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More "Muffled" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Barbara, hearing a muffled sob behind her, turned to see the tears running down Georgina's face. The next instant she was up, and with her arms around the child, was gently pushing her ahead of her out of the room, into the hall. With the door shut behind her ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... evidently near, though muffled. The earth shook; a tremor ran through the Jasper B.; the glasses leaped and rang upon the table. Cleggett, followed by Lady Agatha, ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... the yard a few minutes later in his dog-cart, muffled in a great coat with the collar ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... searching for food, or laying siege to some hidden grub, the sound of his hammer is dead or muffled, and is heard but a few yards. It is only upon dry, seasoned timber, freed of its bark, that he beats his reveille to ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... half filled it with snow. Some one ahead of us, with a lantern, guided our course for a mile or so through the dense obscurity, and then he turned off on another road. At first I hailed one and another in the black cavern of the rockaway behind me, and their muffled voices would answer, "All right." But one after another they ceased to answer me until all were fast asleep except my wife. She insisted that she was only very drowsy, but I knew that she was also very, very tired. Indeed, I felt myself, in a way that frightened ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... directly, with all the other apartments. At one extremity, this spacious room was lighted by the windows of the two towers, which formed a small recess on either side of the portal. At the other end, though partly muffled by a curtain, it was more powerfully illuminated by one of those embowed hall-windows which we read of in old books, and which was provided with a deep and cushioned seat. Here, on the cushion, lay a folio tome, probably of the Chronicles ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... long rough tear and wear, is breaking down. The world is all so changed; so much that seemed vigorous has sunk decrepit, so much that was not is beginning to be!—Borne over the Atlantic, to the closing ear of Louis, King by the Grace of God, what sounds are these; muffled ominous, new in our centuries? Boston Harbour is black with unexpected Tea: behold a Pennsylvanian Congress gather; and ere long, on Bunker Hill, DEMOCRACY announcing, in rifle-volleys death-winged, under her Star ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... remove his armor, for he intended to go down again. His laugh, muffled and sounding strangely from within the visor, was heard as he joined in the ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... the thoughts that all unbidden coursed through the mind of the culprit lying bound and muffled in the rear seat? So intently were the eyes of his spirit bent inward on the dark and whirling horrors they found there that the eyes of his body were blind to the wonders of the young day. He lay where they had placed him, staring blindly through ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb
... a voice muffled because at the moment he was sucking loose a fragment of ice from its ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London
... fragrance that filled the air, the pleasure-loving women—these people, so free and unconstrained, all strangers to one another, hidden in the elegant, half-dark salon, each following his most secret thoughts—thoughts born of the mysterious, muffled music; whilst the firelight rose and fell, and made everything that was golden glimmer ...
— Norse Tales and Sketches • Alexander Lange Kielland
... to the stone Leonard heard a sound behind him, a sound of footsteps muffled by the snow, and glancing round he saw Soa rushing towards them, almost naked, a spear-wound in her side, and the light of madness shining in ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... Ruth both exerted themselves to the utmost, they could barely stir the stump. Suddenly they heard a struggle going on inside the hollow shell; as well, a thumping on the thin partition of wood and a muffled ...
— Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp • Alice Emerson
... him—not a word! I never saw the pianofortes in the United States with the frilled muslin trousers on their legs; but, depend on it, the muslin covered some of the notes as well as the mahogany, muffled the music, and stopped ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... sharply. When no one came to answer the bell he rang again and angrily flung the bell on the floor; it fell on the carpet with a muffled sound, and uttered a plaintive note as though at the point of death. ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... unexpectedly upon a herd during the night, when the alarm of the elephants was apparently too great to be satisfied with the stealthy note of warning just described. On these occasions the sound produced resembled the hollow booming of an empty tun when struck with a wooden mallet or a muffled sledge. Major MACREADY, Military Secretary in Ceylon in 1836, who heard it by night amongst the wild elephants in the great forest of Bintenne, describes it as "a sort of banging noise like a cooper hammering a cask;" and Major SKINNER is of opinion that it must be produced by the elephant striking ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... near to the back of the head of the unsuspecting victim—that kind man who had "never willingly planted a thorn in any man's bosom," who could not bear to witness suffering even in an animal. The report of the pistol was somewhat muffled and was unnoticed by the majority of the audience. The ball penetrated the President's brain, and without word or sound his head dropped upon his breast. Major Rathbone took in the situation and sprang ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... sitting erect, rigidly attentive, listening to the muffled sound of a woman's voice in the entry. A few moments later came a knock at the library door, and Sam entered. The ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... answer to his soliloquy, there rose above the crackling of the fire, the muffled distant thud of galloping hoofs. A few moments later a well-built, sturdy lad astride a mettlesome pony dashed into the ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... one, in the rather muffled voice of a man troubled by deafness, the impression he makes is by no means an impression of melancholy or despair; on the contrary it is the impression of strength, power, courage, and unassailable allegiance to truth. He is careless of appearance ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... still bound in frost—we found was able to bear our army and save us the toilsome bend round Stronmealchan. We put out on its surface fearlessly. The horses pranced between the isles; our cannon trundled on over the deeps; our feet made a muffled thunder, and that was the only sound in all the void. For Cruachan had looked down on the devastation of the enemy. And at the falling of the night we camped at ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... the lamp past the edge of the flap. He set his teeth and decided that he would not interfere. When he heard sounds which, muffled in the towel, were like the whines and grunts of a tortured animal, he stiffened his determination ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... scrambling for our bags, and we were stumbling after them, up a long platform, between a crowd of men in hotel caps yelling: "Danieli!" "Britannia!" and I hardly heard what, out into a fog as impenetrable as night or London. The muffled, ghostly cries of "gundola! gundola!" from invisible gondoliers on invisible waters would have sent me back into the station even had there been a chance to find so modest a hotel as the Casa Kirsch ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... to that from the Schwarzsee, but much finer, the Theodule Glacier being seen to great advantage. Above the Hoernli towers the Matterhorn, huge, fierce, frowning, threatening. Every few moments comes a heavy, muffled sound, as new showers of falling stones come down. This is one of the main dangers in climbing the peak itself, for from base to summit, the Matterhorn is really a decaying mountain, the stones rolling away through the action of the storms, the frosts, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various
... universally go in them, but wear them; that is, every thing is to be en cabriolet; the men paint them on their waistcoats, and have them embroidered for clocks to their stockings; and the women, who have gone all the winter without any thing on their heads, are now muffled up in great caps with round sides, in the form of, and scarce less than the wheels of ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... with its Midas touch turning the water and sky to molten gold. The last rays gilded the cliffs on either side of the entrance to the bay, and burnished the heads of the nodding poppies at our feet. From the Presidio came the muffled ...
— The Lure of San Francisco - A Romance Amid Old Landmarks • Elizabeth Gray Potter and Mabel Thayer Gray
... Graystone," she said, holding out a small package. "It was left here a moment ago, by a tall gentleman so completely muffled in furs that I could only get a glimpse of a pair of handsome eyes. If you will not think me too curious, I should like to ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... wrinkled with an infinite disdain as he turned the sketches over, and he said, with a delightful air of patronage, 'I see, I see. A brother of the brush.' He brought with him on his journey from Gee's Court to the north of London an incredible ghoul of a man, a creature whose face was muffled in a huge beard alive with vermin. He, it seemed, was another neglected man of genius; but I declined to be introduced to him. I looked up the artist's address, however, and got to know his neighbourhood pretty well. Boulter's Rents, in my first novel, ...
— The Making Of A Novelist - An Experiment In Autobiography • David Christie Murray
... great, dark entrance hall, late in the morning, on some errand to the telephone, or to the service department of the house, her heart burdened by the sombre shadow of death that already lay upon them all, when the muffled street- door bell had rung, and the butler, red eyed, had admitted two women. Rachael, caught and reluctantly glancing toward them, had been surprised to recognize Charlotte Haviland and ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... climbing wildly, first saw the break in the trees ahead. He gave a muffled cry of delight, and in a few minutes they were all rushing, like men possessed, up a bare slope of ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... divine as to the first Aryans. They come and go like muffled and veiled figures, sent from a distant friendly party; but they say nothing, and if we do not use the gifts they bring, they ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... music of the hunting-horn filled the courtyard, the hounds sprang through the gateway and galloping hoof-beats plunged out of the paved court; loud on the drawbridge, suddenly muffled, then lost in the heather and bracken of the moors. Distant and more distant sounded the horn, until it became so faint that the sudden carol of a soaring lark drowned it in my ears. I heard the voice below responding to some call from within ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... a policeman stationed outside turned and stood passively regarding him; his muffled appearance seemed sufficiently in keeping with the uses to which this particular exit was put by others to awaken neither suspicion nor surprise. With a half-waggish air of respect the man touched his helmet. "Good-evening, sir," said he, as though there ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... have a respite from the sickness; and yet others, if I might have a respite from the clang of the bell. In the intervals of the sickness, with such strength as remained to me, I tore strips from my soaking shirt and tried to bind up the clappers; it muffled the noise a little, but not much. I wept ...
— The Tale Of Mr. Peter Brown - Chelsea Justice - From "The New Decameron", Volume III. • V. Sackville West
... stream began to cross; and as the morning wore on, and the troops near Hazel Run moved forward from their bivouacs, the rumbling of artillery on the frozen roads, the loud words of command, and the sound of martial music came, muffled by the fog, to the ears of the Confederates lying expectant on the ridge. Now and again the curtain lifted for a moment, and the Southern guns assailed the long dark columns of the foe. Very early had the Confederates taken up their position. The ravine ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... tell, and the master what you might call a confirmed invalid. Goes about in a bath chair which he hires from a regular keeper of this class of thing. Not a very old gent, but you can't quite tell, seeing that he is muffled up to his eyes. Very pale and feeble ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... the inequality of his footsteps. A minute more and they would be upstairs, swallowed and dispersed in the publicity of the meeting. Floor and ceiling above them brought down the sounds of a company near at hand, the scraping of a chair-leg, the muffled echo of voices. Carlisle's foot trod upon the bottom ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... of falling rocks below, a fierce shaking of the suspended rope, and then a muffled voice sang out an order, "H'ist away, and be dommed ter yer." Brown devoted himself assiduously to the creaking windlass, although never able entirely to remove his attention from that bright-robed, slender figure standing so closely at his side. For one brief second he vaguely wondered ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... his howling grew muffled. He must have crawled into a hollow in the trunk. But his wife did not win this shelter. An arrow brought her to the ground. She was severely hurt, for she made no effort to get away. She crouched in a sheltering way over her baby (which clung tightly to her), ...
— Before Adam • Jack London
... terror mingled with sensuous delight, as if peering downward from some giddy—height. While shameful, secret dissipation ruins the noblest of men, in the frank and open defiance of conventionality there is something that compels respect even in the most depraved. He who goes at nightfall, muffled in his cloak, to sully his life in secret, and clandestinely to shake off the hypocrisy of the day, resembles an Italian who strikes his enemy from behind, not daring to provoke him to open quarrel. There are assassinations in the dark corners of the city under shelter of the night. He who ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... screamed, "Leo!" and I heard a muffled voice saying, as I thought, "Come." What it really said was—"Don't come." But indeed—and may it go to my credit—I did not pause to think, but face outwards, just as I was sitting, began to slide and scramble down ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... striking his flanks with his sabre-flat. When dashing through the court, his companion, or, it should rather be said, his captive, had been seen to struggle, although the thick black veil in which her head was muffled prevented her cries, if any she uttered, from being audible. She now lay, as if insensible, on the left arm of the Carlist colonel. Behind came Herrera bareheaded, with clenched teeth, his drawn sword in his hand, in readiness to strike the very instant he should ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... creature," interrupted a deep voice, muffled, almost as if by intent disguised, "if it be a liberty to call me dear, I find myself craving ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... what we had planned he was very angry, and ordered that I die. They bound me hand and foot and placed me in a cave until all the warriors should return to witness my death; but while they were away I heard someone calling me in a muffled voice which seemed to come from the wall of the cave. When I replied the voice, which was a woman's, told me that she had overheard all that had passed between me and those who had brought me thither, and that she was Dacor's sister and would find ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... ran to the door, sniffing eagerly. A muffled sound of voices became audible, and Irvin, following a moment of hesitation, crossed and opened the door. The dog ran out, yapping in his irritating staccato fashion, and an expression of hope faded from Irvin's face as he saw a tall fair girl standing in the hallway talking ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... or twelve, were concealed in the hold; to invite attack, the vessel advanced boldly up-stream, and at nightfall cast anchor in the narrow channel in front of Turkey Island. About midnight the Indians stealthily boarded their canoes and cautiously, but confidently, swept towards her with muffled paddles. The Gladwyn was ready for them. Not a sound broke the silence of the night as the Indians approached the schooner; when suddenly the clang of a hammer against the mast echoed over the calm waters, the ...
— The War Chief of the Ottawas - A Chronicle of the Pontiac War: Volume 15 (of 32) in the - series Chronicles of Canada • Thomas Guthrie Marquis
... is duelling; but there are more suicides than duels, so that at any rate men do not hate others more than themselves. After a half-satirical apology for duelling, he concludes with one insurmountable objection; duelling is wholly repugnant to religion, adding with the muffled scepticism characteristic of the 18th century, 'how to reconcile them must be left to ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... Schloss Platz rejoiced for days beforehand in open draperies and freshly cleaned plate glass, giving an unwonted look of cheer and human habitableness to the majestic and venerable pile through which we had walked, a few weeks before, with hushed voices and muffled footsteps, gazing on the rich decorations of the public rooms, the glittering candelabra, the silver balustrades, the ancient plate, the historic paintings and monuments which recall ...
— In and Around Berlin • Minerva Brace Norton
... said Jack, in what sounded like a whisper, but which was loud, only the noise of the water muffled it. ...
— Five Thousand Miles Underground • Roy Rockwood
... echo, muffled and hollow, pealed from the cliffs, then rumbled down the canyon to merge at length in the sullen, dull, continuous sound of ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... weather often aggravate the symptoms. By blowing the nostril the tumor sometimes may be forced forward, so that it may be seen a short distance from the anterior opening of the nostril. The voice is often affected, being muffled or harsh in tone, similar to that which accompanies a cold in the head. Respiration may be considerably embarrassed, due to the obstruction in the nasal passages, and the patient necessarily resorts to mouth breathing. In advanced cases the Larnyx is usually much congested, being ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... and Time is fleeting, And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating Funeral marches ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... leaned over the rail, watching the reflection of the stars twist and shiver on the smooth water. Suddenly she listened. She might have imagined it, for at night the ears deceive. "Jah, jah!" Somewhere from below came the muffled plaint of Rajah. ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... maze of shredded cloud-wreaths; the sombre river just perceptibly brightened under the veiled light; a deep silence pervaded the air and was emphasized, at intervals, rather than broken, by the hooting of an owl, the baying of a dog, or the muffled crash of a raving ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 1. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... as her friend Mrs. F——l is beloved here." "Who the deuce is that strange looking character yonder, enveloped in a boat-cloak, and muffled up to the eyes with a black handkerchief?" "That is a very important personage in a watering place, I assure you," replied Crony; "being no other than the celebrated Peter Paragraph, the London correspondent to the Morning Post, who involves, to use his own phrase, the whole hemisphere ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... refined gray. The shores were silvery, a silvery light came out of the east, streamed through the entrance of the harbor, and lay molten and glowing on the water. The steamer's deck and chairs and benches were wet with dew, the noises in transferring the baggage and getting the boat under way were all muffled and echoed in the surrounding silence. The sail-boats that lay at anchor on the still silver surface sent down long shadows, and the slim masts seemed driven down into the water to hold the boats in place. The ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... delivered, Alison Williams, the nearest to the door, had emerged. She lifted out the little muffled figure of Lovedy, set her on her feet, and then looking neither to the right nor left, as if she saw and thought of no one else, made but one bound towards Colonel Keith, clasped both hands round his arm, turned him away from the rest, and with her black brows drawn close together, ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the young people was of the Highland kind, but the night being damp and cold, the young gentleman wore over his kilt a man's pea jacket reaching to his ankles, and a glazed hat; the young lady too was muffled in an old cloth pelisse and had a handkerchief tied about her head. Their Scotch bonnets, ornamented with plumes of jet black feathers, Mr Grinder carried on ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... already full of people waiting for their carriages. Langham, hurrying down, saw Rose coming out of the cloak-room, muffled up in brown furs, a pale child-like fatigue in her looks which set his ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... before the portal to a long avenue excavated in a deeper-seated bed of coal. In some of the dark and dusty chambers which open here the miner's pick is heard, and now and then the muffled report of the miner's blast comes echoing ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 31, June 10, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... indoctrinating, drawing after him his students in his lecture-room; sitting among other public men, the most unconscious, the most king-like of them all, with that broad leonine countenance, that beaming, liberal smile; or on the way out to his home, in his old-fashioned great-coat, with his throat muffled up, his big walking-stick moved outwards in an arc, its point fixed, its head circumferential, a sort of companion, and playmate, with which doubtless, he demolished legions of imaginary foes, errors, and stupidities ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... little red coat as the mother held the sleeve to her lips and then turned it to readjust the cuff creased in folding. "He used to look so pretty in it. My beauty! My baby! My own!" she cried out in a voice muffled, half-smothered, by her choking throat. "And he thought it so fine! He valued it beyond all his other possessions," she continued presently with a melancholy smile, even while the tears, so bitter that they stung her cheeks, coursed down her face; for she had begun ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... so far as it is intelligible. To a clear cry an answer comes, but not to a muffled call. The reader who comes within speaking distance of his author can hear him, and to bring the living within speaking distance of the dead, the living must know the facts, and understand the ideas which informed and inspired the dead. Thought and attention ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... pippins, and yellow William pears had gone their rounds—all home produce—and had been admired and praised, and the Squire's full voice was mellowing after his second glass of port, when the butler came in with a letter on a salver, and carried it, with muffled footfall and solemn visage, as of one who entrusted with the delivery of a ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... long soft-lighted room, the muffled beat On carpets soft of watchful waiters' feet In deft attendance gliding; A table spread with toothsome morsels, fit For the night-feast of genius, wealth and wit, Of a skilled ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 January 11, 1890 • Various
... great dinner, without even so much as thinking of sitting down to the banquet. If any guest failed at the eleventh hour, Todd was asked to dine. Mrs. Todd and Maria came across in the evening, slipped in with a muffled knock, and were in the drawing-room by the time Miss Osborne and the ladies under her convoy reached that apartment—and ready to fire off duets and sing until the gentlemen came up. Poor Maria Todd; poor young lady! How she had to work and thrum at these duets ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... penny whistle for the fellow, all muffled up to the chin in his little wadded velvet sack, with a rich cashmere scarf of his mother's wound about his neck, and a velvet cap crushed down ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... "Mr. and Mrs. A. Thompson, of Jersey City," a quiet couple who went closely muffled up, considering that it was August, and carrying heavy valises, took quarters at a dingy furnished room house on a miscalled avenue of Brooklyn not far from the Wall Street ferries and overlooking the East River waterfront from ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... woman who does it is below rather than above her task. "Let the great soul incarnated in some woman's form, poor and sad and single, in some Dolly or Joan, go out to service, and sweep chambers and scour floors, and its effulgent day beams cannot be muffled or hid, but to sweep and scour will instantly appear supreme and beautiful actions, the top and radiance of human life, and all people will get mops and brooms; until lo, suddenly the great soul has enshrined itself in some other form and done some other deed, and that is now the ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}
... past the designated floor. Blount swore impatiently, and instead of waiting to be carried back, darted out and ran to the stairway. When he reached the lower corridor and was hurrying toward his suite in the corner of the building, there was a dull crash, as of a muffled explosion, and two or three of the glass doors in the street-fronting suite were shattered. Blount quickened his pace to a run, let himself in by means of his latch-key, and, cautiously opening his desk, groped in an ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... to sounds from outside. The menacing footsteps reached the landing, and then continued to descend. Jack turned the key in the lock. He was none too soon. A moment later the padding of the bare feet of the sentries sounded muffled outside, then grew fainter as the men separated, one ascending the stairway of the tower, the other ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... stepping up to Chan Hung, and, without any hesitation, pressing the gilt button which adorned the official's body garment, accompanying the action by a continuous muffled noise which suggested the repeated striking of a hidden bell, 'you wonder that this person stands erect on your approach, neither rolling his lowered head repeatedly from side to side, nor tracing circles in the dust of Fow Hou with his submissive stomach? Know then, the meaning ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... he (who?) gazed in the coffin (coffin?) at the oblique triple (piano!) wires. He pressed (the same who pressed indulgently her hand), soft pedalling, a triple of keys to see the thicknesses of felt advancing, to hear the muffled hammerfall in action. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... highly modern "social study." It is perhaps in particular through the memory of our dismal approach to the theatre, the squalid slum of Wych Street, then incredibly brutal and barbarous as an avenue to joy, an avenue even sometimes for the muffled coach of Royalty, that the episode affects me as antedating some of the conditions of the mid-Victorian age; the general credit of which, I should add, was highly re-established for us by the consummately quiet and natural ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... spoke there rose from the depths of the house the sound of muffled voices, children's voices singing faintly together; it rose and fell exactly like the wind, and with as little tune; it was weird and magical, but so utterly mournful that the boy felt the tears start to ...
— Jimbo - A Fantasy • Algernon Blackwood
... Jan. From the garden came the cheerful chirruping of birds and constant, eager questioning of Earley by the children. Earley's slow Gloucestershire speech rumbled on in muffled obbligato to ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... entirely unedifying to note why this man was martyred. So long as he pursued the profligate course on which he had embarked in early youth, Rome had not a word to say to him. Sin does not come under her cognisance, except to be muffled up in absolution, and hidden from the eyes of the sinner—but not from the eyes of God. But the moment that Holland's course was altered, and he began to try so to walk as to please God, that moment he came under the ban of her who dares to stand up in the face of the world, and with unblushing ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... But a woman's muffled scream was the answer. With a spring like a cat Loring threw himself on the intruder and bore him down. In an instant Folsom had barred the gate, and the woman, ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... his feet, walked over to the window, and muffled a few remarks about Aubrey Treherne, in the curtains. ...
— The Upas Tree - A Christmas Story for all the Year • Florence L. Barclay
... was to be married in April! Cara was conscious of a muffled stab of pain. But she felt no active rebellion. With a wistful sense of resignation she recognised that his life and hers were separate and apart. She herself had sundered them more than ten years ago. But now, at last, Eliot had ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... rest midway between two lamps. The man reached back and threw the door open. Teddy gave his address, and got in. At the same moment the opposite door was torn open; the parcel was snatched from his possession; the door banged. The cab started. Teddy had a mere glimpse of some one muffled to the mouth, hat brim drawn low. He turned and sprang out, staggered badly, almost fell, recovered his balance, and beheld a figure leaving the step for the interior of the retreating cab. He ran after it with a shout,—and remembered the dangers in publicity. ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... evident in nasal expression and muffled words, spoken through half-closed teeth. We were not meant to speak in that unbeautiful manner, nor were we meant to gesticulate wildly as some of our drawing-room orators persist in doing-to the amusement of everyone else concerned. When you enter the world of good society, ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler
... our ascent of the Big Mountain,—a chief that carries the range up several hundred feet higher than the part we have thus far traversed. We are occasionally to our hips in the snow, but for the most part the older stratum, a foot or so down, bears us; up and up we go into the dim, muffled solitudes, our hats and coats powdered like millers'. A half-hour's heavy tramping brings us to the broad, level summit, and to where the fox and hound have crossed and recrossed many times. As we are walking along discussing the matter, we suddenly hear the ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... light coming from behind him attracted his attention and he turned to see her standing in a corner of the great room, holding a lamp in her hand and looking towards him. Her gold breastplate and crown were gone, with every other ornament, and she was clad, or rather muffled in robes of pure white fitted with a kind of nun's hood which lay back upon her shoulders. Also on her arm she carried a shawl or veil. Standing thus, all undecked, with her long hair fastened in a simple ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... her removal. The boys dragged her along the passageway, and, nearing the stairs, noticed a peculiar sound, something like a muffled explosion, followed by a sudden lurch of the ship, which destroyed their balance so that they were compelled to ...
— The Boy Volunteers with the Submarine Fleet • Kenneth Ward
... House was darkened, and every one spoke in subdued tones, and moved about with muffled tread. The very atmosphere breathed of the great sorrow which weighed heavily upon each heart. Mrs. Lincoln never left her room, and while the body of her husband was being borne in solemn state from the Atlantic to ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley
... air, but this was not to be doubted! Evenly forward she came, without a footfall, without a rustle or the crackling of a twig, without so much as kneeing her skirt—stood before them so nearly that they saw the pale oval of her face, and said in a voice like a muffled bell, "I am hungry, my friends; have you any meat?" She had a face like the moon, and great round eyes; within her cloak, on the bosom of her white dress, she held a man-child. He, they passed their sacred word, lifted in his mother's arms and turned open-handed ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... between them - silence so intense, so poignant, it was like a live thing present in the room. Through the double windows came a far-off, muffled sound of the traffic in the Strand, but it seemed to have nothing whatever to do with the life of that quiet room. It dit not disturb the silence, in which one could almost hear pulse-beats. ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... The muffled, helmeted figure of a pilot climbed down the spider ladder, nestled into the foremost scout's cockpit and pressed the starting button. The motor spat out a wisp of smoke, then burst into its full-throated roar: the automatic clamp above ...
— Raiders Invisible • Desmond Winter Hall
... was followed by the muffled sound of scurrying feet, of a table pulled hastily away, of whispers intended to be soft, but in the hurry having a strangely sibilant tone, that made them almost words spoken aloud, to ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... on these benches. Row upon row, range upon range, they sit, closely jammed together, as thick as Milton's spirits in Pandemonium, and not unlike them, with their dark and concealed countenances, so mysteriously muffled up with the dread litham, having before them ranges of spears, parallel to themselves, a bright forest hedge of pines, awaiting their orders for war or warlike pomp. I have frequently passed this forest range of ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... wound in and out among the trees, and so it happened that Rosemary heard muffled footsteps before she saw him coming. A wayfaring squirrel, the first of his family to venture out, scampered madly up a tree and looked down upon the girl with questioning, fearful eyes. She rose from the log and looked up, with her ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... dark, and Bilh Ahati{COMBINING BREVE}ni became greatly frightened, but he stayed to listen and watch. Muffled strains of songs came from the deep recesses in each canon wall,—the gods were singing—and just within the openings, discernible in the glow of a fire, could be seen many dancers performing in unison as they kept time with rattles. Throughout the night ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... moral doctrine. (Enfield, B. 4. chap. 3.) It was the reformation of this wretched depravity of morals which Jesus undertook. In extracting the pure principles which he taught, we should have to strip off the artificial vestments in which they have been muffled by priests who have travestied them into various forms, as instruments of riches and power to themselves. We must dismiss the Platonists and Plotinists, the Stagyrites and Gamalielites, the Eclectics, the Gnostics and ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... became darker and darker. All at once in the distance a small light flickered. A queer sound could be heard, soft as a little bell, and faint and muffled like the buzz of ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... did whisper peace unto my soul, But now, before the fearful shadow came That since my boyhood often visits me, And with dark musings fills my brain perturb'd; Making the current of my life-blood stagnate, My heart the semblance of a muffled bell, Within my ribs, its tomb; my flesh creep like The prickly writhings of a new-slough'd snake; Each several moment as the awaken'd glare Of the doom'd felon starting from his sleep, While the slow, hideous meaning of ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... dozen miles a halt was made for a rest, the chief said, and then Celeste Seldon observed that the hoofs of every horse were muffled, to prevent their ...
— Buffalo Bill's Spy Trailer - The Stranger in Camp • Colonel Prentiss Ingraham
... the sounds of life. Half-muffled music, raucous singing, blows of a hammer, yelpings of a dog, hissing of steam escaping somewhere from a boiler—all these and many other disturbances of the night furnished a microcosmic medley of the toiling, playing, ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels
... where the veil before the face of God is very thin and fine, and men's hearts glow within them, where there was no oasis save the unguessed deposit of a great human dream that his soul could feel, the face of a girl had haunted him. Her voice—so sweet a voice that it rang like muffled silver in his ears, till, in the everlasting theatre of the pole, the stars seemed to repeat it through millions of echoing hills, growing softer and softer as the frost hushed it to his ears—had said to him late and early, "You must come back with the swallows." Then she had ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... carriage paid little attention to it, each being buried in her own thoughts. The night was dark, and the carriage-lamps threw an uncertain gleam on the three figures leaning back in their corners, muffled and silent. The avenue was long,—interminably long, it seemed to one of the three travellers; and finally the silence so oppressed her that she determined to conquer her shyness and ...
— Three Margarets • Laura E. Richards
... prevailed. In Hartford and neighboring towns all ornaments, mirrors, and pictures were muffled with napkins and cloths at the time of the funerals, and sometimes the window-shutters were kept closed in the front of the house and tied together with black for a year, as ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... the tableau existed only in the unfocussed minds of the two living beings to whom the consequence of this moment was not measurable in time. Then from the woman's parted lips came a long, strangling moan that mounted to something like a muffled shriek. She remained a moment rocking on her feet, then wheeled and stumbled toward the quilt-covered four-poster bed in one dark corner of the cabin. Into its feather billows she flung herself and lay with her fingernails digging into her temples ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... lamps unlit. The horses stirred uneasily, but the oxen waited in dull, indifferent patience. Presently the door opened, and two men came out and awkwardly bore a plain coffin to the cart. Then they mounted to the front of the cart, hiding between them a muffled lantern. They wore cloths over the lower part of their faces, and felt hats drawn low over their eyes. Something in their gait showed them to be ...
— The Story of a New York House • Henry Cuyler Bunner
... and was stepping out into the yard, adjusting her hat, when she heard one of those muffled ...
— The Submarine Boys on Duty - Life of a Diving Torpedo Boat • Victor G. Durham
... empty room, of a critical intelligence that was giving out a subtle effluence of disapproval. The fancy was so vivid that, to shake it off, she rose and began to move about again. In the middle of the room stood a monumental divan surmounted by a massif of palms and azaleas. As Claudia's muffled wanderings carried her around the angle of this seat, she saw that its farther side was occupied by the figure of a man, who sat with his hands resting on his stick and his head bowed upon them. She gave a little cry and her husband ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... and opened the door stealthily. She crept along the hall in her bare feet, terrified by the muffled sound, and stopped before the velvet curtains that were drawn closely across the dining-room doorway. Someone was tampering with the ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... she looked hard at me,] that I am muffled up in this warm weather. I am but too sensible that I have left my chamber sooner that I ought, and perhaps shall have a return of my gout for it. I came out thus muffled up with a dreadful pain in my ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... Assailed by the most formidable apprehensions, he did not undress. Toward morning only, he threw himself all dressed upon the bed. It was about five o'clock, and scarcely daylight as yet, when he fancied he heard muffled steps on the carpet, in the hall and on the stairs. He rose again at once. The windows of his room opened upon the court. He saw Julia cross it, dressed in riding costume. She went into the stable and came out again after a few moments. A groom brought her her horse, and assisted her in ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... moaning gently under the towel which had been placed over her face. She tried to raise her arms and to draw up her knees, but two dressers restrained her. The heavy air was full of the penetrating smells of carbolic acid and of chloroform. A muffled cry came from under the towel, and then a snatch of a song, sung in a high, quavering, ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of scraping over the floor, and muffled giggles came to the waiting ones in the hall, then the door was thrown wide, and Kit caught her first glimpse of Charity Parks, the best loved girl at Hope. She was about seventeen, but a short, roly-poly type, with curly rumpled hair and gray eyes that never seemed ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester
... people were astonisht to see Antonio Cavalcanti stepping into the church by the side of the altar, leading a thickly veiled figure in his hand. He placed the figure on the raised pavement just in face of Pietro, and then threw himself down before the altar praying. The muffled form remained standing stiff and high, and beneath the covering one saw the firy black eyes. Pietro lifted himself from his seat, and sank back into it pale and trembling. The music of the mass now gusht ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... work of evacuation was begun. A small fleet of row-boats carried the troops to the entrance of the great, sullen fort, standing alone in the middle of the harbor, and made frequent trips bringing supplies and ammunition from the deserted fortress. All was done silently: the oars were muffled, and the commands of the officers were whispered, that no tidings should be told of the movement under way. Before sunrise all was completed; and when the rays of the rising sun fell upon the stars and stripes floating ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... a stern professional voice. "Keep your arms still, and you'll come down all right." A muffled screaming and a dangerously increased agitation of the chute was the only reply. Cook had quite lost her head and was having violent hysterics. Three or four of us raced upstairs to aid Sister in keeping the top end of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 14, 1917 • Various
... Silverdale and had no notion of doing so, though he had distant relatives there, while, so far as he knew, nobody had left him a farm of any kind. He had promised the whisky runners a guide on the night of Trooper Shannon's death, and as it was dark when, muffled in Winston's furs, he met the men—who were, as it happened, for the most part new adherents, it seemed probable that they had not recognized him or had any reason to believe it was not Winston himself who was responsible for ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... we're not dancing again quite yet," said Rose, glancing at her mother's exposed shoulders, but speaking as if they were muffled ...
— The Chaperon • Henry James
... can sleep there! Sleep!—It's the only way to be quiet in New York, and I have to sleep late if I sleep at all. I've fixed the skylight so that I'm drenched with air—and not drenched with rain!—and there I am. Johnny is gagged and muffled as it were, and carried downstairs as early as possible. He gets his breakfast, and the unfortunate Miss Merton has to go out and play with him—in all weathers—except kindergarten time. Then Alice sits on the stairs and keeps everybody away ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... quiet and the stars were serenely brilliant. The dusty, rutted road past the hotel, dim gray in the starlight, muffled the tread of an occasional Navajo pony passing in the faint glow of light from the doorway. Bartley was content with things as he found them, just then. But he knew that he would eventually go away from there—from the untidy town, the railroad, the string of box-cars on the siding, ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... beneath me into a hollow and I fell a considerable distance. I alighted on the box-seat of a four-horse coach, which happened to be running at that time immediately underneath. The coachman took no notice whatever of my sudden arrival by his side. He was so completely muffled up, that I could observe only the skillful way in which he manipulated reins and whip. The horses were yellow. I had seen no more than this, when the guard's horn blew, and presently we pulled up at an inn. A waiter came out, and appeared to collect ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... heard a muffled conversation. Madame was bent upon peeping in; Monsieur objected, but he ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... and genuine condition of man; and if we look closely into this dreary delusion of growing old, we shall find that it never absolutely succeeds in laying hold of our innermost convictions. A sombre garment, woven of life's unrealities, has muffled us from our true self, but within it smiles the young man whom we knew; the ashes of many perishable things have fallen upon our youthful fire, but beneath them lurk the seeds of inextinguishable ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... is your turn." This beautiful white Owl, marked here and there with black bars and spots, had a smooth round head like a snowball, great yellow eyes, and thickly feathered feet; his bill and claws were black, but you could hardly see them for the thickness of the feathers in which they were muffled up. He winked with each eye, clicked Iris bill once or twice, and ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... the other children rock him—he was then fully nine years old—and as they rocked him a while the surroundings began to take hold of him, and he saw a smoky, raftered ceiling, which did not belong to Kalle's house, swaying high over his head, and he had a feeling that a muffled-up old woman, wrapped in a shawl, sat like a shadow at the head of the cradle, and rocked it with her foot. The cradle jolted with the over-vigorous rocking, and every time the rocking foot slipped from the footboard it struck on the floor with the sound of a sprung wooden shoe. Pelle ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... the evening of Madame Okraska's concert at the old St. James's Hall. London was still the place of the muffled roar and the endearing ugliness. Horse-'buses plied soberly in an unwidened Piccadilly. The private motor was a curiosity. Berlin had not been emulated in an altered Mall nor New York in the facades of giant hotels. The Saturday and Monday pops were still an institution; and the bell of the muffin-man, ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... laugh. Mother from her sofa joined in. I was doubled up like a jack-knife in the corner. But as for the principals in the affair, neither of their faces moved a muscle. They saw no joke. Aunt Anniky, in a dreadful, muffled, squashy sort of ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... morning of December 13th, a muffled sound, issuing from the dense fog covering the low ground, indicated that the Federal lines ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... slipping from sight in the pale void afar; The spirits of change and of awe, with faint breath, Were shifting the midnight, above and beneath. The spirits of awe and of change were around And about, and upon her. A dull muffled sound, And a hand on her hand, like a ghostly surprise, And she felt herself fix'd by the hot hollow eyes Of the Frenchman before her: those eyes seemed to burn, And scorch out the darkness between them, ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... length, and after a period of such suspense, and such emotion, as Sidney never in after- life could recall without a shudder, the coach stopped—the benumbed driver heavily descended—the sound of the knocker knelled loud through the muffled air—and the light from Mr. Beaufort's hall glared full upon the dizzy eyes of the visitor. He pushed aside the porter, and sprang into the hall. Luckily, one of the footmen who had attended Mrs. Beaufort to the Lakes recognised him; and, in answer ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 5 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... A muffled peal of thunder which seemed to come from the very bowels of the earth, followed by a detonation like the discharge of an army's artillery, and the sides of the crater opened, and with a wild roar the pent-up torrent burst forth, and leaping into the lake, rolled, a mighty ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... angry word: "I'm on my way to town," she exclaimed. "Let go my bridle!" She struck her horse. The beast jumped ahead. Van Horn, laughing, held on. But the shock jerked him almost from his feet. As he staggered forward, clinging to the rearing animal, the half-muffled report of a revolver was heard. Almost like a thunderbolt, it changed the situation. One of the Texas men had fired in the air, but no one had seen him fire and the other Texans jumped like longhorns. Stone, clapping his hand to his holster, whirled from the ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... fortunately split in places, as if specially for the application of a cautious eye. A door had opened in the dark bulk of the left wing, and a figure appeared black against the illuminated interior—a muffled figure bending forward, evidently peering out into the night. It closed the door behind it, and I saw it was carrying a lantern, which threw a patch of imperfect light on the dress and figure of the wearer. It seemed to be the figure of a woman, ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... opportunity of quietly dismounting and getting into the house. It also gave me an opportunity of hearing passing remarks from one spectator to another about their general. Those remarks were apt to be more complimentary to the cause than to the appearance of the supposed general, owing to his being muffled up, and also owing to the travel-worn condition we were all in after a hard day's ride. I was back in Nashville by ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... any moment they might drift helplessly into some mighty berg and be crushed like an egg-shell on its icy sides. Captain Barrington muffled up in polar clothes and oilskins, rushed past the boys like a ghost and ran forward shouting some order. The first and second ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... The stage is gradually darkened. The music grows fainter as if the band were marching away; and now and then the shouts of the crowd make themselves heard above it. These subside, too, into a low, muffled roar, sullen and ominous. ...
— Makers of Madness - A Play in One Act and Three Scenes • Hermann Hagedorn
... themselves gulped in, and borne forward with terrible swiftness, they knew not where, like one that hath a dream of sinking; and outside the shell a rushing, gurgling noise, and a noise as of shouting multitudes, and muffled multitudes muttering complaints and yells and querulous cries, told them they were yet speeding through the body of the depths in the belly of the fish. Then there came a shock, and the shell was struck with light, and they ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... was for a moment over the head of Mr. Garvace, and his voice, muffled for an instant, ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... lolling in their chairs in a state of limp exhaustion. The saloon smelled of plush and varnish. It was decorated with a number of mirrors in gold frames, there was a grand piano, and the sound of footsteps was muffled by the soft carpet covering the floor. The ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... as a question. I shrugged in the darkness and banged longer and louder. Finally, listening at the flimsy panel, I detected muffled footsteps. ...
— Fee of the Frontier • Horace Brown Fyfe
... came another, all-mysterious, but from its very mystery a deeper fear. Abner Dimock began to stay at home, to be visited at late hours by one or two men whose faces were full of evil and daring; and when, in the dead of the long nights, Hitty woke from her broken and feverish sleep, it was to hear muffled sounds from the cellar below, never heard there before; and once, wrapping a shawl about her, she stole down the stairways with bare feet, and saw streams of red light through the chinks of the cellar-door, and heard the ring of metal, and muttered ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... piano, or in conversation, and to know her attention was diverted. None the less, he peered about for a glimpse of her, and strained his hearing for a sound of her voice. But all was still and silent, except for the muffled footfall of the servant leading him to the library at the far ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... picked King to go up the Khyber on that errand not for nothing. He knew King and he knew the symptoms. Without answering him King obeyed. He went out of the room into a dark corridor and rapped on the door of the next room to the right. There was a muffled answer from within. Courtenay shouted something to the sentry outside the door and he called another man who fitted a key in the lock. King walked into a room in which one lamp was burning and the ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... so wintry looking? Why, sir, in the show rooms of the artists in this city—and you will see the same in artists' rooms of England and even Europe—there are sketches of Canadian scenes, and almost invariably something wintry is suggested—men in great fur overcoats and caps, muffled up to the eyes, and with capouches that seemed capacious enough to carry a week's stock of provisions, and yet have spare room; the men generally having on snow-shoes and accompanied with Indians to wait on them, and dogs to drag their toboggans, while all ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... that doctor's visit I heard a muffled sound from her room next door to mine, and crept in to see what was wrong. She was sobbing to herself, great, gasping, heart-broken sobs, the sound of which haunt me to this day, and when I put my arms round her, instead of ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... are full of laziness most suave. In post chaises behind blue silken curtains to ride slowly up steep road, listening to the song of the postilion re-echoed by the mountains, along with the bells of goats and the muffled sound of a waterfall; at sunset on the shores of gulfs to breathe in the perfume of lemon trees; then in the evening on the villa-terraces above, hand in hand to look at the stars, making plans for the future. ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... that shut in a lonely valley, and once a solitary prospector, camping close beneath the snow, rose drowsily beside his fire, and wondered whether he was dreaming as he saw a line of mounted men with rifles flit by and vanish beyond a black hill shoulder. They rode in silence, and save for the muffled ring of iron and faint jingle of steel, he could have taken them for disembodied spirits in place ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... sound seemed to come. Now, too, he saw a thread of light showing beneath a door at a little distance, and when he crept up to it and listened he could hear for certain that it was from within this room that there came the sound of muffled, passionate weeping. ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... on thee, I feel the subtlest thrill Stir thy dusk limbs, tho' all the heavens are still, And 'neath thy rings of rugged fretwork mark What seems a heart-throb muffled ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... Harwich, to dispatch away all the ships he can,) I home: where no sooner come, but news is brought me of a couple of men come to speak with me from the fleet; so I down, and who should it be but Mr. Daniel, all muffled up, and his face as black as the chimney, and covered with dirt, pitch, and tar, and powder, and muffled with dirty clouts, and his right eye stopped with okum. He is come last night; at five o'clock from the fleet, with a comrade of his that hath endangered another ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... while, I could hear the sound of their mingling voices coming up the long flight of marble steps, across the wide piazza, and then they came soft and muffled from the drawing-room below. At first, forgetful of self, I sympathized in their joy. I rejoiced for my benefactress, I rejoiced for the tender and affectionate Edith. But after sitting there a long time alone, ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... to note why this man was martyred. So long as he pursued the profligate course on which he had embarked in early youth, Rome had not a word to say to him. Sin does not come under her cognisance, except to be muffled up in absolution, and hidden from the eyes of the sinner—but not from the eyes of God. But the moment that Holland's course was altered, and he began to try so to walk as to please God, that moment he came under the ban of ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... Rebel answer came, Muffled and slow, as if in shame,— "All, all is lost!" in smoke ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... heard my heart beat like a drum against the ground, praying one moment, and with the next breath cursing some hoof-beat from behind me and the muffled reprimand that was certain to follow it. The men were as afraid as I, and the thing I feared most of all was panic. Yet what more could I do than I had done? I lay and watched the camels, and every step that brought them nearer felt like a ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... the same time an amusing scene, for one could not help smiling at Giuseppe's fat unconcern as he kept his wife off at arms' length, while all the time the parrot inside his coat was shrieking in muffled tones "And for goodness sake don't ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... red as the ripe horse-chestnut, followed each other across the ford, assembled themselves together and lowed musically to the milkers. Phoebe Lyddon and John Grimbal still stood at the farm-gate, and they watched, as a boy and an aged man came forward with buckets and stools. Then, to the muffled thud of the water-wheel and the drone and murmur of the river, was added a purr of milk, foaming into tin pails, and sharp, thin monitions from the ancient, as he called the cows by their names and bid them ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... wear their look of accumulated wisdom, a touch also of visionary fire. The sparse locks, dyed to a raven black, set off with their uncanny sheen the clay-like pallor of the face. He sits in a high-backed chair, wrapped in an oriental dressing-gown, his muffled feet resting on a large hot-water bottle; and the eminent physician, preparatory to taking a seat at his side, bends ...
— Angels & Ministers • Laurence Housman
... they were clambering were so uneven that sometimes the young girl was mounting one at the same moment that Reddy was descending from another. Her reply, half muffled in her shawl, was delivered over his head. "Oh, because pa says most of the men here don't give their real names—they don't care to be known afterward. Ashamed of their work, ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... could count five there broke upon the stillness the swelling rush and tramp of an approaching multitude of men and horses, with hoarse cries of command; and then out of the distance came the muffled deep boom!—boom-boom!—boom! of cannon, and straightway that rushing multitude was roaring by the house like ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... own voice, muffled and unnatural. It seemed to work a sort of magic, for the python vanished, melted away like mist; she drew a great shuddering breath and found she was lying on her bed, unharmed, but with the sheet muffled about her throat and the thick eiderdown quilt resting in a roll ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... the last order, he fell back on his seat, and, drawing back his boat-cloak around him maintained a profound silence, until they had passed the two small headlands that fanned the mouth of the harbor. The men pulled, with muffled oars, their long, vigorous strokes, and the boat glided with amazing rapidity past the objects that could be yet indistinctly seen along the dim shore. When, however, they had gained the open ocean, and the direction of their little bark was changed to one that led them ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... of not above two miles "through shady lanes and sequestered footpaths", the delightful scenery of which made Mr. Pickwick feel regret to arrive in the main street of "Muggleton". The distance, however, is in fact something more than two miles as the crow flies. Cobtree Hall is a green-muffled Elizabethan mansion, of red brick, faced with stone, and looks out over an undulating country of orchards and hop fields. It has been altered and enlarged since the days of Pickwick, but the kitchen is just such another large, oldfashioned ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... over one of the on-the-floor section of the opposing force. They seized each other earnestly and rolled across the room till Mike, contriving to secure his adversary's head, bumped it on the floor with such abandon that, with a muffled yell, the other let go, and for the second time he rose. As he did so he was conscious of a curious thudding sound that made itself heard through the other assorted ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... music of the night, Upon its lonely flight Into the west, where sink its ebbing sands; That muffled music seems Like voices heard in dreams, Sigh'd back from long-lost years and ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... they rapidly wear to bits; we can hear the sound of the wearing action as the wave goes to and fro. We can often see that the water is discoloured by the mud or powdered rock. When, however, the waves tumble on a sandy coast, they make but a muffled sound, and produce no mud. In fact, the particles of sand do not touch each other when they receive the blow. Between them there lies a thin film of water, drawn in by the attraction known as capillarity, which sucks the fluid into ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... gymnasium on the top floor Jerry Mitchell, awaiting the coming of Mr. Pett, had been passing the time in improving with strenuous exercise his already impressive physique. If Mrs. Pett's guests had been less noisily concentrated on their conversation, they might have heard the muffled tap-tap-tap that proclaimed that Jerry Mitchell ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... of June, two years later, Henry Hudson was the central figure in another scene. He sat in a small, open boat, hoary with frozen spray; he was muffled in the shaggy hide of a white bear, roughly fashioned into a coat; a sailor's oilskin hat was drawn down over his brow, and beneath its rim his eyes gazed sternly out over a wide turbulence of gray waters, tossing with masses of broken ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... dress himself in Quilt Arnold's clothes, pulled the wig over his face and eyes so as completely to conceal his features, slouched the hat over his brows, drew the huge boots above his knees, and muffled himself up in the best way he could. On searching the coat, he found, amongst other matters, a mask, a key, and a pocket-book. The latter appeared to contain several papers, which Jack carefully put by, in the hope that they might turn out of importance in a ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... of row-boats carried the troops to the entrance of the great, sullen fort, standing alone in the middle of the harbor, and made frequent trips bringing supplies and ammunition from the deserted fortress. All was done silently: the oars were muffled, and the commands of the officers were whispered, that no tidings should be told of the movement under way. Before sunrise all was completed; and when the rays of the rising sun fell upon the stars ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... at the age of ninety, he ate a neat's-foot raw, which caused indigestion to such a degree that he burst. It is said by others that feeling himself burdened with age, he retained his breath, and was thus the cause of his own death. His friends coming next day, found him muffled up in his cloak. Upon first discovering him they doubted whether he were not asleep (which with him, was very unusual); they were soon convinced that he was dead. There was a great dispute among them about who should bury him; but when on the eve of breaking out into open violence, the magistrates ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... upon three o'clock in the morning, when the watchers heard some one very quietly remove a portion of the back-boarding of the centre house. Presently, a closely-muffled figure, with a dark-lantern and a bag in his hand, crept through the opening, and made direct for the hearth-stone; lifted it, turned on his light slowly, gathered up the treasure, crammed it into his bag, and murmured with an exulting chuckle ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various
... scheme which would enable him to make an examination of Fenwick's rooms without the chance of discovery. He was lounging in the hall, smoking innumerable cigarettes, when Fenwick himself came down the stairs. Obviously the man was going on a journey, for he was closely muffled up in a big fur coat, and behind him came a servant, carrying two bags and a railway rug. It was a little gloomy in the lobby, so Venner was enabled to watch what was going on without being seen himself. He did not fail to note a certain strained anxiety that rested on Fenwick's face. The man looked ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... after midnight—I was taking a walk, having just closed my saloon, when it happened that my steps led by the bank. It was dark—not a soul probably in the village was awake save myself, when I saw the door of the bank open and a muffled figure came out with a tin box under his arm. I came closer, yet unobserved, and peered at the person. ...
— Struggling Upward - or Luke Larkin's Luck • Horatio Alger
... with arms reversed, And the slow beating of the muffled drum, And funeral marches, bring our hero home These stormy woods where his young heart was nursed Ring with a trumpet burst Of jubilant music, as if he who lies With shrouded face, and lips all ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... really appeared to some advantage under the bright but mellow light of the moon, our heroine turned her eyes to a scrutiny of the different figures they passed, in search of any form that she knew. But all seemed alike, as muffled in cloaks, hoods, coats, or tippets, they glided along the narrow passages in the snow which led under the houses, half hid by the bank that had been thrown up in excavating the deep path in which they trod. Once or twice she thought there was a stature or a gait that she recollected; ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... and let you in," Nannie said; he heard a muffled colloquy back in the room, and then the window closed sharply. Far off, a church clock struck one. Blair stood with a hand on the doorknob; through the leaded side-windows he saw a light wavering down through the ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... a cloud on Seaman's good-humoured face as, muffled up in their overcoats, he and his host walked up and down the terrace the next morning, after the departure of Mr. Mangan. He disclosed his mind a ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... vehemence about the fatal intelligence obtained from the conjurer, and penetrate at once the veil that concealed our hero. Know then, reader, that Sir Launcelot Greaves, repairing to the place described in the billet which he had received, was accosted by a person muffled in a cloak, who began to amuse him with a feigned story of Aurelia, to which, while he listened with great attention, he found himself suddenly surrounded by armed men, who seized and pinioned down his arms, took away his sword, and conveyed him by force into a hackney-coach provided ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... which never quite left him even in his prime. I still recollect perfectly well, that in the prison scene in my 'Egmont,' where the sentence is read to him, Schiller would have made Alva appear in the background, masked and muffled in a cloak, enjoying the effect which the sentence would produce on Egmont. Thus Alva was to show himself insatiable in revenge and malice. I, however, protested, and prevented the apparition. He ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... through the open windows, Desiree and her mother were busily at work with needles and fingers, exhausting the daylight to its last ray, before lighting the lamp. They could hear the shouts of children playing in the yards, the muffled notes of pianos, and the voice of a street peddler, drawing his half-empty wagon. One could smell the springtime in the air, a vague odor of hyacinth ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... more suicides than duels, so that at any rate men do not hate others more than themselves. After a half-satirical apology for duelling, he concludes with one insurmountable objection; duelling is wholly repugnant to religion, adding with the muffled scepticism characteristic of the 18th century, 'how to reconcile them must be left to ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... Anita," said the chaplain, who was muffled up to his eyes. "Go in and talk to that poor lady. We all want to help her, but we find it hard, for she will tell nothing of herself, of her family, or anything, except that she knows Lawrence didn't mean to desert, and ...
— Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell
... He had walked very slowly, having turned down to Curzon Street and Bolton Row, from whence he made his way into Piccadilly by Clarges Street. He had seen nothing of Mr. Bonteen; but as he crossed over to Clarges Street he was passed at a very rapid pace by a man muffled in a top coat, who made his way straight along Bolton Row towards the passage which has been described. At the moment he had not connected the person of the man who passed him with any acquaintance of his own; ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... that the Church of Rome had established its Mission on the Red River decades ago. In fact, he knew as little about Canada as he did about Timbuctoo, and in his simplicity thought himself "the first that ever burst into that silent sea." When the evening breeze brought to his ears a muffled sound, he was in doubt how to ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... pause she heard the buzzing of the engine. It seemed to her to hold a jeering note. The outer door was open, and an icy draught blew over her face as she knelt there waiting for Jerry. She broke off again to listen, and heard the muffled sounds of wheels in the snow. Then came the note of the hooter, mockingly distinct; and then the hum of the engine receding from the house. The outer door banged, and the icy ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... roosted upon the porch, and threw cigarette stubs at the water lilies while they wrangled amiably over the merits of their mounts; saw them drag their blankets out into the broody dusk of the grove when the nights were hot, and heard their muffled swearing under their "tarps" because of the mosquitoes which kept the night air twanging like a stricken harp string ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... contradiction and scornful laughter, that it was pretty, that it was endearingly nooky, cornery, curvy, with the enchantment of trees and flowers everywhere mixed with its civic turmoil, and the song of birds heard through the staccato of cabs, and the muffled bellow of omnibuses. You may not like London, but you cannot help loving it. The monuments, if I may keep coming back to them, are plain things, often, with no attempt upon the beholder's emotions. In the process of time, I suspect that ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... time to jump back out of the way; they were caught in the deluge of water that shot out from the Punch Bowl on every side. When they got their eyes open again the luckless flying machine lay before them in the water, a mass of wreckage. Oh-Pshaw gave a little muffled shriek and sat down on a log, hiding her face in her hands. Sahwah shook ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... are. They are enchanters. They are ghouls. They are cannibals. Did you never remark their eyes, and how they gloated on you when you passed? Did you never remark the food that they served up at your table? Did you never in the dead of night hear muffled and unearthly footsteps gliding along the corridors, and stealthy hands turning the handle of your door? Does not some magnetic influence fold itself continually around you when they pass, and send a thrill through spirit and body, and a cold shiver that ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... night when the Tonneraire stole silently back. She hauled her main-yard aback, and five armed boats, under command of Tom, were despatched to cut the saucy Frenchman out. The oars were muffled, and there was not a glimmer of light permitted to shine anywhere ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables
... quiet under its leafless double row of trees, maple, ailanthus, and catalpa; the old man who trudged his rounds regularly every week was passing now with his muffled shout: ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... went on her way into the creek, at the rate of six or seven miles an hour. Though difficult to attack the vessel in the day time without firearms, I determined if possible not to lose altogether this splendid brig. I waited therefore till after sunset, and then pulled silently into the creek with muffled oars. There was our friend securely lashed to the rocks. We dashed on board with drawn cutlasses, anticipating an obstinate resistance. We got possession of the deck in no time, but on looking round for someone to fight with, saw nothing but a small black boy who, having been roused up from a sort ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... with conscience, still waited to hear any sound that might come from Mr. Stillinghast's chamber: but everything remained quiet, and she was wrapping her shawl around her to go up to bed, when she thought she heard a groan—then footsteps, followed by a peculiar muffled sound. In a moment she was in the hall, where she heard it more distinctly, and springing up the staircase, rushed into her uncle's room. By some rare forgetfulness, or bewilderment, he had left ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... They were early, and the lights were only lighted here and there; women, and now and then a man, drifted up the center aisle. Boots cheeped unseen in the arches, sibilant whispers smote the silence, pew-doors creaked, and from far corners of the church violent coughing sounded with muffled reverberations. Mary Lou would have slipped into the very last pew, but Virginia led the way up—up—up—in the darkness, nearer and nearer the altar, with its winking red light, and genuflected before one of the very first pews. Susan followed her into it with a sigh of satisfaction; ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... be fatal to him. She would therefore allow no one to assist save Ambrose, and a few more devoted old servants, of condition too low for anger to be likely to light upon them. She was to be rowed with muffled oars to the spot, to lie hid in the shadow of the bridge till a signal like the cry of the pee-wit was exchanged from the bridge, then approach the stairs at the inner angle of the bridge where Giles and Ambrose would ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... lifted my finger, they would have torn you to pieces." The day of the proclaiming of the order for the lowering of the gold was marked by Swift with the display of a black flag from the steeple of St. Patrick's, and the tolling of muffled bells, a piece of conduct which Boulter called an insult to ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... the stock, and then I'll show you how to yoke oxen," said Saul, with a twinkle in his eye as he led the way, when his new aide had muffled himself up as if for ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... assembly had refused to hear him, and he was going home with his head muffled up, taking it very heavily, they relate that Satyrus, the actor followed him, and being his familiar acquaintance, entered into conversation with him. To whom Demosthenes bemoaned, that although he had been the most industrious ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... negro; the grass has not lost its verdure, and on August evenings the plane-trees' leaves glint golden in the sun. One may still hear the chimes at midnight as Falstaff and Justice Shallow heard them of old. Here, where only a muffled murmur comes from the work-a-day world, a man in the last century might have dreamed away his life, lonely as Peter Wilkins on the island. One can imagine the amiable recluse composing his homely romance amid such surroundings. Perhaps it was ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... Blyth, with a tap on Columbus, which struck a sound from the canvas like a thump on a muffled drum. "On art, Doctor? I only want to say that, as Columbus's early life must have exercised him considerably in hauling ropes and pulling oars, I have shown the large development of his Biceps muscle ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... and the dressmaker would chink their liqueur glasses in amity before the lady gathered up her satin train and allowed her peerless shoulders to be muffled in a plush mantle to go down to her carriage, fortified by that ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... swift moments, for all this to take place, and then I heard voices that I knew, but sounding muffled and as ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn
... falling swarm on swarm, Or blasts the green field and the trees distress'd, Oft have I seen it muffled up from harm, In close self-shelter, like a Thing ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... closely muffled up, but visibly of fragile build, was standing on the landing under the gaslight. She sprang forward, flung her arms round Knight's neck, ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... deal muffled up, and looked very pale, and asked whether Miss Brandon was in her room, whither she glided rapidly up stairs. It was a sort of boudoir or dressing-room, with a few pretty old portraits and miniatures, and a number ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... tell the Count Rousillon and my brother We have caught the woodcock, and will keep him muffled Till we do ...
— All's Well That Ends Well • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... slumbered in darkness. For a quarter of an hour Roddy sauntered idly, and then awoke to the fact that he was not alone. Behind him in the shadow, a man with his face hidden in a shawl, the sound of his footsteps muffled by his rope sandals, ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis
... in the hands of the landlady, and returned to the vehicle. It was still musty, close, and frowzy, with half awakened passengers. There was a vacated seat on the top, which Cass climbed up to, and abstractedly threw himself beside a figure muffled in shawls and rugs. There was a slight movement among the multitudinous enwrappings, and then the figure turned to him and said dryly, "Good morning!" It ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... Duke of Wellington said to the Guards at—Oh, damn the clock, anyhow! He caught it up, and pitched it across the room on to a sofa, and hurled a bundle of draperies after it and on top of it. But the tune would not stop, and the muffled, unbaffled tick of the clock went on. He swung out of the studio, and went back to ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... The muffled drum's sad roll has beat The soldier's last tattoo; No more on Life's parade shall meet That brave and fallen few. On Fame's eternal camping-ground Their silent tents are spread, And Glory guards, with solemn round, The ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... attending this remarkable event. The particulars, he states, he had from Mrs. Fox, and her two daughters, Margaret and Kate, and son, David. The attention of the family had been attracted by strange noises which finally assumed the form of raps, or muffled footfalls, and became very annoying. Chairs were sometimes moved from their places, and this was once also the case with the dining-room table. Heard occasionally during February, the disturbance so increased during the latter part of March, as seriously to break the nightly repose ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith
... two young men from the barracks, muffled to the chin in buffalo robes, lit the inevitable cigar, and jingled merrily off to the music of ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... the heroes drove her, grim and silent all, with muffled oars. On and on, beneath the dewy darkness, they fled swiftly down the swirling stream, on and on till they heard the merry music of ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... in darkness. She was pushed round a corner and down a flight of stairs into some kind of cellar which smelt of damp straw. Here the grip on her mouth was released for a second but before she could utter more than a muffled cry the man thrust a handkerchief into her mouth and effectually gagged her. Then he tied her hands and feet together with some narrow ropes that cut her wrists horribly. He seemed to be able to see in the dark for, though the place was black as pitch, he worked swiftly ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... lined with some white material, but without any ornamentation whatever. There were no flowers and no uttered demonstrations of grief, but a profound sadness seemed to pervade the house, and for half an hour no sound was heard in the densely thronged rooms save the muffled tread over the thick carpets of fresh arrivals and the whispered directions of a servant, pointing the way to the room where a last look at the dead might ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... had disturbed the stillness of the night. Save for the muffled throb of the rare all-night cars passing the front of the house, our vigil had been a silent one. The full moon had painted about the floor weird shadows of the clustering ivy, spreading the design gradually from the door, across ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... all but full moon—for, this being the eve of the great annual festival, the town was in an uproar, and the volume of sound emanating from it and from the temporary encampments outside it rendered sleep impossible—when I became aware of a figure muffled in a great kaross in such a manner as to render identification impossible. Apart from this circumstance, however, there was a certain suggestion of furtiveness in the movements of the figure, a something indicative of a desire to avoid observation, that attracted my attention from my book and ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... But the tone was beseeching. Then I heard footsteps on the gravel. I knew Stewart heard them. I could see from his face that something dreadful was about to happen. Just outside the door then there were hoarse, furious voices, a scuffle, a muffled shot, a woman's cry, the thud of a falling body, and rapid footsteps of a man running away. Next, the girl Bonita staggered into the door. She was white, trembling, terror-stricken. She recognized Stewart, appealed ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... surprise and regret had died away, a sudden sound of alarm ran through the city, in curiously muffled tones that blanched the bravest faces,—a visitant, then feared beyond measure, that science had not been able to cope with. People spoke of it with bated breath. It was not simply among the poor and destitute, or those indifferent ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... trances she generally heard Divine "locutions." She says that "the words were very clearly formed, and unmistakable, though not heard by the bodily ear. They are quite unlike the words framed by the imagination, which are muffled" (cosa sorda). She describes her visions of Christ very carefully. First He stood beside her while she was in prayer, and she heard and saw Him, "though not with the eyes of the body, nor of the soul." Then by degrees "His sacred humanity was completely ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... the captain said cheerfully. "The first thing is to find the path. There is almost sure to be one from the village the Malay spoke of as close to the mouth of the creek, and the pool, and if we send the boats up as soon as we arrive at the creek, to row with muffled oars until they get near the pool, and then land and find the path, it would diminish very much the distance they would have to go and the work to ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... after midnight on one of those silent tropic nights when naught is heard but the muffled boom of the ocean swell on the outer reef, a shot rang out through the sleeping village, and then a long wail as of some one in mortal agony or terror. Leger, the Canadian carpenter at Macfarlane's store, ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... Peps in a round, deep, sonorous voice, muffled for the occasion, like the knocker; 'do you find that your dear lady is at all roused by ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... smouldering ruins of what had once been a house, the glaring white of two naked bodies in the starlight against the background of dark earth, it was as though they had not come. But for this, and one other thing—a single sound, repeated again and again, dulled, muffled as though coming ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... woven in one wide Loom thro' the throbbing weft of the whole, One in spirit and flesh, one in body and soul, The leaf on the winds of autumn, the bird in its hour to die, The heart in its muffled anguish, the ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... myself, and began to look around. It struck me that it was considerably colder than it had been at the commencement of my walk—a sort of sighing sound seemed to be around me, with, now and then, high overhead, a sort of muffled roar. Looking upwards I noticed that great thick clouds were drifting rapidly across the sky from North to South at a great height. There were signs of coming storm in some lofty stratum of the air. I was a little chilly, and, thinking ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... midnight, it was announced to the Emperor that the fires of the Russians seemed less numerous, and the flames were extinguished at several points; and some few said they had heard the muffled sound of drums. The army was in a state of great anxiety. The Emperor sprang wildly from his bed, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
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