"Swish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sensitive spirit. If a breeze blew across the meadow he turned his cheek to its kiss; if the odor of spearmint from the brookside was wafted around him he breathed it into his nostrils with delight. He saw the shadow of a crow flying across the field and stopped to look up and listen for the swish of her wings and her loud, hoarse caw as she made her way to the nesting grounds; then he gazed beyond her, into the fathomless depths of the blue sky, and his soul was stirred with an indescribable awe. Everything filled him with surprise, with wonder and ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... immediate menace seemed only to have awaited the actual moment of embarkation, when, as we were pushing off, the rhythmical plash and swish of a paddle fell suddenly upon our ears, and we clutched the bank while a canoe shot down-stream within a length of us. Luckily the night was as dark as ever, and all we saw of the paddler was a white shirt fluttering as it passed. But there lay Levy with his heavy head between ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... The swish and murmur of night, the rustle of a steady sea breeze, the composite rumble of the city far below, tuned with the song in Eleanor's blood as she stood waiting by the front gate. She looked down on the pattern of light and heavy shadow that ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... down it, so that he had to put his ear and shoulder against it, and push his way forward. It was better, however, when he turned into the lane. The high bank and the hedge sheltered him upon one side. The road, however, was deep in mud, and the rain fell in a steady swish. Not a soul was to be seen, but he needed to make no inquiries, for he knew whither his father had gone as certainly as though ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... herself and watching the long grass fall. She sat with the ease that belongs to persons of an essentially happy nature, who can find a comfortable spot almost anywhere; who are supple, and quick in adapting themselves to circumstances. After a final swish, Emil snapped the gate and sprang into the cart, holding his scythe well out over the wheel. "There," he sighed. "I gave old man Lee a cut or so, too. Lou's wife needn't talk. I never see Lou's scythe ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather
... one of the boxes. Without a pause, as if doing some work done many times before, he slit it open and took four ingots, which he put in his pockets. He covered up the exposed box again and step by step came out of the gully. The bushes closed after him with a swish. ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... young men seized the big wheels. The top-heavy load wavered an instant, then went over with a simultaneous swish and ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... and, incidentally, he has muddied the spring for me—robbed me of the love and respect of the one woman in the world," he said, quite without heat. "If I find him, I think I shall blot him out—like that." A bumblebee was bobbing and swaying on a head of red clover, and the sudden swish of the hunting-crop left it a little disorganized mass of black and yellow down and ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... of a coffin-lid is no pleasant thing to hear, but those who have experience maintain that much more terrible is the soft swish of the bed-linen, the reeving and unreeving of the bed-tapes, when he who has fallen by the roadside is apparelled for burial, sinking gradually as the tapes are tied over, till the swaddled shape touches the floor and there is no protest against ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... quiet after this, and listened to the swish of the rain and the mighty howling of the wind. It had grown very dark, and the air was chilly. The lightning was incessant, and traced zigzag pathways of fire across the sombre heavens. The thunder was terrific, and often shook the solid earth. I asked Salome if she ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey
... clump upstairs and enter a room across the hall. She knew it was he. She could hear the clink of his spurs and the swish of his chaps. While she realized that he was Mrs. Adams's son and had a right to be there, she rather resented his proximity, possibly because she had not expected to see ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... certain harmonious arrangements of black; and the most distressing symptom of all is that Mr. Brabazon could not hold an exhibition of some very nice tints of rose and blue without inspiring Mr. Steer to go and swish water-colour about in the same manner. Mr. Steer has the defect of his qualities; his perceptions are naive: and just as he must have thought seven years ago that all modern landscape-painters must be more or less like Monet, he must have thought last summer that all modern water-colour must be ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... who he is!" spouted the whale, with a gleeful gurgle, and before any one could say "Jack Robinson!" Mr. Jonah appeared upon the deck of the Ark, and with a swish of his great tail the whale disappeared ...
— The Cruise of the Noah's Ark • David Cory
... channelling mole, Head in a ground-vault gaunt As your telescope's skeleton moon. Barren comfort to these will she dole; Dead is her face to their cries. Intelligence pushing to taste A lesson from beasts might heed. They scatter a voice in the waste, Where any dry swish of a reed ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... merry and sweet Over its shallows singing,— I hear before I awaken The Bound of the church-bells ringing, And the sound of the leaves wind-shaken, Complaining and sun-forsaken, And the oriole warbling and singing, And the swish of the wind in ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... out in the open with the sunshine pouring down and a big lazy white cloud tangled in tree-tops. So he flung himself on the moss, hands under his head, and lay there, Prince beside him, looking up, up into the far blue, listening to the swish and rustle of the wind talking secrets to the leaves, and all the tiny mysterious noises that make up the silence of a ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... Drack's which Mr. Pitman had, as they said, voiced. Well, there had played before her the vision of a ledge of safety in face of a rising tide; but this deepened quickly to a sense more forlorn, the cold swish of waters already up to her waist and that would soon be up to her chin. It came really but from the air of her friend, from the perfect benevolence and high unconsciousness with which he kept his posture—as ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... the headpiece of the ship's microphone to his ears Chief Electrician Sammy Smith kept close tabs on the approaching vessel with the underwater telephone. With the receivers to his hears he could hear plainly the swish of the vessel's propeller blades as she bore down upon the floating submarine. With his reports as a basis for their deductions, the Dewey's officers were able to figure out the position of the ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... came dancing up into the hills from the heart of S—. The wayfarers looked at each other in the darkness and listened in wonder to these sounds that rose above the swish of the restless rain. ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... in a long chair under the cloister which faced the barred stone door. He swished with a rhino riding-whip at the stone column beside him, and the much-swathed individual of the plethoric paunch who stood and spoke with him kept a very leery eye on it; he seemed to expect the binding swish of it across his own shins, and the thought ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... magnolias, or a tress of gray-green moss on the cypress boughs. All the world of the Salkahatchie was wrapped in siesta. The white clouds drifting on palest turquoise were the only moving things except the water flowing beneath, and its soft swish against the gunnels of the floating wharf ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... drowning each other. I swung the lantern over them just as Dutch got upon his feet, gripping his antagonist by the collar. He flung him backward over the stone curbing of the pool and fell upon him in the walk with a swish of wet garments. The guards from the outer edges of the garden had clambered down and they gathered about us as I ...
— Lady Larkspur • Meredith Nicholson
... material, and a large black hat with feathers. Her skirts were gathered up in her hand, and I heard the jingling of harness at the corner of the avenue where her carriage was waiting. I opened the door, and she entered with a soft swish of silk and a gentle rustling. The room seemed instantly full of perfume of Neapolitan violets, a great bunch of which were in ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the door, and just as he was turnin' away, I heard the swish of skirts and then I got Miss Vincent's voice. It was low and sweet and kinda soothin' and—well, she was the kind of dame guys kill each other for! Do you ...
— Kid Scanlan • H. C. Witwer
... rapture in my rags awakes; I lift void eyes and scan The skies for crows, those ravening foes, Of my strange master, Man. I watch him striding lank behind His clashing team, and know Soon will the wheat swish body high Where ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... heard the swish of a water-tank, and the guttural voice of a Chinaman, the click-clink of hammers that tested the Krupp steel wheels, and the oath of a tramp chased off the rear-platform; now the solid crash of coal shot into the tender; ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... so still that the shuffle-shuffle of a footstep can be heard in the distance, the tinkle of a tin pail swinging musically to and fro, the swish of an alder switch cropping the heads of the roadside weeds. All at once a voice breaks the stillness. Is it a child's, a woman's, or a ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... he drew back into the shadow. I waited also in the shadow for nearly ten minutes, then I passed on, ascended some steps and reentered the hotel. In the lounge I sank into a seat in a hidden corner and lit a cigarette. Presently I heard the swish of a woman's skirt behind me, and rising, peered out. It was Lady Lydbrook on her way out. She was carrying the cheque to ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... there was a roar as of a desert lion bursting from its lair. They looked and saw a huge black form leap from the porch of the other house and bound toward them. He was on them in a minute. There was the swish of a saber swung by a practiced hand, and the high-peaked mask of the leader bent over the hissing blade, and was stripped away, leaving a pale, affrighted face glaring stupidly at the ebon angel of wrath in the luried fire-light. A fearful oath came through the white, strong teeth, which ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... passed in the night, with monotonous swish-swish and swelling wake. It arouses something akin to awe, this passage of a steamer's wake upon the beach, a dozen feet from the door of one's tent. First, the water is sucked down, leaving for a moment a ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... hand full of pebbles clattered against Molly's window, and was swiftly followed by a second shower from Kitty's right hand. Then they shifted the pebbles in their left hand to their right, and, swish! these pebbles ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells
... swept up and down the room once more, watching her train, over her shoulder, and listening with a rapturous countenance to the silken swish of her skirts. ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... the swish of a silken skirt came across the grass, and a woman's clear, high-bred voice ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... my way to my berth, it occurred to me that I should like an apple. I ran on deck. The watch was all forward looking out for the island. The man at the helm was watching the luff of the sail, and whistling away gently to himself; and that was the only sound excepting the swish of the sea against the bows and around the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... there was a strange sound, a roaring swish of water. Not one of them was certain which direction ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish
... They kept as close as possible to the wall, so that they would not be seen if a sentinel should happen to look over the parapet; and being barefooted, the slight sound they might make would be inaudible through the never-ceasing swish of the surf. Their feet were cut by the sharp edges of the rocks; many a bruise they got; but they kept on their silent way without ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... quivering, there was a glorious flush in her cheeks; and in her eyes, a kind of fear. So he let her go, and opened the door for her and stood listening to the soft swish of her draperies as she ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper
... necessary to reach the dock and get a boat. She might risk being scalped, but a boat at any cost she would have, and one was sent her—as to the fearless and determined all their desires are sent. She heard the thump of oars in rowlocks, bringing the relief guard, and with a swish, out of the void of the lake a keel ran ...
— Marianson - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... out-of-doors, cigarettes in hand, and the rhythmic swish-swash of the river told that the tide was rising. The dried-up gullies and canals became silver-streaked with the incoming spray, and it needed only a windmill to make the scene as Dutch as a Van Der Neer. Piloti was moody. Something worried him, but ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... night!" Alan Hawke amused himself with the bold, black-eyed French girl's vicious stories of olden deeds done there in Etienne Garcin's gloomy spider's den. He even laughed when the red-bodiced she-devil laughingly pointed down at the loosened floor-planks in the back room, underneath which mantrap the swish of the throbbing waves ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... he stopped short and suddenly wheeled round as he caught the swish of a dress on the stairs. He looked up into Avery's face as she came swiftly down, and the blood rose in a deep, dark wave to his forehead. He made no attempt to cover or excuse his passionate outburst, which it was perfectly obvious she ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... seemingly as sorely frightened as the Indians. Shortly after sunrise a low, blunt, muffled rumbling, like distant thunder, was followed by another series of shocks, which, though not nearly so severe as the first, made the cliffs and domes tremble like jelly, and the big pines and oaks thrill and swish and wave their branches with startling effect. Then the talkers were suddenly hushed, and the solemnity on their faces was sublime. One in particular of these winter neighbors, a somewhat speculative ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir
... bacon-hog; But th' hog he cock'd a knowing eye, As if he twigg'd the reason why, And dodg'd and dodg'd 'un such a dance, He didn't give the noose a chance; So Master Blogg at last lays off, And shams a rattle at the trough, When swish! in bolts our bacon-hog Atwixt the legs o' Master Blogg, And flops him down in all the muck, As hadn't been swept up by luck— Now that, accordin' to my ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... of every delight of manhood, of happiness in a woman's smile, of rapture in a woman's kiss. It meant the giving up of every joy in seeing her pass before him, of hearing the swish of her skirts on the pavement of the city; it meant the giving up of all hope ever to win her, of all thought of a future home, the patter of children's feet, the rocking of a tiny cradle. It meant the sacrifice of every thought ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... first. He was looking at Andrew, who was sweeping the path at a little distance. Swish, swish, went his broom to right and left amongst the yellow leaves, leaving a bare space in ...
— Penelope and the Others - Story of Five Country Children • Amy Walton
... not sleep. He heard all the sounds of the land, of the river, of the night, and of the dawn. He heard the lapping of the creek water against the yacht's side; the wash of the steamers passing on the river; the stir of wild fowl at daybreak; the swish of wind and water among the reeds and grasses of ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... against this wall—washing vainly against it with a wistful wailing swish—seems to be thrown back on itself, and then to hasten away on either side, where lies the moist fog of a dark ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... further and in the swish of the storm he heard hoofbeats again. Looking forth from the bushes he saw another line of horsemen, but now they were going in the direction of Pope's army. Dick recognized these figures. Shapeless as he might appear on his horse that was Colonel Winchester, and there were the broad shoulders ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... bewilderment held him. Then in a rush came back the memory of what had happened. He listened intently. Back and forth, back and forth somewhere near went a soft footstep, the swish and glide of a moccasin. He strained his eyes, which smarted terribly, into the darkness, and presently descried a tall form pacing slowly up against the skyline of his vision and back again into the shadows. A single feather slanted ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... movement in the group, but it was only the swish of draperies as the four recumbent women came upright. They stared at Julia. They did not speak. ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... to be a raging torrent, its waters racing at top speed," said one traveler who arrived in Chicago on March 26th. "We could hear the swish of the waters and hear the cries of ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall
... smothered exclamation, and then sounds of somebody moving hastily about the room and the swish ...
— Captains All and Others • W.W. Jacobs
... at the back of the house, which was our common place of rendezvous. We exchanged the usual greetings, and for some minutes nothing more was said, so pleasant was it to sit silent in the shade listening to the swish of scythes (they were cutting the grass in the meadow opposite) and to the bubbling of a little fountain in the garden on our right, while the sun grew hotter every minute on the fir-covered slopes beyond. I wanted to talk, and yet I was unwilling to begin; ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson
... brush, although her figure was still obscured by the tangle of wildwood; the snapping of dead twigs under her feet; the scuffling of last year's leaves on the path, now wet and plastered with mud and the slime of winter; the swish of branches as she ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... sailed the wind grew stronger and at Horse-neck Shoals the crest of breaking waves covered the deck of the Irene with foam. Following the swish of each heaving wave as it lifted and swept past the boat came a heavy jar as the craft struck in the soft mud beneath her and ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... clutch, the men dashed into the water with paeans and shouts and the broken pitchers of fallen Jericho. The violet phosphorescence lighted them on their way, and tracked with luminous curve and star every move of the enemy. The gashed water at every stroke of club or swish of tail or fin bled in blue and red fire, as if the very sea was wounded. The enemy's line of battle was broken and scattered, but not until more than one of the assailants had looked point-blank into the angry eyes of a shark and beaten it off with actual ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... it? It was all so sudden. A door flung open and a swish of rushing silk. A woman! A beautiful girl! ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... chairs had been secured by the forehanded Hobbs. The thin drizzle now aspired to something more definite in the shape of a steady downpour, and the decks were almost deserted, save for the few who huddled in the unexposed nooks where the sweep and swish of the rain failed to penetrate. There was a faraway look in the young man's eyes, as of one who dreams pleasantly, with little effort but excellent effect. His pipe had gone out, so his dream ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... control the weakness which had seized her, and, for support, rested her head upon the casement and took two or three long breaths; then with a murmured prayer for strength she gently opened the door, and the soft swish of her trailing skirts ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... him as though to go beneath the bark on her way to the pass. The paddles leaped to a rousing song and crashed in unison on the slopping gunwales. Dip, swish, bang! and then the accentuated thunder of forty voices, the men's hoarse and straining, the women's rich, falsetto, and musical. In the stern the old chief swayed with every rush of the boat, one sinewy hand clinched on the tiller, the ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... paused at a fine residence with just a nameplate on the door. They were ushered into a handsome parlor and in a few moments Madam came sweeping down the broad stairway, her silken gown making a soft swish on the polished floor. She was surprised and delighted to see Mrs. Crawford, who introduced her daughter and soon stated her errand. The green was to be a walking suit for Miss Marguerite and trimmed ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... of the lower floor of the hotel wing which ran down toward the beach. The ocean rolled almost up to the window of his room. It was a calm night with no sea on, and lying there, listening, Cogan could just catch the low swish ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... skeered; but neversomeless I ain't gwine run away: I'm gwine to stand stiff-legged for de Lord dis blessed day. YOU screech, and swish de water, Satan! I'se a gwine ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... us straight back to Castleman Hall, and to all the scenes of her young ladyhood! If only Lady Dee could have revised this book of Veblen's, how many points she could have given to him! No details had been too minute for the technique of Sylvia's great-aunt—the difference between the swish of the right kind of silk petticoats and the wrong kind; and yet her technique had been broad enough to take in a landscape. "Every girl should have a background," had been one of her maxims, and Sylvia had to have ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... of the earth have truly found their way to me—the small rustle in tufts of grass, the silky swish of leaves, the buzz of insects, the hum of bees in blossoms I have plucked, the flutter of a bird's wings after his bath, and the slender rippling vibration of water running over pebbles. Once having ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... that they were in pursuit of a German spy. The remainder of his scepticism forsook him. Amid such surroundings, with the singing of the wind and the gurgling swish of the flying boat in his ears, any adventure seemed possible. The prosaic limitations of ordinary life dropped off from him. Only it seemed a pity to find the spy, since finding him ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... started off into a cross-street, when Phil imagined he heard a shout in the distance. He looked forth but could see no one in the rushing darkness, The rattle of the cab, the growing roar of the night and toe swish of the rain, which was now falling quite heavily, drowned all other sounds and he ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... earth-ends were crawling and alive with hundreds upon hundreds of tiny asses climbing out of the yawning borrow-pit below with sackfuls of stuff; and the hot afternoon air was filled with the noise of hooves, the rattle of the drivers' sticks, and the swish and roll-down of the dirt. The river was very low, and on the dazzling white sand between the three centre piers stood squat cribs of railway-sleepers, filled within and daubed without with mud, to support the last of the girders as those ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... and at the some moment, Frank, who was standing where Jack had been a moment before, heard something swish past. ...
— The Boy Allies at Jutland • Robert L. Drake
... reconcile the holy zeal for truth and the swish of this bright blade of the intellect. He himself confesses that after reading Swedenborg he turns to Shakespeare and reads "As You Like It" with positive delight, because Shakespeare isn't trying to prove anything. The monks of the olden time read Rabelais and Saint ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... and delicate scented blossoms of the garden. It tore off the flowers remorselessly, and even for the moment he stood there, a rain of thin, white, shredded petals was flung into his face. The branches of the trees groaned and whined in the thick darkness, the swish of broken and bent bamboo came from all sides, the roar of the dust driven through the foliage filled his ears. The garden, the beautiful, sheltered garden, scene of their delights, was being ruthlessly destroyed, ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... of the motor-car, and a great swish where it grazed a wet bush near the house. Somebody lowered the gas in the hall, and Mrs. Paget's voice said regretfully, "I wish we had had a fire in the parlor—just one of the times!—but there's no help for it." They ...
— Mother • Kathleen Norris
... faint and distant murmur, the murmur to a long swish like a million rustling garments. A tree fell, with a crash, far away. Then the wind ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... the quicksilver should draw the electric fluid. The haymakers will tell you that sometimes when they have been standing under a hedge out of a storm a flash of lightning has gone by with a distinct sound like 'swish,' and immediately afterwards the wet ground has sent forth a vapour, ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... same swish and thud which had puzzled Lanyard at first hearing, the portrait slipped ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... heat of them almost overwhelmed her. The shrieks of the frantic throng at the main door of the theatre died away. She heard the shouted commands of the police and firemen—then the swish of water from the first pipe brought to play upon the flames. But they ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr
... bits mouthed in those velvet muzzles; a hoof pawed sharply on the road; swish of long, restless tails; creaking of saddlery; and sudden bursts of all the instruments in unison when heads were tossed and shaken. Remotely the whirr of a reaping machine. And ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... for, in astonishment at what she had already heard, and in her instant effort to hear no more of what was so evidently not intended for her, Miss Travers hurried from the parlor, the swish of her skirts telling loudly of her presence there. She went again to her room. What could it mean? Why was her proud, imperious Kate holding secret interviews with this coarse and vulgar woman? What concern was ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... heard the whirring swish of the passing squadron as it circled over the buildings. It afterwards appeared that the chateau owner was for some reason specially obnoxious to the Germans in Belgium. At last the bombing apparently ceased, but even this was deceptive. Both Blaine and Erwin, followed at a little distance ...
— Our Pilots in the Air • Captain William B. Perry
... trying to save him, passed and repassed us in sunlit or shaded settings. But Mr. Lingnam only talked. He talked—we all sat together behind so that we could not escape him—and he talked above the worn gears and a certain maddening swish of one badly patched tire—and he talked of the Federation of the Empire against all conceivable dangers except himself. Yet I was neither brutally rude like Penfentenyou, nor swooningly bored like the Agent-General. I remembered a certain Joseph Finsbury who ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... yet about three hundred yards distant. I might not have heard him, even with the aid of the cleft, but tonight Areskoui has given uncommon power to my ear, perhaps to aid us, and I know he is walking among thick bushes. I can hear the branches swish as they fly back into place, after his body has passed. Ah, a small stick popped as it ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... to such an extent that his controls become inoperative, and his machine threatens to side-slip. One's ear should, apart from the inclination of the machine, and the sensation of the descent, help one materially in judging the speed of a glide. There is a "swish" that comes to the ear, now the engine is no longer making its clamour, which gives a guide to the pace of one's downward movement. Aviators who are skilled, and have done a large amount of flying, are able to judge with accuracy, ...
— Learning to Fly - A Practical Manual for Beginners • Claude Grahame-White
... With a start of energy she sat upright, shifting her body until her feet touched the floor over the side of the bed. She knew what she must do—now, now, before it was too late. She must go out into this cool damp, out, away, to feel the wet swish of the grass around her feet and the fresh moisture on her forehead. Mechanically she struggled into her clothes, groping in the dark of the closet for a hat. She must go from this house where the thing hovered that pressed upon her bosom, or else made ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... it came. It had rained all day, a cold October storm, and night found me, with the chill downpour unabated, down by the North River, soaked through and through, with no chance for a supper, forlorn and discouraged. I sat on the bulwark, listening to the falling rain and the swish of the dark tide, and thinking of home. How far it seemed, and how impassable the gulf now between the "castle" with its refined ways, between her in her dainty girlhood and me sitting there, numbed with the cold that was slowly stealing away my senses with ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... dissatisfaction preyed upon her. She was somewhat exasperated at the rest of us, who worked cheerily and with no arriere pensee. At the end of the first week the picture hat was tucked away in the bandbox; the frou-frou of the sateen petticoat and the daring swish of the golf skirt were packed up, like the remains of a bubble that had reflected the world in its brilliant sides one moment and the next lay a little heap of soap-suds. She had gone behind in her work steadily at the factory; she was not making more than sixty cents ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... Mount, and when he desired victuals he would wade across the tides to the mainland and furnish himself forth with all that came in his way. The poor folk and the rich folk alike ran out of their houses and hid themselves when they heard the swish-swash of his big feet in the water; for if he saw them, he would think nothing of broiling half-a-dozen or so of them for breakfast. As it was, he seized their cattle by the score, carrying off half-a-dozen fat oxen on his back at a time, and hanging ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel
... into the kitchen unexpectedly, with a swish of silk that was like the retreat of waves down the shingle of some ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... now perceive that the smugglers made all sail, and I heard the frequent swish—swish of the water, as they threw bucketfuls on the sails, to thicken them and make them hold more wind, while we edged away, keeping as close to the wind, however, as we could, without ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... that they were sailing in a regular sloop, and that, too, going "with lee rail awash"; for instead of the soft crooning sound the runners made usually, there was a slash and a swish of ripples cloven apart; and instead of the little fountains of ice-dust which rise from the heels of the sharp shoes when the boat is skimming the frozen surface, there rose long spurting ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... insects soundlessly scuttling unnoticed in the dimness. It was noisy down here—the clank of the steering mechanism; the swish and surge of the water against the hull; the ...
— Beyond the Vanishing Point • Raymond King Cummings
... prone during the blinks of moon, stealing forward in the dark; till, at length, the swish of the rain on the waters of the Tarn, and the sobbing of the flock in front, warned ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... Durham reached where the road dipped to the stream. The subdued light in the pass made the distances elusive and turned the shadows into subtle mysteries of purpling greys. The air was full of the scent from the thickly growing vegetation, but, save for the rippling swish of the water trickling across the track, ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... to come suddenly over the sibilant Miss Sidonia Sabrina a quieting down, a lessening of twinkle and shimmer and swish. She moved slowly toward the huddle on the cot, parasol leading, and her hands ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... as it reached the designated spot, the fellow gave a violent swish with the pen. The mates made a grab for his hand, but too late. He tore a great, ink-smeared ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... Swish! Three silver plovers flash back of me—a clean miss. If we never missed we should never love a gun. It is time now to stalk the bottoms of the narrow, winding causeways that drain the bay. Their beds at low tide are full of dead mussels, dormant clams, and awkward sputtering crabs; ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... noise sounded about me like the swish of the sea, startling me for a second, but instantly I saw what had caused it. The Dagombas had let loose a flight of ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... joy, when a chill silence fell over the ship. The only sounds were the rattling of the rigging against the masts, the groaning of the timbers of the vessel, and the swish of the waves cut by the prow. These were not Kamchatka shores. This was only another of the endless island reefs they had been chasing since July. The tattered sails flapped and beat dismally against ...
— Pioneers of the Pacific Coast - A Chronicle of Sea Rovers and Fur Hunters • Agnes C. Laut
... stooping shoulders, in long-skirted nankeen coats, belted round the waist, with a strong, sour smell always clinging to them. And on the women's side, one could hear nothing but the patter of bare feet, the swish of petticoats. The chief valet was called Irinarh, and Alexey Sergeitch always called him in a long-drawn-out call: 'I-ri-na-a-arh!' The others he called: 'Boy! Lad! Whoever's there of the men!' Bells he could not endure: 'It's not an eating-house, God forbid!' ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... Turner, sat on the veranda, smoked their pipes, and even while keeping up a semblance of talk, had an eye and an ear on the bungalow—the "Old Man's" quarters not three hundred feet away. The boom of his jovial laughter still rang out upon the air, and presently the tinkle of guitar, the swish of feminine garments, the rasp of chairs and the merry mingling of voices told that the little dinner party, the first the camp had ever known—for what is a dinner party without women—had quit the table and gathered on the porch. By this time, too, an unclouded moon had ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... to sunset they did not progress five miles. Their two pack animals found insecure footing; death awaited them hourly upon many a day at the bottom of some sheer walled cliff. They climbed with the sharp slopes on the mountains, they dropped down into the narrow, flinty canons, they heard only the swish of tree tops and the quarrelling of streams lost to their eyes in the depths below them. And they came in two weeks to Blue Lake having seen no other man or ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... to congratulate himself on the important capture he had made, and with his hand on his captive's collar, and his revolver to his ear, was moving towards the center of the street, when a whistling "swish" was heard, the dull thud of a slung shot on the detective's head followed, and, every muscle relaxed, he sank a senseless man in ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... sound or smelled any odour that he believed to come from the Northern Lights. Indeed, he has often felt that with all the light-producing energy and with all the rapid movement of the aurora it was mysterious that there should be absolutely no sound. The aurora often looks as if it ought to swish, but to his ears it has never done it; so much phosphorescent light might naturally be accompanied by some chemical odour, but to his nostrils never ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... timber and sawdust began to be mingled with the feminine odour of sachet and flowers. There was a babel of talk in the air—male baritone and soprano chatter—varied by an occasional note of laughter and the swish of stiffly starched petticoats. On the row of chairs that went around three sides of the wall groups began to settle themselves. For a long time the guests huddled close to the doorway; the lower end of the floor was crowded! ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... eighty seconds there was no sound but the steady swish of the bow wave and the beat ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... to detain him! He fancied he heard a rustle in the open space under the stairs. Were any one to step forth, Robert or——With a start, he paused and clutched the banister. Some one had stepped forth; a woman! The swish of her skirts was unmistakable. He felt the chill of a new dread. Never in his short but triumphant career had he met coldness or disapproval in the eye of a woman. Was he to encounter it now? If so, it would go hard with him. He trembled as he ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... readiness for the return journey. Matters having progressed this far, the mules fell at once into a deep state of dejection and somnolence, their ears lopping down, their bodies drooping and motionless, save as now and then a faint swish of tail or wag of a weary ear bespoke the knowledge of some bold, marauding fly. The driver, perched upon his seat, his feet upon the rail, his knees pushed toward his chin, sat with his broad hat drawn down upon his forehead, his hands clasped between his legs, and all his ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... the lion cub with whom Nero used to play, was far off in Africa, so our circus friend had to stay by himself. He curled up on the leaves, listened to the swish and patter of the rain, and ...
— Nero, the Circus Lion - His Many Adventures • Richard Barnum
... illness, and was also recommended a sunbath, so we travelled together. The hotels being all full, we took up our quarters in a small boarding-house, standing in dense groves of orange trees, where each shiver of the night breeze sent the branches of the orange trees swish-swishing, and wafted great breaths of the delicious fragrance of orange blossom into our rooms. I was in bed, when the Guardsman, who had never been in the tropics before, rushed terror-stricken into my ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... walked with swaying strides nearer and nearer toward the lonely wigwam and tree. Iktomi heard the swish! swish! of the stranger's feet through the tall grass. He was passing now beyond the tree, when Iktomi, springing to his feet, called out: "How, how, my friend! I see you are dressed in handsome deerskins and have red paint on your cheeks. You are going to some feast or dance, ...
— Old Indian Legends • Zitkala-Sa
... shoulders, loins, and feet, and we were also covered with the unpleasant rime which our backs had brushed off the tent walls when we had camped. On we went, however, confident but silent. No other sound now but the swish, swish of our ski as we sped through the soft new snow. In the light of the Aurora objects stood out with the razor-edge sharpness of an after-blizzard atmosphere, and the temperature seemed to fall even lower than at midnight. Our fingers ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... Swish swirling this pen in my haste, And, deaf to thy pitiful pleading, Just jab it ...
— The Re-echo Club • Carolyn Wells
... heard the faint swish of feminine movement. She came and stood demurely at the top of the wide steps, a little hoop overflowing soft, white embroidered stuff in ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... our infantry could be seen advancing toward this fort. As the cannon at our side would bang, and the shell would swish through the air with its querulous, vicious, whining note, we would watch its explosion, and then turn our attention to the little black specks of infantry dodging in and out among the groups of trees. Now they would disappear wholly from sight in the brush, and again would be seen ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis
... came with a swish similar to that made by a wet sheet shaken in the wind, and burst in the field on the other side of the road. A ball of white smoke poised for a moment in mid-air, curled slowly upwards, and gradually faded away. I looked at my mates. Stoner ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... home, and whatever else it lacked, it had a front window, with shutters, and a balcony with an iron railing, and when tucked up in their beds at night, in the tiny dark alcove, the children could hear the soft swish of the water ...
— Chico: the Story of a Homing Pigeon • Lucy M. Blanchard
... corners of the feather pallet, and made it travel in a swift swish across the attic boards to the window at the front, which he opened. Supporting Maria in his arms, he signaled Angelique, with an amused face, to obey her tyrant; and she did so. But Peggy stalked behind the screens, and put her face ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... wrapped in a cloud; moisture began to form in tiny drops upon the stanchions and the deck, upon the beards and moustaches of the male part of the voyagers, upon the woolly texture of the garments of all, even upon the smoothly brushed silk of the Honourable John's top hat; save for the swish of the paddles and the running of the engines, with a whispered exclamation here and there, we could hear nothing; and we could scarcely see the length of ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... and often, when he stood shoulder-high in a silver-green sea of sugar-cane, or looked up to the tufted palms that made a murmuring over his head, or listened to the rustle of corn in the sunshine, or to the swish of the heavily-podded doura in the light wind that came in from the desert, he would compare his growing love for Ruby to the growing of Nature's children in this beneficent clime. And the luxuriant richness of the green ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... tells you that the old fisherman is astir at Fort Point and the man with the new motor boat over at Hough's Neck is giving it a little run before breakfast, with the muffler off, as usual. A gull goes over, flying low. You do not see but you hear the soft swish of the wings. By and by the sun shows through a rift in the fog and you begin to move before a faint air from the southwest. A half hour more and the shreds of fog are melting upward into the blue of a clear day, the wind fills your sail and you are sweeping eastward with wind ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... circus. If the band played all the time they would never get a chance to look inside the buildings. The moment they get within earshot of the tuba horns they anchor themselves to benches or camp-stools and watch the leader swish the air with his baton. After the music stops they will begin hunting for more excitement, and may finally wander in among the pictures and admire some battle scene covering a whole wall. To-day I saw a young man and his girl standing ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... Glen, but it is a cruel kindness, for I want to be where they are growing in Clashiegar den. When summer comes people praise the varied flower-beds of the costly city parks, but they have not seen Tochty woods in their glory. Each autumn carries me to the harvest field, till in my study I hear the swish of the scythe and feel the fragrance of the dry, ripe grain. And in winter I see the sun shining on the white sides of Glen Urtach, and can hardly keep pen to paper ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... there was a sudden swish and a swirl of restless, tumbling waters. The motion, as my carrier buried his bared legs in the waves, was such as accompanies impossible flights described in dreams, through some unknown medium. The surging waters ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... and after giving the rope a fierce swish through the air, as if he were hitting at Lobster's back, he put the end inside the top of his trousers, just beneath his chin, and gradually worked it down out ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... one of the four rods of which I was in command. For one hour my pencil wrought without a pause, and delightful it was under the sunshine to indite to the steady strokes of two pair of oars, the rhythmic swish of the water, now tranquilly flowing, and easy for all ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... When a swish of skirts on the stairs announced the housemaid he retreated to the bedroom, and the girl found him standing at a south window, gazing out over the fair vista of the Italian terraces and the ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... really consists of one room, but she maintains that there are two; so, rather than argue, let us say that there are two. The other one has no window, and she could not swish her old skirts in it without knocking something over; its grandest display is of tin pans and crockery on top of a dresser which has a lid to it; you have but to whip off the utensils and raise the ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... the cabin of the tug came a confused series of sounds. First there was the swish and pelt of the rain, varied as the wind blew the sheets of water across the deck. But, above it all, was a deep, ominous note—a grinding, crushing noise, as of giant rocks piling one on top of the other, smashing to powder ...
— The Moving Picture Boys at Panama - Stirring Adventures Along the Great Canal • Victor Appleton
... was for the first time in her life working with a scrubbing-brush, and, presently, M'riar heard its swish. ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... half way, keeping his elbow fast at his side. But the doctor would not be thus partially obeyed. "Hold out your hand, sir!" he would thunder; and out would go the arm to its fullest length, and with a sharp swish through the air, down would come the strap, covering the hand from the wrist to finger tip, and sending a thrill of agony through every nerve in the body. Ten, twenty, thirty, or in extreme cases, even forty such stripes would be administered, some boys taking them as ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... clink of the teacups. It was in the swish of every silk petticoat. If I went to the theater, church or concert, the call of that germ-ridden spot of the unholy name beat into my brain with the persistency of a tom-tom ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... first place," suggested Ralph, not waiting for Hugh's reply, "the sound of voices came from the same level as our own location. I'm dead sure of that fact. Then again we could hear the swish of brush, and I even caught the sound of men crashing through thickets and ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Flying Squadron • Robert Shaler
... Presently—swish! They were circling in the opposite direction to Tam, which meant that the object passed him at the rate of one hundred and forty miles an hour. But he had seen the German coming.... Something dropped from the fuselage, there was the rending crash of an explosion ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace
... rain were dying fast, and he heard a sound behind uncommonly like the distant swish of oars. It sent an unpleasant thrill through him, because he wished to be alone on the river at that particular time, but his eyes, tracing a course through all the dusk and gloom, rested upon another boat, about two hundred yards away, ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... just gone to my room at about eleven o'clock when the doctor called me to come out and "hear the lights." I thought surely I must have misunderstood, but on reaching the balcony and listening, I could distinctly hear the swish of the "spirits" as they rushed across the sky. It sounds like a diminished silk petticoat which has lost its blatancy, but retains ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding |
