"Creak" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fumbling at his window. His sleepy eyes seemed to make out a face just disappearing from sight outside. He dismissed his suspicions as the manufactures of sleep, and was about to fall back again on the comfortable divan when he heard footsteps outside, and the creak of his door-knob. He rose quickly to ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... standing out in bold relief upon a blacker, more dismal background. She was beautiful at that moment—her sides and sails unnaturally whitened against the gloom, suggesting a cameo set on a piece of slate. Our blocks began to creak, sails bulged into huge scoops, masts tilted majestically, and the Whim, freed from her enforced ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... like a bubble into the air. Some fresh horror was afoot. What was this man plotting now? She held her breath and listened painfully. She heard the doors of the oak armoire creak on their hinges as they swung open, then came the click of a glass jar. Holliday spoke, a tinge of fascinated curiosity in ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... softly on, trying the floor of the verandah with his bare feet at each step, lest the boards should creak a little under his weight. He reached the window door of his own room, and slipped ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... He heard it creak, and then the sound of a small voice came to him. "Jimmie! Jimmie! Are yehs dere?" it whispered. The urchin started. The thin, white face of his sister looked at him from the door-way of the other room. She crept to him across ...
— Maggie: A Girl of the Streets • Stephen Crane
... calves, probably because his black silk stockings never exhibited a wrinkle; they might just as well have said that he waddled, because his shoes creaked; for these last, which were always without a speck, and polished as his crown, though of a different hue, did creak, as he walked rather slowly. I cannot say that I ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... folding doors and passed into the inner room, accompanied by Jessie. Julian waited for her. He found himself listening to her movements in the other room, to the creak of wood, as she pulled out drawers, to the rustle of a dress lifted from a hook, the ripple of water poured from a jug into a basin. He heard the whole tragedy of preparation, as this girl armed herself for the piteous ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... In his absence, I will ask you to listen while I walk about in his room. One can't be too particular, when rest is of such importance to your young lady—and it has struck me as just possible, that the floor of his room may be in fault. My dear, the boards may creak! I'm a sad fidget, I know; but, if the carpenter can set things right—without any horrid hammering, of course!—the sooner he is sent for, the more relieved I ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... all the stately stir, And bending to your silken flowing, One day, my banner-poles, ye creak Naked beneath the high winds blowing! One day ye fall across the wall And moulder in the moat's green bosom, While in the cleft the wild tree left Bursts into spikes ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... he cautiously rose from the bed, and pulled off his boots, which a proper respect for his host or the bed had not prompted him to do before. The house was old, and the floors had a tendency to creak beneath his tread. With the utmost care, he crawled on his hands and knees to one of the doors of the lumber hole, which he succeeded in opening ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... called musically; a cow lowed, a dog barked; the rich, sweet breath of the vernal land mingled its odors with the sultry air of the neighboring lagoon. The wayfarers spoke little; the time hung heavy on all, no doubt; to Ferris it was a burden almost intolerable to hear the creak of the oars and the breathing of the gondoliers keeping time together. At last the boat stopped in front of the police-station in Fusina; a soldier with a sword at his side and a lantern in his hand came out and briefly parleyed with the gondoliers; they stepped ashore, ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... moved away toward the castle, which lay about a quarter of a mile from the village. Approaching to within fifty yards of the gate, he sat down to watch. About eleven o'clock he heard the creak of the gate, and presently was startled by seeing two horsemen ride past him. "They must have muffled their horses' feet," he said to himself. "They are up to no good. I wish there had only been one ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... l'Intendant. La Potherie, who visited Quebec in 1698, and Charlevoix, who writes in 1720, describe this district as the most beautiful in the city. Instead of the crowded quays of to-day there was a terraced lawn bordered with flower gardens; and where now the winches creak and rattle, and the railway engines hiss and scream, birds sang among willow-trees, and the Angelus echoed through a quiet woodland. Across the St. Charles lay the well-ordered grounds of the Jesuit monastery, and farther to the west the lonely spire of the General Hospital peeped ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... envying these fellows, as he saw with what glee and self- satisfaction they entered into their own at Wakefield's. They were all so glad to be back, to see again the picture of Cain and Abel on the wall, to scramble for the corner seat in the ingle-bench, to hear the well-known creak on the middle landing, to catch the imperturbable tick of the dormitory clock, to see the top of Hawk's Pike looming out, down the valley, clear and sharp ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... dankly fall With a dim forethought of rain, And the robins richly call To their mates mercurial, And the tree-boughs creak and strain In the wind; When the river's rough with foam, And the new-made clearings smoke, And the clouds that go and come Shine and darken frolicsome, And the frogs at evening croak Undefined Mysteries of monotone, And by melting beds of snow ...
— Rose and Roof-Tree - Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... crickets creak, and through the noonday glow, That crazy fiddler of the hot mid-year, The dry cicada plies his wiry bow In long-spun cadence, thin and dusty sere: From the green grass the small grasshoppers' din Spreads soft and silvery thin: And ever and anon a murmur ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman
... — for the scenes we leave behind us Are barren for the lights of home and a flame that's young forever; And the lonely trees around us creak the warning of the night-wind, That love and all the dreams of love are away beyond the mountains. The songs that call for us to-night, they have called for men before us, And the winds that blow the message, they have blown ten thousand years; But this will end our wander-time, for ...
— The Children of the Night • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... they would creak less," snapped Miss Panney. "How are things going on at Cobhurst? What ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... that rock there hangs a tree, And chains do creak thereon; And in those chains his memory hangs, Though all ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... not the whir of windmills but the creak of a gate in the storm that brought Mr. Magee at last to a stop. He walked gladly up the path ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers
... addition was, it caused the boat to lie over and creak so loudly, as we cleft the foaming waves, that I expected to be upset every instant; and I blamed Jack in my heart for his rashness. But I did him injustice; for although during two seconds the water rushed inboard in a torrent, he succeeded in steering us sharply round ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... a pin for their chattering, and stumped away as evening drew on, up the hill-side to the outlying field. There he went inside the barn and lay down; but in about an hour's time the barn began to groan and creak, so that it was ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... in teeth of the wind and pendulous labor of rolling, the three cutters joyfully took the word to go. With a creak, and a cant, and a swish of canvas, upon their light heels they flew round, and trembled with the eagerness of leaping on their way. The taper boom dipped toward the running hills of sea, and the jib-foreleech ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... to return to Neeland, but that young man motioned him violently away from his door and closed it. Then, listening, his ear against the panel, he presently heard a door in the passage creak open a little way, then close ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... Who is there? cried my father, waking, the moment the door began to creak.—I wish the smith would give a peep at that confounded hinge.—'Tis nothing, an please your honour, said Trim, but two mortars I am bringing in.—They shan't make a clatter with them here, cried my father hastily.—If Dr. Slop has any drugs to pound, ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... coldness. One gets no intimation that in fashioning them the composer has liberated himself. On the contrary, they seem icy and brain-spun. They are like men formed not out of flesh and bone and blood, but out of glass and wire and concrete. They creak and groan and grate in their motion. They have all ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... them depart through the passageway that led to the street entrance. I heard the creak of the hinges, and the clang of the bars as they fell back into place. Then a strong, sweet odour of crushed blossoms turned me faint. I loosed my hold of the screening vines and stepped backward with a sudden struggle ...
— Margaret Tudor - A Romance of Old St. Augustine • Annie T. Colcock
... she raised the window slowly and without a creak, and a current of cool air rushed in and over her before ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... young cockrobin That's got no use for parents, once he's mated: But I'm, somehow, out of place within four walls, Tied to one spot—that never wander the world. I long for the rumble of wheels beneath me; to hear The clatter and creak of the lurching caravan; And the daylong patter of raindrops on the roof: Ay, and the gossip of nights about the campfire— The give-and-take of tongues: mine's getting stiff For want of use, and spoiling ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... method upon us, if we had but the wit to see it, and the humility to adopt it? What can be more manifest than the desire of children for intellectual sympathy? Mark how the infant sitting on your knee thrusts into your face the toy it holds, that you too may look at it. See when it makes a creak with its wet finger on the table, how it turns and looks at you; does it again, and again looks at you; thus saying as clearly as it can—"Hear this new sound." Watch the elder children coming into the room exclaiming—"Mamma, see what ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... It used to creak and crack under the engine when it was new. McNally was nearing it now. It lay, however, just below a deep rock cut that had been made in a mountain crag ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman
... pot of unglazed clay that stands beside the door, poises it lightly on her hip, and runs singing to the village well, where each house has its representative waiting for the morning supply. There is the plash of dripping water, the creak of wheel and straining rope, and the chatter of ...
— Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India • Alice B. Van Doren
... wont to lie at the end of the bridge, and I confess that traces of this undefined terror lasted very long.—One other source of alarm had a still more fearful significance. There was a great wooden HAND,—a glove-maker's sign, which used to swing and creak in the blast, as it hung from a pillar before a certain shop a mile or two outside of the city. Oh, the dreadful hand! Always hanging there ready to catch up a little boy, who would come home to supper no more, nor yet to bed,—whose porringer would be laid away empty thenceforth, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... Mayberry was making them creak," said Lodloe. "But she is not, and you may as well postpone the lesson I suppose you want to give her. She is at present taking lessons in botany from another professor"; and he hereupon stated in brief the facts of the desertion ...
— The Squirrel Inn • Frank R. Stockton
... took away the lamp to his own room, shaking his fist at himself for allowing his mother's door to creak. He pulled up his blind. The town lay as still as salt. But a steady light showed in the south, and on pressing his face against the window he saw another in the west. Mr. Carfrae's words about the night-watch came back ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... was no longer in drumming torrents, but in a soft and almost imperceptible veil; but if the rain had lost the wind had gained. And as he passed from the edge of the wood, all the trees seemed to twang and creak, or cracked loudly, parting perhaps at some dear nerve where sap and beauty would no longer course. In every bush along the edge of the wood there seemed a separate chorus of voices, melodious and terrific, whistle and whoop, shriek and moan. Even the grass nodding in the wind lent a thin voice ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... the mighty trees knock their naked arms together, and creak and cry wildly in the wind. In Forty-nine's cabin, by a flickering log-fire, Carrie sits alone. The wind howls horribly, the door creaks, and the fire snaps wickedly; the wind roars—now the roar of a far-off sea, and now it smites the ...
— Shadows of Shasta • Joaquin Miller
... if I die for it," said Deborah, and whirled up the wooden steps in a silent manner surprising in so noisy a woman. Paul heard the trap-door drop with a stealthy creak. ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... waiting for the cousin of Red Feather, the wise man who might help us. I heard the rattle of the bar as the helper lifted it, then the creak of the gate. Then a furious outcry, a confusion of howls and screams, a war-whoop and a rush of feet. The Indians were within the stockade. A moment later they burst into the shop and advanced upon us, uttering blood-curdling ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... cold and clear. The December sun shines upon the glassy turf, and upon trees all clad in armor of glittering ice. And the trees creak and rattle in the north wind; and the icy splinters fall tinkling to ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... asleep, the beds began to creak, and amid this creaking the empress fancied she heard words that no ...
— Roumanian Fairy Tales • Various
... floated down the long valley and found me in my field, and finally I heard, as though the sounds were then made for the first time, all the vague murmurs of the country side—a cow-bell somewhere in the distance, the creak of a wagon, the blurred evening hum of birds, insects, frogs. So much it means for a man to stop and look up from his task. So I stood, and I looked up and down with a glow and a thrill which I cannot now look back upon without some envy and a little amusement at the very grandness ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... looked to me like Red-Head Sammy Stepping it off, to "Toor-a-Loor." How could I till my forty acres Not to speak of getting more, With a medley of horns, bassoons and piccolos Stirred in my brain by crows and robins And the creak of a wind-mill—only these? And I never started to plow in my life That some one did not stop in the road And take me away to a dance or picnic. I ended up with forty acres; I ended up with a broken fiddle— ...
— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters
... gulls as they flutter Like snowflakes and fall down the sky, To swoop in the deeps of the hollows, Where the crow's-foot tosses awry; And gnats in the lee of the thickets Are swirling like waltzers in glee To the harsh, shrill creak of the crickets And the song of the lark and ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... when she came on in the last scene of the Sonnambula, for instance, in her night-chemise with a lamp in her hand, and had to go out of the window, and pass over the plank of the mill, it was all she could do to squeeze out of the window, and the plank used to bend and creak again under her weight—but how she poured out the finale of the opera! and with what a burst of feeling she rushed into Elvino's arms—almost fit to smother him! Whereas the little Lederlung—but a truce to this gossip—the fact is that these two women were the two flags of ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... course, though I only stepped through the French window to lay my flowers down, in that instant Jimmie had sprung upon that slanting edge of my poor, frail little box, and in that instant the mischief was done. The box tilted and flung Jimmie forward against the curving trellis, which began to creak and groan alarmingly. All my precious nasturtiums were pitched headlong into the flower-beds below, and for once Jimmie shrieked my name in accents ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... her lowly brethren on the borders of Kashmir.... And just as he was about to enter into the great peace, his consciousness beginning to wing with cosmic sweep, the rock upon which he sat started to creak and stir, and presently he was rolled about like a haversack in a ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... untidily served one—Andrey Yefimitch would walk up and down his rooms with his arms folded, thinking. The clock would strike four, then five, and still he would be walking up and down thinking. Occasionally the kitchen door would creak, and the red and sleepy face of Daryushka ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... semblance of rotation was maintained. The bobs' crews settled themselves with the deftness of long practice. Then bending to his task the pusher at the rear dug his toes in, while the others hunched. With a creak the runners gave way their hold on the frozen snow; the bobs began slowly to move. As momentum and the downward curve of the hill exerted their influence, the pusher found his task easier and easier. His then the nice decision as to just ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... doing, her movements were far from easy. She did not roll as before, as she was kept pressed down on one side; still every now and then she gave a pitch as she glided down into the trough of the sea, which made every timber and mast creak and quiver, and few on board would have been inclined ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... each stile along the glistening lanes; His hand will be upon the mud-soaked reins; Hearing the saddle creak, He'll wonder if the frost will come next week. I shall forget him in the morning light; And while we gallop on he will not speak: But at the stable-door ...
— The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon • Siegfried Sassoon
... motionless for a few minutes, thinking and listening. At first all was still. Footsteps above her head,—Elizabeth was going to bed; then the familiar creak of the good woman's bed; then silence again. Rita's room was across the hall, and she could hear no sound from there. Through the open window came the soft night noises: the dew dripping from the chestnut leaves, a little ...
— Three Margarets • Laura E. Richards
... and suit-cases were carefully arranged, and they were off,—off in the beautiful Harmer,—off to the country,—to the mountains and canyons,—to climb one of the sunny slopes that had beckoned to them so enticingly. Almost they held their breath at first, afraid the first creak of the car would waken ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... days that he had consulted his feelings and probably his health, by retiring to the top of the bank, a rod or more distant. We watched night after night, and at last were gratified to find that none went nearer the Creak than the top of ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... me,' whispered Quilp, nipping and pinching her arm; 'worm yourself into her secrets; I know you can. I'm listening, recollect. If you're not sharp enough, I'll creak the door, and woe betide you if I have to creak it ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... and where there is none she drives full tilt at the ice, with her heavy plunge, runs her sloping bows up on it, treads it under her, and bursts the floes asunder. And how strong she is too! Even when she goes full speed at a floe, not a creak, not a sound, is to be heard in her; if she gives a little shake it ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... the cold blasts swirled dreamily through the leafless branches of the Langaffer beeches, causing them to creak and moan; when the snow lay thick upon the ground, and the nights closed in apace, and the villagers relished the comforts of the "ingle-nook," then—alas!—there was no fireside enjoyment for poor Dame ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... hour they drove in silence. Only the whistle of the iron-bound runners on the powdery snow, the creak of the warming leather on the horses, the regular breathing of the team, broke the stillness of the forest. Paul hoped against hope that Catrina was asleep. She sat by his side, her arm touching his sleeve, her weight thrown against him at such times ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... Innspruck, that he died to his bewilderment without any pain whatever, but that pain came to him after he was quite dead,—not bodily pain at all, but an anguish of mind because the chains by which he was hanged would groan and creak, and the populace, mistaking that groaning for his cries, scoffed at him and ridiculed his King for sending to rescue the Princess Clementina a marrowless thing that could not die like a man. Wogan stirred ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... look, the slim stiff-collared boys! Energy that is eager and enjoys They may anon make show of In some less honest haunt; here as in pain They creak and crawl, devoid of that sans gene That virtue seems ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 February 15, 1890 • Various
... grass, were rude in appearance; but they were substantial, and well calculated for the work they had to perform. The seats, of which there were four—two chairs, a bench, and a stool—were of the plainest wood, and the simplest form; but they were solid as rocks, and no complaining creak, when heavy men sat down on them, betokened bad or broken constitutions. The little table—two feet by sixteen inches—was in all respects worthy of the chairs. At one end of the hut there was a bed-place, ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... Cap'n Abe as he heard the bedcords creak and the patter of the girl's feet on the matting. "Cap'n Am'zon knows of a craft that'll sail to-day from Boston and I ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... useful in this sense, even where it is wrong; because at least it does give a system, and therefore forces its opponents to present an alternative system, instead of simply cutting a hole in the shoe when it pinches, or striking out the driving wheel because it happens to creak unpleasantly. And I think so the more because I cannot but observe that whenever a real economic question presents itself, it has to be argued on pretty much the old principles, unless we take the heroic method ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... for some moments. She saw it swing around a long, narrow point of land a short distance to the south of the camp and boldly enter a bay. She was unable to make out with any distinctness what was being done there, but she heard the creak of the boom as it swung over and the rattle of the tackle as the sails came down, though unable to interpret these sounds. Soon there came a sharp whistle from human lips, answered by a similar whistle from the shore, ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... drew a key from his pocket and fitted it into the lid of a secretary. As he turned it in the lock the snap of the bolt made him start. He was haggard, even ghastly, as he stood, letting the lid back slowly, lest it should creak or jar. With another key he opened a little drawer, and involuntarily looking behind him as he did so, he took out a small piece of paper, which he concealed in ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... sensitive childhood. It was a solemn house for him. Through the basement window on a dark night he had first glimpsed Marguerite. Unforgettable event! Unlike anything else that had ever happened to anybody!... He heard a creak, and caught sight through the letter-aperture of a pair of red slippers, and then the lower half of a pair of trousers, descending the stairs. And he dropped the flap hurriedly. Mr. Haim was coming to open the door. Mr. Haim did open the door, started at the apparition of George, and stood defensively ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... of the ponderous wall frowned a more ponderous gate. It was riveted and studded with iron bolts, and surmounted with jagged iron spikes. What impressions of deep awe did it inspire! It was never opened save for the three periodical egressions and ingressions already mentioned; then, in every creak of its mighty hinges, we found a plenitude of mystery—a world of matter for solemn remark, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... first creak of the door-handle the White Linen Nurse was on her feet, breathless, ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... the corridor and gained her room in safety. It was an instant's work to throw off her cloak and compose herself rigidly under the single white sheet. But though she lay still her heart was beating to suffocation as she heard the creak and thud of a heavy step coming up the stairs. Then the door was opened in a stealthy way and Henson came in. He could see the outline of the white figure, and a sigh of satisfaction escaped him. A less ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... they strike, both Franks and Arrabies, Breaking the shafts of all their burnished spears. Whoso had seen that shattering of shields, Whoso had heard those shining hauberks creak, And heard those shields on iron helmets beat, Whoso had seen fall down those chevaliers, And heard men groan, dying upon that field, Some memory of bitter pains might keep. That battle is most hard ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... Petrie repented, a day out, that he had been so hardy. For the nearer we struggled to the open ocean, the greater grew the seas, which presently broke across our bows with a force that made every timber creak, and laid us over almost on our beam-ends. It was soon more than we could do to carry any but a reefed foresail; and all day long some of us were hard at work ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... its rim had creak'd. As peeps the frog Croaking above the wave, what time in dreams The village gleaner oft pursues her toil, So, to where modest shame appears, thus low Blue pinch'd and shrin'd in ice the spirits stood, Moving ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... which the squalid street conducts us? A kind of square of leprous houses, some of which are attainable only by crazy wooden stairs without. What lies beyond this tottering flight of steps, that creak beneath our tread? - a miserable room, lighted by one dim candle, and destitute of all comfort, save that which may be hidden in a wretched bed. Beside it, sits a man: his elbows on his knees: his ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... slunk piteously out of his shop, and went into a back parlour. Dyson heard his trembling fingers fumbling with a bunch of keys, and the creak of an opening box. He came back presently with a small package neatly tied up in brown paper in his hands, and, still full of terror, handed ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... sing, and rock him, And the creak of the swaying chair, And the old dear cadence of the words ...
— Songs for a Little House • Christopher Morley
... claret and blue which shine Under the moon like lees of wine. A coronet done in a golden scroll, And wheels which blunder and creak as they roll Through the muddy ruts of a moorland track. They ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... away and left me in darkness, filled with a horrid suspicion. I waited on in hope of the moonlight returning, but rain set in, and I returned to my own chamber much perplexed as to what to do. Leaving the door ajar I determined to sit up and listen for any further sound, or the creak of a footstep on the stair, but though I listened till grey dawn came I ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease
... deep sleep that night when she heard her master's door creak. Suddenly everything came back to her. Holy Mother, the mushrooms. Did he feel very bad? The poor master! She jumped out of bed as quick as lightning and rushed to the door. But when she tore it open, she saw that it was only her mistress who had just carefully closed the ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... wished I were anywhere else but in that hideous hole. I felt myself leave the ground and rise steadily. The walls of the shaft glided past me. Up, up I went. The bit of blue sky grew bigger, bigger. There was a star shining there. I watched it. I heard the creak, creak of the windlass crank. Somehow it seemed to have a sinister sound. It seemed to say: "Have a care, have a care, have a care." I was now ten feet from the top. The bucket was rocking a little, so I put out my hand and grasped ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... the summer nights the market carts creak along the London road; to London go the wild young man and the steady young man who 'betters' himself. To London goes the girl seeking a 'place.' The 'beano' comes very near to this land—so near that across its ...
— In Homespun • Edith Nesbit
... Mrs. Batty, bending forward stiffly because of her constricting clothes, and with a creak and rustle, ventured to ask in low tones, 'Have you any news of Mr. Mallett lately?' The three elder ladies murmured together; Rose, indifferent, concerned with her own thoughts, ate a creamy cake. This was one of the conversations she ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... evidently a serious business, its floor of operations the smooth ground worn bare about the camp fire. One of them lay flat with a careful hand patting the dust into mounds, the other squatted near by watching, a slant of white hair falling across a rounded cheek. They did not heed the creak of the wagon wheels, but as a woman's voice called from the tent, raised their heads listening, but not answering, evidently deeming silence the ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... The creak of a saddle; the shuffling and rustle of horses moving at a walk through the long prairie grass; the sudden jolt of a wheel as it dropped from a tufty wad to the barren sand intersecting the clumps ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... as everywhere, we were given freely of such things as we required. We left in the early morning of June 26, after Pennell had done some hours' magnetic work with the Lloyd Creak and ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... and creak of bough And rustle of the frost, And winter's inner voice—avow The holy hour is crossed, And far, mysterious music sounds, Sweet like ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris
... you, Artamo; open this door a tiny bit; easy, don't make it creak. (Artamo obeys) That will do. (to Nicobulus) Step up here, you. See that jovial ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... if it lay not resting, A bright-eyed pearl, in the heart enclosed, In heav'nward gazes its sparkle vesting, When crumbling shell leaves the core exposed? Sweet slumber follows When pain expires.... And creak the gallows, And flame the fires, Lo, martyr! heaven shall open thence, And ...
— The Angel of Death • Johan Olof Wallin
... glimmer of day came relief, but she did not sleep. The night's terror had left her nerves too shaken for repose. Yet as the sun rose and the farmyard sounds began, as she heard the mill-wheel creak and turn and the rush and roar of the water below, common sense came to her aid, and she was able to tell herself that her night alarm might have been due to nothing more than her own ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... wanting to hear a door slam already! Any one wouldn't think I'd had a special set of door nerves for years!" She started in to rock briskly. There used to be a board that creaked by the west window. Why didn't it creak now? The Mother tried ...
— The Very Small Person • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... could follow it. Then came a breeze from the river, to sing drearily through the trees. In the intervals, when the breeze was still, its absence seemed in some way, to stimulate the watchers' power of hearing, so that they could detect vague sounds which proceeded from the river. The creak of oars told of a late rower on the stream—a voice was wafted up to them, to be drowned in the sighing of the leaves set swaying by the ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... other kinds too. The fowls, the ducks, and all the cattle in the neighbouring yard are creatures too. I now look up to the Yard Cock on the partition. He certainly is of much greater consequence than the Weathercock, who is so highly placed, and who can't even creak, much less crow; and he has neither hens nor chickens, and thinks only of himself, and perspires verdigris. But the Yard Cock—he's something like a cock! His gait is like a dance, his crowing is music; and ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... turn any fellow into a brick. If there were more girls like you in the world I shouldn't be surprised if there were a lot of good men too; and the world could be oiled on all its hinges, so to speak, so that it wouldn't creak and jump and fret one at every turn as it seems to have an unpleasant habit of doing at ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... planning great agricultural enterprises. Occasionally, also, he went out to sea with the sailors of Yport. On several occasions he went fishing for mackerel and, again, by moonlight, he would haul in the nets laid the night before. He loved to hear the masts creak, to breathe in the fresh and whistling gusts of wind that arose during the night; and after having tacked a long time to find the buoys, guiding himself by a peak of rocks, the roof of a belfry or the Fecamp ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... like spiritalism. You ask any of the servants. As soon as he gets drowsy at the table, the table begins to tremble, and creak like that: tuke, ... tuke! All the servants have ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... bolt in the lock, and it was followed by a slight pressure upon the door itself, as if to ascertain the security of the lock. The person, whoever it might be, was probably satisfied, for I heard the old boards of the lobby creak and strain, as if under the weight of somebody moving cautiously over them. My sense of hearing became unnaturally, almost painfully acute. I suppose the imagination added distinctness to sounds vague in themselves. I thought ...
— Two Ghostly Mysteries - A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family; and The Murdered Cousin • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... broken up as it neared her, until within some twenty fathoms of the launch it dwindled away to a mere occasional fluttering gleam. A great and solemn silence prevailed, upon which such slight sounds as the flap of the sails, the pattering of the reef-points, the creak of the rudder, or the stir of some uneasy sleeper broke with almost ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... creak he still waited awhile, walking slowly round the house in silence and darkness. Then, as he passed the side where the bedroom was, there came the sound of a slight sleeping snore, repeated as regularly as the breath might come and go in a ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... gates at the end of the avenue. Through these they beheld the waiting yellow chaise which had brought Andre-Louis. From near at hand came the creak of other wheels, the beat of other hooves, and now another vehicle came in sight, and drew to a stand-still beside the yellow chaise—a handsome equipage with polished mahogany panels on which the gold and azure of armorial bearings flashed brilliantly in the sunlight. A footman swung ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... made myself look as fine as I could, and though my heart beat loudly as I mounted the bridle-path, I put on a bold look and rang the bell. It was a clanging thing, that seemed to creak on a hinge, as I pulled the stout string from outside. A man appeared, and on my inquiry said I might wait in the porch behind the great wooden gate, while he delivered my message to his excellency the baron. It seemed to take a long time, and I sat on a stone bench, eying ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... billow, Our op'ning timbers creak; Each fears a wat'ry pillow, None stop the dreadful leak! To cling to slipp'ry shrouds, Each breathless seaman crowds, As she lay, till the day, In the ...
— Old Ballads • Various
... Lope's business, and then, beyond a doubt, they might expect to come off with flying colours; that is provided the water-carrier did not die of his wound, and provided also there was no lack of stuff to grease the palms of all the officers of justice, for unless they are well greased they creak worse than the ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... stirs in his cradle. Although the old man left his sabots at the door when he entered, his footsteps make the floor creak. The child begins to whine. The mother leans out of her bed to comfort it; and the grandfather gropes to light the lamp, so that the child shall not be frightened by the night when he awakes. The flame of the lamp lights up old Jean ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... line of flesh. Now Eric knew for the first time the awful reality of intense pain; he had determined to utter no sound, to give no sign; but when the horrible rope fell on him, griding across his back, and making his body literally creak under the blow, he quivered like an aspen-leaf in every limb, and could not suppress the harrowing murmur, "Oh ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... him to a closed door, in front of which he paused; and, as he did so, the broad leaves began to open of themselves, without creak or sound of lock or latch, or touch of foot or finger. The singularity was lost in the ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... he muttered, and thrusting his arm through, he reached the lock, turned the key, and the door swung open with a dismal creak. ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn |
