"Sill" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sill with a sickening thud, scattering the diamond dust from his sun-colored pearl wings into a fine glittering mist upon the green paint. Ugh! with a jar up flew the window and Dizzy, thinking faintly about little ...
— The Cheerful Cricket and Others • Jeannette Marks
... and then thinking of something important Starbuck hastened to cry out: "Say, Gabe, you might fetch me a can of cove oysters and about a straw hat full o' crackers." The last request was shouted through the window, on the sill of which there was a tin cup and near by, in a corner, was a jug. Taking up the jug and the cup Starbuck, approaching his visitor, inquired: ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read
... which there were two good reasons, one the fierceness of the winds in winter, the other, the fact that the means of egress were elsewise provided—lifted the sofa, Connie and all, out over the window-sill, and then there was only a little door in the garden-wall to get her through before we found ourselves upon the down. I think the ascent of this hill was the first experience I had—a little to my humiliation, nothing to my sorrow—that I was descending ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... partners always "stuck." Pete crept cautiously to the window. Halfway across the clearing the blurred hulk of running horses loomed in the starlight. Young Pete rested his carbine on the window-sill and centered on the bulk. He fired and thought he saw a horse rear. Again he fired. This was much easier than shooting deer. He beard a cry and the drumming of hoofs. Something crashed against the door. Pete whirled and fired point-blank. ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... fasten one end of the twisted sheets about the bedpost, to let himself down; but hearing the door-knob slowly turning he did not finish the job. He dropped the sheet, lowered himself by his hands from the window-sill and let go. ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... said Marjorie, softly, as she stepped over the sill, and stood in the soft moonlight, looking down on ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells
... with his fist, but "could feel no substance; and it jumped out of the window again." It immediately came in by the porch, although the doors were shut, and said, "You had better take my counsel." Hereupon Louder struck at it with a stick, hitting the ground-sill and breaking the stick, but felt no substance. Louder concludes his ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... the ladder was complete. Resolutely I mounted to the top and peered through the sashless window. It was quite black and repelling beyond. Instructing Britton and the two brothers to follow me in turn, I clambered over the wide stone sill and lowered myself ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... empty room and went up the creaking stairway. No one met me or withstood me; only a pigeon perched upon the sill of a sunny window whirred off into the blue. I glanced out of the window as I passed it, and saw the silver river and the George and the Esperance, with the gunners at the guns watching for Indian canoes, and saw smoke rising from ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... evening to want to talk, and too wide awake to dream of going to sleep, she lay very still until Beryl's deep breathing told her her companion had slipped into dreamland. Then she crept from bed and crouched, a mite of a thing, at the window sill and stared out into the brilliant night. A moon shone coldly over the snowy hills, throwing into bold relief the stacks and buildings of the Mills. Robin recalled that day she had first likened them to a Giant. That day seemed—so much had happened ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... like a young squirrel, his bare toes clutching like claws in the tangle of the stems and twigs. He gained the roof, crawled rapidly along, and reached the bath-room window, only to find he could barely clutch the sill with the tips of his fingers. Standing on tiptoe, he got a little grip, then his bare toes and knees started to work; inch by inch up they went over the rough stone wall, while his hands slipped further and further ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... time that I was away," and so he jumped upon the window-sill and in a moment was flying away. And he flew and he flew till he was over the deep, deep sea, and yet on he flew till he came to his mother's castle. Now the queen his mother was taking her walk abroad when she saw the pretty dove flying ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... seat, since the crystal was but half the thickness of the wall—first took a long look all round the interior, and then leaped down, followed by his attendant. Eveena drew back, but was at last persuaded to mount the ladder with my assistance, and rest on the sill till I followed her and lifted her down inside. The Regent had by this time reached the machinery, and was examining it very curiously, with greater apparent appreciation of its purpose than I should have expected. When we joined them, ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... sentences, I see a long shoot of a honeysuckle that came in through a crack of my imperfectly closed window last summer. It came in looking, or rather feeling, for something to cling to. It first dropped down upon a pile of books, then reached off till it struck the window-sill of another large window; along this it crept, its regular leaves standing up like so many pairs of green ears, looking very pretty. Coming to the end of the open way there, it turned to the left and reached out into vacancy, till it struck another window-sill running ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... and timidly thanked them. They applauded, sang a rollicking farewell, and were gone. If I could have removed my heart painlessly, I believe that would have gone out too. They had gone, but the blissful memory! I leaned on the window sill, and the moon with its bounteous mellow radiance filled my room. But listen, hark! Only two doors beyond, the same voices, the same melodious tones, and alas, yes, the same words, every verse and the same chorus—same masculine fervour—but somebody ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... set, before its echoes fade, The fleet foot on the sill of shade, And hold to the low lintel up The ...
— A Shropshire Lad • A. E. Housman
... the window, and a sadder face I never saw. I smiled and courtesied, and he immediately leaped the low sill, and came toward me. I stooped and began to tie up some fallen carnations; he stooped and helped me, saying all the while I know not what, only that it seemed to me the most beautiful language I ever heard. Then we walked up and down the long peach ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... on the window sill," said Angela, in a kind of resigned despair, "but their awful perfume seemed to penetrate the glass, so she took them down ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... Takasaki had, with his blessing, made me a note turned out so poorly prefaced that I hesitated. The extreme zeal on the part of its proprietor to book me made me still more doubtful. So, sending Yejiro off to scout, I walked to and fro, waiting. I did not dare sit down on the sill of any of the booths, for fear of ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... the greatest person for cold weather! I'm real glad it's comin' winter. We had the greatest time, last winter," continued Statira, "with those English sparrows. Used to feed 'em crumbs, there on the window-sill, and it seemed as if they got to know we girls, and they'd hop right inside, if you'd let 'em. Used to make me feel kind of creepy to have 'em. They say it's a sign of death to have a bird come into your room, ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... motionless. There had been no barking of dogs, and, after listening intently, he became convinced that no living thing was out of doors in the vicinity of the shack. With infinite caution he wormed his way along the ground and, reaching a window in the rear of the house, drew himself to the sill and peered over ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... Representatives say that they had eaten nothing since the morning, offered them their ration bread. Some Representatives accepted. M. de Tocqueville, who was unwell, and who was noticed to be pale and leaning on the sill of a window, received from a soldier a piece of this bread, which he ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... it was warm here, for there was list round the door to keep it so. It looked clean and neat, with curtains round the bed and over the small windows, where two strange-looking flowerpots stood on the sill. Christian, the sailor, had brought them from the East or West Indies; they were of clay in the form of two elephants, the backs of which were wanting: but in their place there came flourishing plants out of the earth that was in them; in the one was the finest chive,—It was the old folks' ...
— A Christmas Greeting • Hans Christian Andersen
... of the desk were open, and papers scattered about. On one or two of the papers was fresh blood. The window was closed, but not fastened; the end of the curtain under it seemed to give proof that it had recently been opened. On the sill ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... by one to Fred, who arranged them in a row on one end of the long table. The mugs were to hold the contents of sundry bottles of beer, now safely stowed away in the lidless, pigeon-holed box, standing in the hall, which Fred unloaded later, placing the bottles on the window-sill ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... had dropped the letters for outlying farms at the Monypenny smithy and trudged on. The smith having wiped his hand on his hair, made a row of them, without looking at the addresses, on his window-sill, where, happening to be seven in number, they were almost a model of Monypenny, which is within hail of Thrums, but round the corner from it, and so has ways of its own. With the next clang on the ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... sill of what had been the inner doorway. As I said these words he fell back in careless grace against the panel and remained leaning there in an easy attitude, assumed possibly just to show me with what incredulity, and yet with what kindly forbearance ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... whereupon Grant led the others upstairs to wash. From the bathroom he looked out over a darkening landscape. Doris's dormer window was open. She was leaning on the sill, but he could not tell whether or not her eyes were turned his way. Her attitude was pensive, disconsolate, curiously forlorn for a girl normally high-spirited. He was on the point of signaling to her when he remembered Furneaux's presence. There was ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... But resolutely she crawled to the window and peered out into the moonlight; she saw the dead man writhe. He stretched his arms out like a cross, looking upward. She gasped and clung to the window sill. Behind the swaying body, and down where the little, half-ruined cabin lay, a single flame flashed up amid the far-off shout and cry of the mob. A fierce joy sobbed up through the terror in her soul and then sank abashed as she watched the flame rise. Suddenly ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... he had come. He had seen a man in the uniform of a Confederate colonel, sitting in a chair, and staring out at one of the little side windows which Dick could not see from the front, and which was now open. It was his own uncle, Colonel George Kenton, C. S. A., his gold braided cap on the window sill, and his sword in its ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... window to warm my hands on the sill Where the sunlight soaks in the stone: the afternoon Is full of dreams, my love, the boys are all still In a wistful dream ...
— Amores - Poems • D. H. Lawrence
... came to her so strangely that she repeated it in a whisper. Its sound touched some string within her bosom, and she put her head upon the open window sill and wept, sobbing the word ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... became too narrow, and the elevation of the bed-posts too trifling for his expanding ideas. He went to the window, and, opening it, looked forth. Here was a new temptation. The roof of a piazza, built out from a second story, came up to within a foot of the window-sill. He had often ventured upon this roof, and he sprung out upon it again without a moment's hesitation or reflection, and running along, with the lightness of a cat, gained the roof of the back building, which he ascended ...
— The Iron Rule - or, Tyranny in the Household • T. S. Arthur
... window, throw it wide. At first she thought of interfering, for Elizabeth was a prudent person and did not like draughts; but her sister's movements excited her curiosity, and she refrained. Beatrice sat down on the foot of her bed, and leaning her arm upon the window-sill looked out upon the lovely quiet night. How dark the pine trees massed against the sky; how soft was the whisper of the sea, and how vast the heaven through which ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... yellow bird Hung over her in tune, He marked her through the pane, He could not help but mark, And only passed her by, To come again at dark. He was a winter wind, Concerned with ice and snow, Dead weeds and unmated birds, And little of love could know. But he sighed upon the sill, He gave the sash a shake, As witness all within Who lay that night awake. Perchance he half prevailed To win her for the flight From the firelit looking-glass And warm stove-window light. But the flower leaned aside And thought of naught ...
— A Boy's Will • Robert Frost
... that he would find everything as he left it, even perhaps the corpses in the same places on the floor. And now, bare walls, no furniture; it seemed strange. He walked to the window and sat down on the window-sill. There were two workmen, both young fellows, but one much younger than the other. They were papering the walls with a new white paper covered with lilac flowers, instead of the old, dirty, yellow one. Raskolnikov for some reason felt horribly annoyed ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... ravenously hungry. She rose from the bed, went to the wardrobe and took out a box of crackers. Then opening the window, at the same time humming the tune of the hurdy-gurdy, she got a bottle of milk that was standing on the sill outside and placed it on the table. Next she went to the washstand and rinsed out a tumbler. While thus engaged, there came a timid knock at the door. Startled, not knowing who it could be, unwilling that strangers should detect the traces ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... more, the sunshine was out of Ellen's heart too. She went to the window and opened it, but there was nothing to keep it open; it slid down again as soon as she let it go. Baffled and sad, she stood leaning her elbows on the window-sill, looking out on the grass-plat that lay before the door, and the little gate that opened on the lake, and the smooth meadow and rich broken country beyond. It was a very fair and pleasant scene in the soft sunlight of the last of October; but ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... balanced on the sill, crouching like a faun, head high, one elbow on knee. He was dressed in scarred, snug trousers and an ...
— The Moon is Green • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... Man-Friday till It's time to wet her paw And make her walk on the window-sill (For the footprint Crusoe saw); Then she fluffles her tail and mews, And scratches and won't attend. But Binkie will play whatever I choose, And he is my ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... the window sill and jumped. Numbly, Jeff saw her suspended there, feet only inches below the sill, apparently on empty air. Then the door sagged again under the Zid's lungings and he left the bunk to ...
— Traders Risk • Roger Dee
... he shut the edge of a rug between it and the sill; as he reopened it to push the rug out of the way he saw his father sink into the chair and, resting his arm upon the table, bow his head ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... waiting, and hoping for the best, he heard his comrade whisper down to him as he hung suspended, clutching the sill ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... of her candle. Her friend might write to her and she would not receive his letter. Still she must go. Once or twice she stopped her work, and crouching down upon the bed allowed her tears to have their way. When she had finished her preparations she blew out her candle, and leaning upon the sill of the open window, gave her face ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... no farther than the sill of the entrance, where Melchior was able to hold him, while Dale reached over and gripped the boy by the ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... decorated with old china vases, and great brass salvers, and silver cups and tankards catching every ray of light, that the whole room glistened in this bright May-day. In the broad cushioned seat formed by the sill of the oriel window, which was almost as large as a room itself, there sat the elder Mrs. Sefton, Roland Sefton's foreign mother, with his two children standing before her. They had their hands clasped behind them, and ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... was a gate called the Golden Gate. It looked to the east. The sun, rising over the top of Mount Olivet, struck the plates of gold and Corinthian brass more precious than gold, so it seemed one rosy flame. The dust at its rocky sill, and the ground about it are holy. There, deep down, my Lael lies. A stone that tasked many oxen to move it covers her; yet, in the last day, she will be among the first to rise—Of such excellence is it to be buried ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... step, and leaned his back against the railing; although outwardly he kept up a constant low run of conversation with Mrs. Levice, who swayed to and fro in her rocker, he was intently conscious of Ruth's white figure perched on the window-sill. ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... black-guardly as it was, I enjoyed the doing. He is my friend. He had dined with me that day, and I felt like a man in a story. I climbed his wall, I crawled along his pantry roof, I mounted his window-sill. That one turn of my wrist - you know it I - and the casement was open. It was as dark as the pit, and I thought I'd won my wager, when, phewt! down went something inside, and down went somebody with it. I made one leap, and was off ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... sharpness of their outlines, in this combination of intense brightness and death-like stillness, there was something weird and mysterious. A rather large grey bird suddenly flew up without a sound and settled on the very window sill.... I looked at it, and it looked at me sideways with its round, dark eye. 'Were you sent to remind ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... usual, arose to the occasion. She assisted to unpack. She expressed the proper amount of enthusiasm and admiration at each edible as it was brought forth. When the contents had been properly disposed of on every available window-sill, study-table and on the floor close to the wall where they would not be in the way of passing feet, she arose from her knees before the empty box. "You'll have the spread to-night, I suppose. Some of the girls will be ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird
... uncrowned, Fanatics of their pure Ideals still Far more than of their triumphs, which were found With some less vehement struggle of the will. If old Margheritone trembled, swooned And died despairing at the open sill Of other men's achievements (who achieved, By loving art beyond the master), he Was old Margheritone, and conceived Never, at first youth and most ecstasy, A Virgin like that dream of one, which heaved The death-sigh from his heart. If ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... Daddy; and, sitting up on the bench, he lifted Tot beside him, while Diddie and Dumps sat on the door-sill, and Dilsey and Chris and Riar and Polly sat flat on ...
— Diddie, Dumps, and Tot • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... were blooming and that reminded me it was time for your father to come home; you must forgive me, dear, and will you excuse me if I sit in the kitchen awhile? The window by the side door looks out towards the road, and if I put a candle on the sill it shines quite a distance. The lane is such a long one, and your father was always a sad stumbler in the dark! I shouldn't like him to think I wasn't looking for him when ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... and struck the sill with his fist. The tenseness went out of his body. He breathed a long sigh of relief. He had seen through the mist of puzzling facts and contradictory clues. The rest ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... M. Wilkie's hat fell on the window-sill, slipped off, and dropped on to the pavement below. With a natural impulse Chupin picked it up, and he was turning it over and over in his hands, when M. Wilkie leant out of the window and shouted in a voice that was thick with wine: "Halloo! Eh, there! Who picked ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... perambulation of the deserted chambers. In the kitchen the whitewash was grimy, the ceiling and windows unclean. Ashes of a peat fire still lay upon the cracked hearthstone, and a pair of worn-out boots, left by a tramp or the last tenant, stood on the window-sill. Dust and filth were everywhere, but no ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... the ribs and bringing into tangible shape what looked like several sets of huge bird-wings. "No more climbing down red-hot ladders through belching flames! No more children being thrown from fifth story windows! No, siree! All we have to do now is to place the Anti-Fire-Fly on the window-sill, spread the wings, jump into the basket, push her ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin
... without complaint, all over the world, he forgot himself in them. He who was not usually sentimental now had periods of that mystic tenderness which is the flower of weakness and sickness. In the evening, as he sat with his elbows on the window-sill, gazing down into the courtyard and listening to all the mysterious noises of the night,... a voice singing in a house near by, made moving by the distance, or a little girl artlessly strumming ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... skirts being gathered across the window sill and outlines of a white face gave place to the figure of a frail ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... up on the sill, and sat down there with his feet against the thickness of the wall and his knees slightly bent. The window was not quite broad enough for the length of his legs. It appeared to my crestfallen perception that he meant ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... Dolores had seen and heard also, for she had followed every movement he made and every change of his expression, and had faithfully told her sister what she saw, until the laugh came, short and light, but cutting. And Inez heard that, too, for she was leaning far forward upon the broad stone sill to listen for the sound of Don John's voice. She drew back with a springing movement, and a sort ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford
... Wyllys has moved, it seems; her children are evidently at home in a door-yard on the opposite side of the street, adjoining the Hubbard "Park." On the door of that bright-coloured, spruce-looking brick house, you will see the name of W. C. Clapp; and there are a pair of boots resting on the window-sill of an adjoining office, which probably belong to the person of the lawyer, himself. Now, we may observe Mrs. Hilson and Miss Emmeline Hubbard flitting across the street, ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... the stair. The Boy is a white flame suspiring in prayer. Morning will bring the sun, the Golden Eye of Him Whose splendour must be veiled by starry cherubim, Whose Feet shimmer like crystal in the streets of Heaven. Like an open rose the sun will stand up even, Fronting the window-sill, and when the casement glows Rose-red with the new-blown morning, then the fire which flows From the sun will fall upon the altar and ignite The spices, and his sacrifice will burn in perfumed light. Over the music-stand ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... you think the clever godmother did? She took a quantity of moonshine, or some equally convenient material, and made an image, which she set on the window-sill reading, or by the table drawing, where it looked so like Prince Dolor that any common observer would never have guessed the deception; and even the boy would have been puzzled to know which was the image and ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik
... companionship; he would run to the window if a dog barked, or to hear a horse's hoofs; a Persian cat belonging to one of the nurses never left his side, and I have seen the trees in the yard outside his window thick with birds, and even found them in the room and on the sill, flitting about his very person, ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... George answered, and was over the low sill of a window, running headlong across the courtyard, Amory behind him. "There they go," St. George cried. "Good God, what are we to ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... was pale; and he was slender in form, and delicate in appearance. He had been sick, and even now, he was not quite well. His little taper fingers rested upon the window-sill, while his grandmother opened her little Bible and began to read. Caleb sat still in her lap, with a serious and attentive expression ...
— Caleb in the Country • Jacob Abbott
... courtyard the barrack ruins smouldering. Beyond, the hillside also smoked, with shredding vapours; and at the foot of the hill he observed a strange sight—the small figure of a man in tunic and hood, feylike amid the mist, that danced and made gestures of joy. Baldo, clinging to the casement-sill on bending legs, summoned Cercamorte to ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... a little while, and then leave the room. He heard the door close after them. He crept up to the front windows and stuck his head in: there was no one there. He could always detect the presence of any one in a room. He put one foot over the window sill and straddled it. His mother had told him over and over how his master would give him to the big mastiff if he ever found him "meddling." Samson had got too near the mastiff's kennel once, and had felt his terrible breath in his face. He thought about that, but ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... on which the three I have particularly described were struggling, carried it into my house, and placed it under a tumbler on my window-sill, in order to see the issue. Holding a microscope to the first-mentioned red ant, I saw that, though he was assiduously [Footnote: Assiduously: diligently, laboriously.] gnawing at the near foreleg of his enemy, having severed his remaining feeler, his own breast ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... down on the log sill of the blacksmith's shop, and watched the gathering cloud as it slowly shut out ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... the brigands on the ship's deck. It was a small hand-projector, hastily fired, for it went wide of the window. It was followed by a rain of small beams, but I was warned and I dropped my head beneath the high sill. The rays flashed diagonally upward through the oval opening, hissed against our vaulted roof. The air snapped and tingled with a shower of blue-red sparks, and the acrid odor of the released gases settled ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... in singular predicaments, but it seemed to me this was the most trying. I felt that I must look very pale, but with an affectation of indifference I arose, walked across the room and entered the bed-chamber. In a moment I understood that the unseen had likewise passed the sill and had entered the room; then I slammed the door, locked it, and put the key ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... sill, he dropped from sight, the boys hearing him land with a thud on the turf below. It was no great leap, though the fall must have jarred him considerably, for the boys heard him grunt, and then groan ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... shutters going to ruin; and the only glimpse of brightness or domestic comfort confined to the humble parlour of the portress, who kept watch and ward over one of the dismal mansions, and who had a birdcage hanging in her window, an Angora cat sunning itself on the stone sill, and a row of scarlet geraniums in the little ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... undertaker's men to get the coffin past the turn of the landing towards the door. Through the window there was one peep of the blue sky, whence a ray of sunlight fell on the one scarlet blossom of a geranium in a broken pot on the window-sill outside. ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... almost hurt her with its thrilling leap; she caught her breath; the hard tension in her throat was choking her; she dropped to her knees by the sill, drew a corner of the flag to her, and laid her ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... very quiet and comfortable up here now; I hear nothing but the ticking of a clock on the wall, and the distant rumble of carriages below. May angels watch over you; over me, a grenadier in a bearskin does it, six inches of whose bayonet I see projecting above the window-sill, a couple of arm's-lengths from me, and reflecting a ray of light. He is standing above the terrace on the Danube, and ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... falls face down upon it, burying her face in her hands. Her despondency is palpable. As she lies there a hurdy-gurdy in the street starts to play a popular air. This arouses her and she rises, crosses to wardrobe, takes out box of crackers, opens window, gets bottle of milk off sill outside, places them on table, gets glass off washstand, at the same time humming the tune of the hurdy-gurdy, when a knock comes; she crosses quickly to dresser; powders her nose. The knock ...
— The Easiest Way - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Eugene Walter
... the second day, as the storm was at its height. There had come a great crash at the window, and we saw something white that struggled on the sill outside; Sir Adrian opened the casement (when we had a little tornado of our own inside, and all his papers began dancing a sarabande in the room), and we gathered in the poor creature that was hurt and battered and more than half stunned, opening alternately its yellow ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... work, and was looking out of the wide, low window of her room, which was on one of the ground floors of the village street. Through a gap in the household shrubbery of fuchsias and myrtles filling the window-sill, one passing on the foot pavement might get a momentary glimpse of her pale face, lighted up with two blue eyes, over which some inward trouble had spread a faint, gauze-like haziness. But almost before her thoughts had ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... rebel Kentuckians waiting reenforcements from Virginia. My last report from him was to October 28th, at which time he had Colonel Harris's Ohio Second, nine hundred strong; Colonel Norton's Twenty-first Ohio, one thousand; and Colonel Sill's Thirty-third Ohio, seven hundred and fifty strong; with two irregular Kentucky regiments, Colonels Marshall and Metcalf. These troops were on the road near Hazel Green and West Liberty, ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... the Corralon and conversed with the mother and the girl. On the window-sill of their tiny home the mother and the daughter had a little box with a sprig of mint planted in it; although they watered it every morning, it scarcely grew, for there was no sun. One day the woman and child disappeared together with their pretty ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... leaned forward to survey the ground. Immediately below me lay a bed about two feet wide, with flowers growing in it and one or two standard roses. I saw that the distance would not be too great to drop, and, anxious to lose no more time, I climbed out to the sill, crouching there a minute with alarming thoughts of Tiger. But all was perfectly still; one or two birds began to rustle in the leaves of the ivy which seemed to cover the back of the house, that was all, until turning round on the narrow sill, I heard the jangling of a chain. ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... shattered ruin, one only remained habitable. Above the rooms occupied by Mrs. Borisoff and her guests was that which had imprisoned the Queen of Scots; a chamber of bare stone, with high embrasure narrowing to the slit of window which admitted daylight, and, if one climbed the sill, gave a glimpse of far mountains. Down below, deep under the roots of the tower, was the Castle's dungeon, black and deadly. Early on the morrow Helen led her friend to see these things. Then they climbed to the battlements, where the sun shone hot, ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... says, 'for I'll sit up for you no longer; so there, my ugly beauty.' And then in the middle of the night I wake up, I do, feeling that cold, and sneezin' and snuffin', and irritatin' I was from top to toe; and blest if Master Tom hadn't got upon the window-sill, bust open that there piece of brown paper I had pasted over the broken pane, I had, and let hisself in Yankee-doodle fashion, and left me to ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... Sunday, while he was preaching, she and Mrs. Gaunt's gardener were filling his bow-window with flower-pots, the flowers in full bloom and leaf. The said window was large and had a broad sill outside, and inside, one of the old-fashioned high window-seats that follow the shape of the window. Mrs. Gaunt, who did nothing by halves, sent up a cart-load of flower-pots, and Betty and the gardener arranged at least eighty of them, small and great, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... there. And last, I have recollection of an evening when, in the bluish and dark green and chalky landscape of the town and its rounded gardens, I saw that window lighted up. A narrow glimmer of rose and gold was enframed there, and I could distinguish, leaning on the sill that overhung the town, in the heart of that resplendence, a feminine form which stirred before my eyes in inaccessible forbearance. Long did I watch with shaking knees that window dawning upon space, as the shepherd watches the rising of Venus. That evening, ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... strong a smell of fishes dead That people of a subtler sense Hold their breath and hurry thence. Miss Thompson hovers there and gazes: Her housewife's knowing eye appraises Salt and fresh, severely cons Kippers bright as tarnished bronze: Great cods disposed upon the sill, Chilly and wet, with gaping gill, Flat head, glazed eye, and mute, uncouth, Shapeless, wan, old-woman's mouth. Next a row of soles and plaice With querulous and twisted face, And red-eyed bloaters, golden-grey; ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... gleam crept into the eyes of the Axphainians, and they seemed satisfied. Colonel Attobawn acted as interpreter during this short but very important interview which was carried on in the Axphain language. Lorry sat on the window-sill, steadfastly gazing into the night. The visitors departed soon, and it was understood that Prince Lorenz would condescend to meet Mr. Lorry at eight o'clock on the next morning in the valley beyond the castle, two miles from town. There was no ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... why we are called butterflies, you know. I prefer butter to anything else, and I have heard that in some countries the children always leave a little dish of butter on the window-sill, so that we may help ourselves whenever we are hungry. I wish I had been born in ...
— Twinkle and Chubbins - Their Astonishing Adventures in Nature-Fairyland • L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum
... reminding you of the BOURBONS. As, although lighting his lamp, he has, abstractedly, almost covered it with his hat, his room is but imperfectly illuminated, and you can just detect the accordeon on the window-sill, and, above the mantel, an unfinished sketch of a school-girl. (There is no artistic merit in this picture; in which, indeed, a simple triangle on end represents the waist, another and slightly larger triangle the skirts, and straight-lines ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various
... his place on the hearth, gave a short sharp bark, and, leaping to the window, stood with his paws on the sill, peering out into the darkness and whining. Dan was beside him in an instant. "I see them," he cried joyfully, "a whole parcel of them. They are just coming out ...
— The Puritan Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... home apace: White hands were on the sill: But ere the rush of the unseen feet Had reached the turn to the open street, The bars shot down, the guard-drum beat— ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... whisper and he heard her articulate—"My husband! Mine! Mine!"—but in no tone of tenderness, rather pronouncing the words as a passionate claim to his possession. Then suddenly she drooped, half kneeling on the deep window-seat, half fallen across the sill. He sprang to catch her, but not before her forehead had come down sharply on the stone edge of the outer window. He kneeled upon the window-seat and gathered her gently in his arms, where she lay ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... open air; for it was impossible to see clearly within, unless the iron shutters were raised from each side of the building; where were also two doors, one on either side of the corner pillar, as may be seen in many shops at the corners of streets. From the sill of each door—of fine stone worn by the tread of centuries—a low wall about three feet high began; in this wall was a groove or slot, repeated above in the beam by which the wall of each facade was supported. From time immemorial the heavy shutters had been rolled along these grooves, ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... move when the jarl and the young men entered, but on the former whispering in his ear he let his clenched fist fall on the window sill, and, turning, with a frown on his bold, handsome face, looked long and steadily at Erling. And well might he gaze, for he looked upon one who bore a singularly strong resemblance to himself. There was the same height and width and massive strength, ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... time Edna sat at the window expecting every moment to hear her aunt's heavy tread upon the stair. Finally, from sheer exhaustion, the little dusky head drooped on the sill, and when the last fading sunbeam stole into the room it found the little girl ...
— A Dear Little Girl • Amy E. Blanchard
... the cooking, said he'd better put the chicken on right away, under the circumstances, and then he remembered a bottle of medicine he had once seen sitting on Mr. Man's window-sill outside, and he said while the chicken was cooking he'd just step over and get it, as it might do the patient good, and it didn't seem as if anything now could ...
— Hollow Tree Nights and Days • Albert Bigelow Paine
... was the deep low sill, or seat, of that western window. There often Faith's book rested, while on the floor before it the reader sat. This time the book was near finished, and a few more leaves turned over changed the 'near' into 'quite.' Faith stood then considering the books. The name of ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... I had made knots to this end; nor was the climbing more difficult than to scale a branchless beech trunk for a bird's nest, which, like other boys, I had often done. So behold me, at last, with my legs hanging in free air, seated on the sill of the casement. Happily, of the three iron stanchions, though together they bore my weight, one was loose in the lower socket, for lack of lead, and this one I displaced easily enough, and so passed through. Then I put the wooden bar at the rope's end, within ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... the end of the second year the students once more visit the wretched weaver, and on being informed of his loss, they throw a bit of lead at his feet, saying it's of no use to give such a fool money, and go away in a great huff. The weaver picks up the lead and places it on the window sill. By-and-by a neighbour, who is a fisherman, comes in and asks for a bit of lead or some other heavy thing, for his net, and on receiving the lead thrown down by the students promises to give him in return the first large fish he catches. The weaver does get a fine fish, which he immediately ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... stars were sparkling with the indifference of those who remove their hats before a passing funeral procession and continue to speak of other things. I remained at the window for some time, my elbows on the sill, my gaze seeking to penetrate the night, forcing myself to make a mental summary of my life so that I might escape the present agony. I believe it was only then that I thought clearly about the penalty of my crime. I saw myself ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... set some distance back, the east window in the attic was the only one which commanded a view of the sea. A small table, with its legs sawed off, came exactly to the sill, and here stood a lamp, which was a lamp simply, without adornment, and held ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed
... nursemaid wheeling two babies in a perambulator, a baker's boy, a young woman with a large parcel, a vendor of boot laces, and a man delivering circulars. Gwen looked at them with languid attention, drumming her fingers idly on the window sill; then quite suddenly an expression of keen interest flashed across her face and she leaned out over the ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... It was only the work of a moment to sweep the sawdust away. There was only one window, but it was large and in the west. It took a little time to wash that, but it paid to do it. When a few asters and sprays of rabbit-brush were placed in a broken jar on the window-sill, there was a picture worth seeing. Some planks were laid on the saw-horses, some papers over them, and a clean white cloth over all. I sorted the dishes myself; the prettiest the house afforded graced our table. I rubbed the glassware ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... to let Snoop out!" whispered Freddie suddenly, and before anyone had a chance to stop him, the little black kitten jumped out of the box, and perched himself on the window sill to look out at the ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Country • Laura Lee Hope
... dark that while he could take a view round, his figure could not be recognized at a short distance, Edgar, with Albert and Hal, went up to the top of the house, and the former got out of the highest of the dormer windows, and, standing on the sill, looked out. The roof was indeed so steep that it would be impossible to obtain a footing upon it. Its ridge was some twenty feet above the window. The houses were of varying heights, some being as ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... and mixed it with the syrup again, and her mother drank of it eagerly; then she laid her head wearily upon the low window-sill, and beckoned her little daughter to come to her side. It seemed to the child that her mother could not be comfortable, and she fetched a pillow from the bed, and placed it carefully under her mother's ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... to do. The Yankee prisoner was scared almost to death. I said, "Look, look!" I turned in the room, and found the planks of the floor were loose. I raised two of them, and Yank and I slipped through. I replaced the planks, and could peep out beneath the sill of the house, and see the legs of the horses. They passed on and did not come to the old house. They were at least a half hour in passing. At last the main regiment had all passed, and I saw the rear guard about to pass, when I heard ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... crept toward the west, and it shone into the side window and through the screen of splendid fuchsias which clambered from sill to top ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... horizon, and warned him to haste, else be left to return in darkness. Fumbling in his coat-pocket, he at length produced a large bunch of keys, and stooping down, applied one to the heavy oaken chest beneath the window-sill. Fortunately it suited the lock; the bolt turned without difficulty, and he lifted the massive lid, which he upheld with one hand, while he rummaged the till with the other. At this moment a slight rustling reached his ears from the furthest ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... I was ushered into life." The old family nurse, one Barbara Deacon (for whom the grateful cantatrice has abundantly provided), recalls that at the very moment of the infant's birth a strangely beautiful bird fluttered down from a pear-tree, alighting upon the window-sill, and caroled forth a wondrous song, hearing which the infant (mirabile dictu!) turned over in its crib and accompanied the winged songster's melody with an accurate second alto. This incident Miss Abbott repeats as one of the many legends bearing upon her infancy; but, with ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... band and loud demands for "a speech from the great Roosian bear!" The guest was assisted by his host to crawl through the window over the porch, in scanty raiment, to speak to the assembled citizens. At the residence of Jedediah P. Sill, which stands on Chestnut Street next to the Methodist parsonage, the Italian ambassador received the crowd with bows ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... looked towards the road, and so made a kind of front door to the kitchen which was within. The door-sill was raised a single step above the rough old grey stone which did duty before it; and sitting on the doorstep, in the shadow and sunlight which came through the elm branches and fell over her, this June afternoon, was the person whose life story I am going to try ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... house-top—the brown rock-chat (Cercomela fusca)—makes sweet music throughout the month for the benefit of his spouse, who is incubating four pretty pale-blue eggs in a nest built on a ledge in an outhouse or on the sill of a clerestory window. This bird, which is thought by some to be a near relative of the sparrow of the Scriptures, is clothed in plain brown and seems to suffer from St. Vitus' dance in the tail. Doubtless it is often mistaken for a hen robin. For this mistake there ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar
... ran the big drop, at first rather slow: Then faster and faster, as drops will, you know: Raced down the window-pane, like hundreds before, Just reached the window-sill—one ...
— The Adventures of A Brownie - As Told to My Child by Miss Mulock • Miss Mulock
... wide window of a top floor apartment, awning-shaded. A fresh breeze blew in upon them, and the city dust blew in upon them also, lying sandy on the broad sill. ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... father and escape from his prison. He brooded till sunset; then, as the twilight gathered, he went to the window again and listened to the sounds of festivity in the city all around. Presently, he leaned out over the window-sill and looked down. It was a long way to the ground, but the gardens were beautiful, and he was determined to reach them and roam free among the trees and flowers. Was not this his birthday, and was not the city holding ...
— Edmund Dulac's Fairy-Book - Fairy Tales of the Allied Nations • Edmund Dulac
... curiously, I saw only his feet. It was soon after the battle of Bull Run, when some say that we ran, and some say that they ran. And all was quiet on the Potomac; but the nation was stamping and champing the bit. And passing the White House one day, I saw three pairs of feet on the sill of an open window; and pausing for a moment, a good-natured fellow said, 'That's the Cabinet a sittin', and them big feet's old Abe's.' So, lecturing in Boston not long after, I said, like a fool as I was, 'That's about all they are good for in Washington, to point their feet out o' window ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... the sill into the darkness, a twenty-foot sprint, and he was able to throw himself down on the steep slope that five feet farther ...
— Take the Reason Prisoner • John Joseph McGuire
... at the weakness, and resolved, as he adjusted his garments, that he would die rather than speak now. He looked round, and seeing the window raised a little from the bottom, sprang to it, a sudden resolve in his heart to run away. Just as he got astride the sill he spied a piece of chalk and the "tawse" on the table, so turning back he put the "tawse" in his pocket, and with the chalk wrote ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... Not from the marvellous, my friends; let us seek an illustration from the ordinary. Is that not better? One familiar to the humblest of us. One we can all comprehend. One from our every-day life. One which will interest even the young. Yes. The common house-fly. On a window-sill we place a bit of fly-paper, and contiguous to it, a flower upon which the happy insect likes to feed and rest. The little fly approaches. See, he hovers between the two. One is a fatal trap, an ambuscade, and ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... the missing prisoners. Something must be done, some decision arrived at instantly. There was no more time for indecision, and Phil once more flung a lightning glance about the building. The walls of the chancel on either side of the high altar and up to the level of the sill of the glorious east window were draped with rich tapestry, depicting on a background of gold thread, on the one side the Annunciation, and on the other the Apotheosis of the Blessed Virgin; and Phil noticed that these tapestries were suspended from rings strung upon massive ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood |
