets that happen without first taking infinite ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... April spreads her mantle green Across the pasture-lands of snow, And Spring's first scarlet breasts are seen Where treetops rustle to and fro; Then come fair fragrant dreams as though Our lightest fancy to entrance And paint us what we fain would know Adown the lanes of ...
— The Rose-Jar • Thomas S. (Thomas Samuel) Jones
... from the confessional without even looking upon the face of her director, who sat within listening to the rustle of her dress as she rose,—listening to the soft fall of her departing footsteps, and praying that grace might be given him not to look after her: and he did not, though he felt as if his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... at the back, and, seeing GORMFLAITH, enters. At the first slight rustle of the curtains GORMFLAITH stealthily slips the letter back into her bosom before turning gradually, a finger to her lips, to see ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... a slight rustle at the back window. At the other, a pistol flashed into sight and dropped again below the sill. Turning, the girl saw Dave's bushy black head—he, too, with one elbow on the sill and the other hand out ...
— Christmas Eve on Lonesome and Other Stories • John Fox, Jr.
... majesty and serenity when the moon rose in her full glory to hold her silent watch over the earth once more. It was sweet to live on such a day as this, when all the world seemed at peace; and what a perfect night for the fandango. Presently the sound of light footsteps and the soft rustle of a dress interrupted the train of his thoughts, causing him to turn from the window to Chiquita, who, attired in her ball dress, entered the room and ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... makes me think of the melodious grave of the enchanter Merlin, which is in the forest of Broceliand in Brittany, under high oaks whose tops shine like green flames to heaven. Oh, I envy thee those trees, brother Merlin, and their fresh waving. For over my mattress grave here in Paris no green leaves rustle, and early and late I hear nothing but the rattle of carriages, hammering, scolding, and the jingle of pianos. A grave without rest, death without the privileges of the departed, who have no longer any need to spend money, or to write letters, or ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... of those pompous, stiff, scholastic prigs who wrote by rules of syntax; and of syntax he is dead. He was clever and learned; he wrote in Latin, Italian, Castlian: but nobody reads him; he has only a little crypt in the "Autori Diversi." I think of him as I think of fine women who must always rustle in brocade embossed with hard jewels, and who never win the triumphs that belong to a charming morning deshabille with only the added improvisation ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... died slowly down until no sound could be heard above the rustle of frocks ... and suddenly everybody realized ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... band, while in the piano exhibit a hired performer was playing upon a concert grand with a great flourish. Nearer at hand they could catch ends of conversation and notes of laughter, the noise of moving dresses, and the rustle of stiffly starched skirts. Here and there school children elbowed their way through the crowd, crying shrilly, their hands full of advertisement pamphlets, fans, picture cards, and toy whips, while the air itself was full of the smell ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... sleepy gulfs, but she will rise Often before me in the twilight shade, Holding a bunch of poppies and a blade Of springing wheat: prostrate my body lies Before her on the turf, the while she ties A fillet of the weed about my head; And in the gaps of sleep I seem to hear A gentle rustle like the stir of corn, And words like odours thronging to my ear: "Lie still, beloved—still until the morn; Lie still with me upon this rolling sphere— Still till the judgment; thou art faint ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... out of the darkness, and the faint rustle he made and then a peculiar sound from his lips indicated that he ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... effort on his own part, his eyes travelled to the thickest part of the obstruction, and encountered another pair of eyes gazing at him steadily from the depths of the leafy screen. That gaze held his own for a moment, and then vanished. He looked again, but the screen was now unbroken, and not the rustle of a leaf betrayed the person who was ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... along the main corridor of St. Sidwell's. It came with a tramp and a rustle and a hiss and a tramp, urged to a trot by the excited teachers. The First Division first, half-woman, carrying itself smoothly, with a swish of its long skirts, with a blush, a dreamy intellectual smile, or a steadfast impenetrable ...
— Superseded • May Sinclair
... groping her return to the window-seat, when a faint rustle as of some one moving on the other side of the door caught her ear. She had fancied herself brave enough an instant before, but in the darkness a great horror of fear came on her. She stood rooted to the spot; and heard the noise again. It was followed by the sound of a hand passed ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... her step recede along the hall, and then somewhere a clock struck eight. As the sound died away the rustle of skirts came down the stair, and Mrs. Magnus appeared in the doorway. Her panic of the morning had passed, ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... that things were not as things had been. The air around me began to stir, it rustled as the wings of eagles rustle, it took life. Bright eyes gazed upon me, strange whispers shook my soul. Upon the darkness were bars of light. They changed and interchanged, they moved to and fro and wove mystic symbols which I could not read. Swifter and swifter ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... on, and his horse's hoof struck into another patch of leaves, but no tune arose from the rustle. The old man was thinking. In a field of furrowed clouds the moon was struggling, and down the sandy road fell light and darkness in alternating patches. Far away he saw a figure stepping from light ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... explain the will in a hard, methodical voice, nodding his head whenever he reached a point of importance at the parchment which rustled between Captain Barker's fingers. For a while this rustle sounded like the whisper of ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... but it isn't enough," said Fred. "I'll get Lester's, and you fellows can rustle up something else that ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... such variations of his own as made him the envy and despair of all other fiddlers in the vicinity. Indeed, he could rarely get away from a great house without a sample of his powers in this direction, and then blending with the rhythmical cadence of feet, the rustle of garments, would be evoked ripples of mirth and bursts of laughter that were echoed back from the dim pine-groves without. Finally, when with his great foot beating time on the floor and every muscle of his body in motion, he ended with an original arrangement ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... disappeared. Lydia concluded that he had been disturbed while bathing in the canal, and had taken flight with his wardrobe under his arm. She laughed at the idea, turned to her manuscript again, and wrote on. Suddenly there was a rustle and a swift footstep without. Then the latch was violently jerked up, and Cashel Byron rushed in as far as the threshold, where he stood, stupefied at the presence of Lydia, and the change in ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... rustle in the wind, There waits a lad for Rosalind. If still she be so wond'rous kind, Perchance she'll ease the fretted mind ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... heavy boots had receded down the hall, Lady Channice and her son again sat in silence; but it was now another silence from that into which Mrs. Grey's shots had broken. It was like the stillness of the copse or hedgerow when the sportsmen are gone and a vague stir and rustle in ditch or underbrush tells of broken wings or limbs, of a wounded ...
— Amabel Channice • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... no more after that, but I knew that he had gone, although there was no sound of his departure. Then I listened for the rustle of the princess' dress when she should move away. Presently it came. She sighed, then rose from the couch where she had been sitting, and I knew that she had stepped out upon the path. I closed my eyes, the better ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... slowly, with the dogs close at heel, I soon became lost to everything but the entrancing beauty of the evening, its perfect peacefulness and quietude, emphasised rather than broken by the gentle gurgle and ripple of the river along its banks and the soft sigh and rustle of the wind among the reeds; while the swift changes of light and colour flooding the landscape as the sun sank rapidly in the western sky afforded a picture the surpassing loveliness of which there are no words to describe. Unconsciously ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... Mrs. Batty, bending forward stiffly because of her constricting clothes, and with a creak and rustle, ventured to ask in low tones, 'Have you any news of Mr. Mallett lately?' The three elder ladies murmured together; Rose, indifferent, concerned with her own thoughts, ate a creamy cake. This was one ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... brought his class of boys for an outing. What lessons these growing lads will imbibe from the beauty of Nature around them. How can they help but think of the Creator when they dwell so near the primal source of life. The crystal waters of the lake will teach them purity, the leaves of the trees will rustle messages of self-denial, and the majestic mountains will speak to them of endurance and courage, a religion which dwells in Nature until they, "like Moses, will see in the bushes the radiant Deity and know they are treading on ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... else in particular. A vague sense of pleasant idleness possessed her, and it was like the breaking of a dream when the door opened and Katy came in, not quietly after her wont, but with a certain haste and indignant rustle as if vexed by something. When she saw Clover at the window, she cried ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge
... for any moving object. Suddenly, at a little distance, and coming directly toward us, we saw a party of Indians. There were five of them, all men, walking in single file, as noiselessly as ghosts, their moccasined feet causing not even a rustle among the dry leaves that carpeted the woods. All the horrible stories we had heard of Indian cruelty flashed into our minds, and for a moment we were dumb with terror. Then I remembered having been told that the one thing one must not do before them is to show fear. Harry was carrying ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... morrow there was great stir and rustle and preparation. Those lords and barons in attendance at Court who were from the vicinity went off to gather their following; and those from distant parts of the Kingdom sent commands to their constables or stewards to hasten ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... till the maid had been gone about ten minutes, and then came slowly down the hollow to the spot where Clarissa was seated. The rustle of the fern startled her; she looked up, and saw him standing by her side. It was just a year since he had surprised her in Mr. Wooster's garden at Henley. She had thought of him very much in that time, ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... purred softly, and there was added to this sound after a little a gentle rustle which, though she heard it, seemed so a part of the quiet that she gave it no thought. Then, suddenly, as if she had been awakened from a dream, she became conscious of the presence of some one ...
— The Spectacle Man - A Story of the Missing Bridge • Mary F. Leonard
... upon my coat-sleeve. I turned my head. Felicia was sailing down the room,—Felicia exquisitely dressed as usual, walking with a soft rustle of lace,—delightful, alluring; and in her wake Delora himself, tall, well-groomed, aristocratic, looking around him with mild but slightly bored interest. Louis was piloting them to a table, the best in the place. We watched them seat themselves. Delora, through a horn-rimmed eyeglass, ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... rustle which accompanied the movement, and a look I found it hard to comprehend flashed over his features, altering his expression so completely ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... swept away, seemed still to remain in the drawing-in of her eyes. In the mien of the youngest girls there, there could be seen a strained tenseness of lids and lips as though, in the midst of laughter, they were hearkening for distant sounds or the rustle of listeners behind the tapestry. And where a small door came into one wall they had pulled down the arras from in front of it, so that no one should enter unobserved. Lady Rochford addressed herself to Katharine with ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... their daggers at its heart, shall all sleep in the dust together. Its name shall be heard with veneration amid the roar of the Pacific's waves, away upon the river of the North and East where liberty is divided from monarchy, and be wafted in gentle breezes upon the Rio Grande. It shall rustle in the harvest and wave in the standing corn, on the extended prairies of the West, and be heard in the bleating folds find lowing herds upon a thousand hills. It shall be with those who delve in mines, and shall hum in ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... there was a rustle as the twigs were thrown on the glowing embers; a sharp crackling followed, and ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn
... bright colors, riding up the river trail; the eagle poised like a feather on the air, and a beneath him the grazing cattle making black dots on the sage; the deep velvet azure of the sky; the golden lights on the bare peaks and the lilac veils in the far ravines; the silky rustle of a canyon swallow as he shot downward in the sweep of the wind; the fragrance of cedar, the flowers of the spear-pointed mescal; the brooding silence, the beckoning range, the ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... footstep,—I swear I heard a footstep in the room, and with it the frou-frou of trailing skirts; my breath stopped and my teeth grated against each other as I heard the soft footfalls and the feminine rustle pass along the room towards the fireplace. My eyes saw nothing; yet there was enough light in the room for me to distinguish the pattern on the carved panels of the door. The steps stopped by the fire, and I saw the broken-legged ...
— Black Spirits and White - A Book of Ghost Stories • Ralph Adams Cram
... think of trying to find the way out of the wood. The streets would be as cold as the forest, and never, never, never, if he starved and froze, was he going back to that house in the village where he had lived but never belonged. So he went on until the gray light faded, and the soft rustle of falling leaves changed to the noise of wind scraping in bare branches. When he was very cold, and ready to lie down and sleep again to forget, he came quite suddenly on an opening in the trees. In the dim light ...
— The Little House in the Fairy Wood • Ethel Cook Eliot
... to lie under the corn and hear it rustle, Cool and green in a long, straight, soldierly row, I am tired of white-faced women and men of iron. I want to go back where the ...
— Armour's Monthly Cook Book, Volume 2, No. 12, October 1913 - A Monthly Magazine of Household Interest • Various
... through the summer day and summer night there was a kind of music in the air. The whisper of the wind that stirred the willows made soft accompaniment of the splash of paddle in the stream: the birds sang lustily amid the gentle rustle of the garden trees, and when the thrush retired to roost the nightingale took up the tale. The very footfall of the men hurrying to lecture was a pleasant sound, for then they needed not to punctuate their ...
— Oxford • Frederick Douglas How
... figure well bent back the better to bend her bow; her loose-hanging sleeves caught up to her shoulders, showing the graceful bare arms polished like amber and very much of the same color. Each arrow whistles by with the rustle of a bird's wing,—then a short sharp little blow is heard, the target ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... onward, Perseus fancied that he could hear the rustle of a garment close by his side; and it was on the side opposite to the one where he beheld Quicksilver, ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... among the men who were going to decide whether he was worthy of life or guilty of death, and the packed court, composed about equally of men and women, most of whom would have shuddered to see a dog beaten, or a tired hare made to go an extra mile, settled themselves in their places with a rustle of satisfaction at the thought of seeing a man brought before them in the shame of suspected murder, and promised themselves an interesting and thrilling couple of days in observing the gallows march nearer him, and in watching ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson
... speak, and every sound was hushed, not only in the Indian camp, but in surrounding nature. Not a bird chirped; not a leaf was heard to rustle among the trees of the plain; the beasts of the forests were still; the busy bee desisted from its hum; even the winds were hushed and silent while the stranger ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... invisible victim; and how hotly I swore, that precious blood of hers should never smoke upon an altar. If we drowned for it, I was bent upon rescuing the captive. But as yet, no gentle signal of distress had been waved to us from the tent. Thence, no sound could be heard, but an occasional rustle of the matting. Was it possible, that one about to be immolated could proceed thus ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... drove out of the wood, the rustle of the leaves under his wheels changed from the soft murmurs in the moist hollows to the crisp crackle in the open places. In the west Venus hung silver white over the new moon, and below the star and the crescent a single pine tree stood as clearly defined as if it were pasted on a grey ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... was a rustle of a silk dress, and a lady, arrayed in a long cloak and with a thick veil on, was shown into the room. Mr. Caresfoot, rising with that courteous air for which he was remarkable, bowed and begged her to be seated, ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... gala costume, who all greeted the envoys with demonstrations of extreme respect: The halls and corridors were lined with archers, halbardiers, Swiss guards, and grooms "besmeared with gold," and it was thought that all this rustle of fine feathers would be somewhat startling to the barbarous republicans, fresh ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... to circle away down to Hake's Mill to get across the creek, but we felt well repaid for our trouble when we arrived there. The fallen nuts lay thick amid the dead leaves, and up on the half-naked trees the splitting hulls hung in clusters, willing to drop their burden at the least rustle of ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... in the little sitting-room, and Ser Giulia was there, cutting out a skirt on the table very carefully, in a tense silence that was broken only by the click of the scissors and the rustle of silk. ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... window, and glanced at the great stretch of yellow grain that ran back across the prairie. Dusty teams and binders with flashing wooden arms moved half-hidden along the edge of it, and the still, clear air was filled with a clash and clatter and the rustle of flung-out sheaves. ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... There is the vehemence of battle, the wail of woe, the march of veterans "red-wat-shod," the smiles of meeting, the tears of parting friends, the gurgle of brown burns, the roar of the wind through pines, the rustle of barley rigs, the thunder on the hill—all Scotland is in his verse. Let who will make her laws, Burns has made the songs, which her emigrants recall "by the long wash of Australasian seas," in which maidens are wooed, by which ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... I said it, Sweet," he answered uneasily, and just then a little cloud floated over the face of the moon, darkening the world, and a cold wind blew down the kloof, causing its trees to rustle and chilling the pair, so that they clung closer to each other ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... phylactery, As from the synagogue was seen The dusty-sandalled Nazarene Through ripening cornfields lead the way Upon the awful Sabbath day, His sermons were the healthful talk That shorter made the mountain-walk, His wayside texts were flowers and birds, Where mingled with his gracious words The rustle of the ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... was very still for a long time. At last, there came a little rustling, whispering sound, all round the window: RUSTLE, ...
— Stories to Tell to Children • Sara Cone Bryant
... certainly in a hole and, if these fellows stop here till night, I see no chance of our being able to move. The slightest rustle in the bushes would bring them down upon us, in no time. The firing is getting more and more distant every moment and, no doubt, a big body of the enemy have ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... Look in upon him any time, night or day, and he was apparently wrapped in the profoundest slumber; but the live mice which I put into his box from time to time found his sleep was easily broken; there would be a sudden rustle in the box, a faint squeak, and then silence. After a week of captivity I gave him his freedom in the full sunshine: no trouble for him to see which way ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... fashionable friends and their servants with the vulgar herd, the respectable but "impossible" middle classes. Indeed, he was not sure that he didn't really belong among them. The sound of Janet's subdued, most elegant rustle, drove out of his mind everything but an awful dread of what she would say and think and feel when he had disclosed to her the hideous truth. She came sweeping in, her eyes full of unshed tears, ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... floating forms That whisper over me like summer leaves; And now there comes, and spreads through all my soul. Delicious influx of another life, From out whose essence spring, like living flowers, Angelic senses with quick ultimates, That catch the rustle of ethereal robes, And the thin chime of melting minstrelsy— Rising and falling—answered far away— As Echo, dreaming in the twilight woods, Repeats the warble of her twilight birds. And flowers that mock the Iris toss their cups In the impulsive ether, and spill out ...
— Bitter-Sweet • J. G. Holland
... sigh; for light from hidden windows is splintered into the darkness by intervening wayside trees and bushes. Still that wristlet tinkles against the water-jar, and retreating steps rustle from down the lane littered ...
— The Fugitive • Rabindranath Tagore
... to decline, the sun sank, it commenced to rustle lightly in the trees around, and the nursemaids who sat in groups near the parallel bars made ready to wheel their perambulators home. I was calmed and in good spirit. The excitement I had just laboured under quieted down little ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... and a few blocks of boxwood, his silver-mounted flute, and a book for Amaryllis. He packed his carpet-bag and hastened away to his Baden-Baden, to Coombe Oaks, his spa among the apple-bloom, the song of finches, and rustle of leaves. ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... villain call. Sometimes when thou liest warmly on thy bed, Thou art like one unto the gallows led. Fear, as a constable, breaks in upon thee, Thou art as if the town was up to stone thee. If hogs do grunt, or silly rats do rustle, Thou art in consternation, think'st a bustle By men about the door, is made to take thee, And all because good conscience doth forsake thee. Thy case is most deplorably so bad, Thou shunn'st to think on't, lest ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... later Jules heard, with a feverish shudder, the rustle of a silk gown, and almost recognized by their sound the ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... and put Red Chief between us. We weren't afraid he'd run away. He kept us awake for three hours, jumping up and reaching for his rifle and screeching: "Hist! pard," in mine and Bill's ears, as the fancied crackle of a twig or the rustle of a leaf revealed to his young imagination the stealthy approach of the outlaw band. At last, I fell into a troubled sleep, and dreamed that I had been kidnapped and chained to a tree by a ferocious ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... most of the Northern States April is the month of the robin. In large numbers they scour the fields and groves. You hear their piping in the meadow, in the pasture, on the hillside. Walk in the woods, and the dry leaves rustle with the whir of their wings the air is vocal with their cheery call. In excess of joy and vivacity, they run, leap, scream, chase each other through the air, diving and sweeping among the trees ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... glorified. Outwards the chant extending, reaches the hollows of the valley, rolling over the shortened stubble, where the plough already begins the first verse of a new time. A pleasant sound to listen to, the hum of the threshing, the beating of the engine, the rustle of the straw, the shuffle shuffle of the machine, the voices of the men, the occupation and bustle in the autumn afternoon! I listened to it sitting in the hop-oast, whose tower, like a castle turret, overlooks and domineers the yard. In ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... of the hill she saw something that made a fierce, angry gleam come into her yellow eyes. Then she smiled grimly. "The last laugh always is the best laugh, and this time I guess it is going to be mine," she said to herself. Very slowly and carefully, so as not to so much as rustle a leaf, she began to crawl around so as to come up on the back ...
— The Adventures of Prickly Porky • Thornton W. Burgess
... the old Basilica of St. Peter, stood the Pope before the altar, and performed in silence the midnight mass. The church was crowded, and everyone was on his knees. The silence was so deep that the rustle of the white sleeve of the officiant could be heard when he elevated the cup. But another sound was audible, which seemed to be measuring out the last moments of the Millennium. It beat like the pulse in the ear of a feverish man, and at the same rate. The door of ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... in progress, or a lecture or concert begun. When this happens, it should be the rare and unavoidable accident of detention, not the habitual and perhaps even ostentatious custom that it seems to be with some people. The noise about the swing-doors, and the rustle in the aisles, the banging of hinged seats, and the occasional parley with the usher, render the seats under the galleries practically valueless during the first half of the performance, since the speakers cannot be heard in the midst of the confusion. The "sense" of the opening act being lost, ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... sky, listening to the soft tinkle of the water running below, the dip of an oar, the swirl of a blue heron's wing as it clove the air, the distant voices of the picnickers farther down the creek, the rustle of the yellow beech-leaves as they whispered of the time to go, and how they would drift down like little brown boats to the stream and glide away to the end. Now and then a nut would fall with a tiny crisp thud, and a squirrel would whisk ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... lose their sparkle and radiance, as the filament of the dawn shrouds and stifles them. Far down the valley tumbling outlines of ridge and height are carved out in sharper relief against the lightening sky. There is a stir in the leaves o'erhead and the soft rustle of the morning breeze. Presently the pallid veil at the east takes on a purplish blush, that is changing every instant to a ruddier hue. Faces are beginning to be dimly visible in the groups of defenders, pinched and drawn and cold in the nipping air, and Wayne notes with ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... the traditions of Saint Margaret's that the Senior Surgeon had ever asked for anything that went ungranted. He seldom attended a board meeting; consequently when he came in at five-thirty there was an audible rustle of excitement and ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... in his small, pale eyes waned and flared as distant sounds broke the forest silence, grew vague, died out, — the fairy clatter of a falling leaf, the sudden scurry of a squirrel, a feathery rustle of swift wings in play or combat, the soft crash of a rotten bough sagging earthward to enrich the ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere. Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead; They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread. The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay, And from the wood-top calls the crow through ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... a while. I had rilled the pail, when there was a rustle among the trees, and I thought one of the Frenchies was about to ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn
... scarf above her hair, and walked down the steep rutted hill with the Governor, her flowered gown floating with a silken rustle about her. In a few moments she was listening to ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... There was a slight rustle behind him! It was the young girl who, with a white woolen scarf thrown over her head and shoulders, had just left the room. She started when she saw him, ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... I heard the rustle of her shawl As she threw blackness everywhere Upon the sky and ground and air, And in the room where I was hid: But no matter what she did To everything that was without, She could not put ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 • Various
... of this object of search all fear, all vestige of anxiety vanished. Tscholens felt his heart beat fast. His blood throbbed in his temples. He dropped upon his knees—a sinuous, supple motion, a vague rustle, and he had passed into the unimagined ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... silken rustle, and Lady Newhaven, pale, breathless, came swiftly in and closed the door. The instant afterwards she saw her husband, and shrank back with a little cry. Lord Newhaven did not look at her. His eyes were ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... a cannon fired; and shortly afterwards the men in the next room gave over snoring for good, and began to rustle over their toilettes. The sound of their voices as they talked was low and like that of people watching by the sick. Jones, who had at last begun to doze, tumbled and murmured, and every now and then opened unconscious eyes upon me where I lay. I found myself growing eerier and eerier, ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the room, where the most prominent object was the figure of an old gentleman, with grey hair and a velvet skull-cap; he sat at a table writing busily, and everything was so quiet and still that they could even hear the scratch of his quill pen, and the rustle of the sheets of manuscript which he threw from time to time on the floor. Sometimes he looked vaguely out of the window, and sometimes he took off his skull-cap and rubbed his bald head with his pocket handkerchief—then ...
— Our Frank - and other stories • Amy Walton
... awoke the fire was still burning, and a figure was seated beside it: a figure that the leaping flames rendered monstrous and distorted. The back was towards me, but at the slight rustle I made upon my bed of dry leaves in awakening, the figure turned in my direction, and I caught a momentary glimpse of the face. Firelight plays strange tricks sometimes, but the momentary flicker showed ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... at a noise on the stairway. His senses not yet dulled, detected a stealthy tread. Not the careless step of a man unafraid, but the cautious rustle and halt of a marauder. Every nerve bristled to keenest alertness as the faint occasional sounds approached, passed the open end of the bar where he crouched, leading on to the window. Then a match flared, and the darkness rushed out ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... presently, the rustle of crumpling papers, heard a half-smothered sob, waited, listening, alert for further treachery on ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... her daughter rustle into their pew at church—placed next in honour to that of the proprietor of the soil—all eyes are turned upon them. The old-fashioned farmer's wife, who until her years pressed heavily upon her made the cheese and butter in her husband's dairy, is ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... the great waters swinging in the river from bank to bank. I drew the bucket fresh, and bound the cloths cold on Dan's head again. I hadn't a thought in my head, and I fell to counting the meshes in the net that hung from the wall, but in my ears there was the everlasting rustle of the sea and shore. It grew clearer,—it got to being a universal gray; there'd been no sunrise, but it was day. Dan stirred,—he turned over heavily; then he opened his eyes wide ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... sward or thorny spray; All the heaped Autumn's wealth, With a still, mysterious stealth: She will mix these pleasures up Like three fit wines in a cup, And thou shalt quaff it;—thou shalt hear Distant harvest-carols clear; Rustle of the reaped corn; Sweet birds antheming the morn: And in the same moment—hark! 'Tis the early April lark, Or the rooks, with busy caw, Foraging for sticks and straw. Thou shalt, at one glance, behold The daisy and the marigold; White-plumed lilies, and the first Hedge-grown primrose ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... up a slight breeze that made the tufts of thatch in the roof rustle. The sky, pale lilac, grew paler still, and, suddenly, a great yellow rent tore it in the east. Dawn broke over the empty desert. From within the stockade came dull noises, a bugle call, the rattle of chains. The post ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... is that uproar which is now striking our ear. Such hoarse notes, such rapid flutterings, whizzings, deep rumbling sounds, and such a rustle of dead leaves surely betoken something. We turn an elbow of the road, and a flashing of blue wings, and darting of blue shapes in the air, now circling round, now shooting up, and now down, with a large beech tree for the centre, meet our eyes. The tumult is explained. A colony of wild pigeons ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... among my wife and the two guests, and was heard, I think, by all three. Mrs. Hillard, I remember, was greatly startled. As for myself, I was reclining on the sofa at a little distance, and neither heard the rustle nor ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... so often before; there is unbroken stillness, then a faint murmur slowly rising and spreading until I am sure that the moment of revelation has come, then a slow recession back to silence. I am not discouraged; sooner or later that multitudinous rustle of the wild woods will break into clear-voiced speech. I am sure, too, that some great movement of life is about to display itself before me. Is not this hush the sudden stillness of those whom I have surprised and who have, on the instant, sprung to their coverts ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... magazines, but, almost unheeded, they slipped out of his fingers on to the grass. He felt supremely and blissfully lazy. The soft thud of tennis balls, and the players' voices calling the score, came faintly through the still air, and Vane half closed his eyes. Then a sudden rustle of a skirt beside him broke into his thoughts, and he looked up into the face of the girl whom Lady Patterdale had greeted ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... come when we pitched our tents on a meadow in the shade of thick dark-green palms. There was a rustle and pleasant whisper among the hard fronds when the spring storms swept over the country. We were tired of the everlasting dull yellow tint of the desert and were delighted with the fresh verdure. Outside my ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... "That line does sort of—well, tug at your heart-strings, doesn't it?" She smiled, almost wistfully. "Say, Billy, when you reach the Eagle House at Waterloo, tell Annie, the head-waitress to rustle you a couple of Mrs. Traudt's dill pickles. Tell her Mrs. McChesney asked you to. Mrs. Traudt, the proprietor's wife, doles 'em out to her favorites. They're crisp, you know, and firm, and juicy, ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... yu th' cook all O.K.," interrupted Charley Lane vehemently. "Hi, yu cook!" he shouted, "amble in here an' git a rustle on!" ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... there is motionless, Nothing save the airs that brood Over the magic solitude. Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees That palpitate like the chill seas 15 Around the misty Hebrides! Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven That rustle through the unquiet Heaven Uneasily, from morn till even, Over the violets there that lie 20 In myriad types of the human eye, Over the lilies there that wave And weep above a nameless grave! They wave:—from out their fragrant tops Eternal dews come down in ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... of the edifice, disturbed now and then by silken rustle and soft-shod foot were bewildering to Amarilly. She experienced a slight depression until the vibrating tones of the organ fell softly upon the air. The harmony grew more subdued, ceased, and was succeeded by another moment of solemn silence. Then a procession of white-robed ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... poet was riding over a wild Galloway moor,—and next, Highland Mary and A Man's a Man for a' That; but there is no need of enumerating the songs of Burns. As Emerson has said, "The wind whispers them, the birds whistle them, the corn, barley, and bulrushes hoarsely rustle them. . . . They are the property ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various
... still shadows deepening in the sinking sun. A number of men are dragging down the nearest hillside the carcass of a bear which they have just despatched with spears. There is no village, and the busy clatter of the cicada and the rustle of the forest are the only sounds which float on the still evening air. The sunset colours are pink and green; on the tinted water lie the waxen cups of great water-lilies, and above the wooded heights the pointed, craggy, and altogether naked summit of the volcano of Komono-taki flushes red in ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... the lights in the saloon were put out, and its occupants had fled. The rustle of human buzzards flocking to the tragedy had begun. A motion that the murderer made to escape aroused the New Hampshire boy to a fierce sense of justice. A few bounds brought him by the side of the ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... scarcely asked himself the question when a rustle in the bushes near him caused him to look quickly round and seize his gun. But the noise was not repeated, and nothing could be seen to justify alarm. Still Dan felt that the sound justified caution; he ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... had risen to their feet, but no one spoke, and the brief rustle of movement, as every one turned instinctively towards that slender, sable figure, whispered ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... evil Isaac stopped and looked around him. Suddenly above the musical babble of the brook and the rustle of the leaves by the breeze came a repetition of the sound. He crouched close by the trunk of a tree and strained his ears. All was quiet for some moments. Then he heard the patter, patter of little ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... Heaven, and these The columns of the heavenly palaces! And, in the sweeping of the wind, your ear The passage of the Angels' wings will hear, And on the lichen-crusted leads deg. above deg.45 The rustle of the eternal ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... the Lord of His Church, 'who ever liveth to make intercession for us.' Round Him stand perfected spirits, the watchmen on the walls of the New Jerusalem, who 'rest not day and night, saying, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty.' From His presence come, filling the air with the rustle of their swift wings and the light of their flame-faces, the ministering spirits who evermore 'do His commandments, hearkening to the voice of His word.' And we, Christian brethren, where are we in all this magnificent concurrence of activity, for purposes ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... they say 'tis but the sunset winds that wander through the heather, Rustle all the meadow-grass and bend the dewy fern; They say 'tis but the winds that bow the reeds in prayer together, And fill the shaken pools with ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... Trysdale's mind a swift, scarifying retrospect of the last few hours. It seemed that in his nostrils was still the scent of the flowers that had been banked in odorous masses about the church, and in his ears the lowpitched hum of a thousand well-bred voices, the rustle of crisp garments, and, most insistently recurring, the drawling words of the minister irrevocably binding ...
— Waifs and Strays - Part 1 • O. Henry
... lay listening intently. Once or twice he fancied that he heard the rustle of the snake over the dingy carpet, and he wondered whether it would attempt to climb on to the bed. He stood up, and tried to get his revolver from the drawers. It was out of reach, and as the bed creaked beneath his weight, ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs
... Shoop on the ground, the flesh of his shoulder torn away by a .45 and a welt of red above his ear where a Mexican's bullet had creased him. They carried him to the house. "Sun, you might stir around and rustle some grub. The boys will want to eat directly." And Corliss stepped to the water-trough, washed his hands, and then rolled a cigarette. Hi Wingle sat beside him as they waited for dinner. Suddenly Corliss turned to his cook. "I guess we've ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... if there were such things, this was just the night and just the place for the ghost he was looking for to take its walk abroad. He did not like it, and began to wish he was safe at home. The bushes round him began to rustle noisily, and a gate in the field swung to and fro with an almost human groan. He fancied he could descry wandering lights and white gleams in the darkness, and the vague consciousness of something ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... over which my thoughts run and fly to your sweet presence!" The letter lay warm in her bosom just under the "Gloire de France" rose; she pressed it tenderly with her little hand now simply for the childish pleasure of hearing the paper rustle, and she smiled dreamily. ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... is the cleanly quiet of the town, kept fresh by little channels of clear water circulating through its streets, derivatives of the rapid Vanne which falls just below into the Yonne. The Yonne, bending gracefully, link after link, through a never-ending rustle of poplar trees, beneath lowly vine-clad hills, with relics of delicate woodland here and there, sometimes close at hand, sometimes leaving an interval of broad meadow, has all the lightsome characteristics of French river-side scenery on a smaller scale than usual, and might pass for the child's ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Horatio Pater
... September sunshine ripened leaves drifted down through interlaced branches, and the whispering rustle of their fall filled the forest silence. The wood road, carpeted with brilliant leaves, wound through second growth, following the edge of a dark, swift stream, then swept westward among the pines, where the cushion of brown needles deadened every step, ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... promontory of rock which projected from the side of the kloof, walking quietly, not running in alarm. We followed after it. I was the first, and had just wriggled round these rocks and perceived the buck standing about ten paces away (it was a bush-bok), when I heard a rustle among the bushes on the top of the rock not a dozen feet above my head, and Charlie ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard |
