|
|
|
More "Footfall" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... excellent nurse, with her quiet, reserved ways and her manner of moving about a ward as if she studied the lightness of every footfall. But she had her peculiarities. I have already said that she was not given to be communicative, and for the first three months she was in the place I do not believe she uttered a word to any one within the walls except on subjects connected with ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... from her shoulders as he heard the incredible answer from the shore of the lake. The brush rustled and cracked: there was a strange sound of a heavy footfall,—slow, unsteady, but approaching them as certain as the speeding stars approach their mysterious destinations in the far reaches of the sky. Ray straightened, staring; Chan stood as if frozen, his hands half-raised, his ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... was not his will that kept him; and though her heart began to be heavy, she harbored therein no thought of reproach. By the movement of the shadow on the grass, she guessed that an hour beyond the one of appointment must have passed, when the far-away footfall set her so lately hushed pulses fluttering with delight. He was coming,—he was coming! And, no matter what had been wrong, all would be right now. She was holding wide the curtaining boughs long before he came near; and when they dropped, and her arms ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... from blue seas, Footfall of silken girls— Such for their ease; Shimmer and silken sheen, Jewel and maid— These but the damascene Chasing ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 23, 1914 • Various
... Neranya hoisted into his cage, the rajah emerged upon the balcony to see him for the first time since the last amputation. Neranya had been lying panting and helpless on the floor of his cage, but when his quick ear caught the sound of the rajah's footfall he squirmed about until he had brought the back of his head against the railing, elevating his eyes above his chest, and enabling him to peer through the open-work of the cage. Thus the two deadly enemies faced each other. The rajah's stern face paled at sight of the ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... faces of the occupants of the kitchen. To this apartment Ruby ascended without anyone hearing him approach, for one of the windows was open, and the roar of the storm effectually drowned his light footfall. On reaching the floor immediately below the kitchen he heard the tones of a violin, and when his head emerged through the manhole of the kitchen floor, he paused and listened with deep interest, ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... post I never could find. And here at last is their sentinel—an image of the constant and immortal part of my life, silent, full of thoughts, alone in the silver desert. Sphinx, Sphinx: I have climbed mountains at night to hear in the distance the stealthy footfall of the winds that chase your sands in forbidden play—our invisible children, O Sphinx, laughing in whispers. My way hither was the way of destiny; for I am he of whose genius you are the symbol: part brute, part woman, and part ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw
... the stairs—heavy, painful steps. The two women listened in silence. Every footfall seemed to emphasize Pinky's words. The older woman turned her face toward the sound, her lips ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... purple grapes, and ruddy pippins, and yellow William pears had gone their rounds—all home produce—and had been admired and praised, and the Squire's full voice was mellowing after his second glass of port, when the butler came in with a letter on a salver, and carried it, with muffled footfall and solemn visage, as of one who entrusted with the delivery of a death-warrant, ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... seemed to the girl that he must be awakened by the creaking of the floor under her light footfall. With heart in mouth she stole up to the bedstead, and gently pulling the door still wider ajar, peeped in, in the hope of seeing the mail-bag and being ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... moment the boys stood listening intently for some indication of the presence of their comrade. Once Ned thought he heard a soft footfall. He put out his hand to ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson
... sound of a soft footfall, nor of breathing, but it might have been either. It was short and distinct, such a slight noise as might be made by drawing the palm of the hand quickly over a piece of stuff, or by a short breath checked almost instantly, or by a shoeless foot slipping a few inches on ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... done quickly. Amidst all the magnificence she had noted on her journey through the long suite of reception-rooms—the littered treasures of amber and gold, and ivory and porcelain and silver—she had seen only an empty wine-flask; so with quick footfall she ran down the wide, shallow stairs to the lower floor, and here she found herself in a labyrinth of passages opening into small rooms and servants' offices. Here there were darkness and gloom rather than splendour; ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... for some time, when Sal's quick ear caught a footfall on the soft carpet, and, turning rapidly, she saw a tall figure advancing down the room. Madge saw it too, and started up in surprise on recognising her father. He was clothed in his dressing-gown, and carried some papers in ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... was situated some distance west of Albany and south of the Mohawk river. The scythe had been at work in the tall grass, and a farmer's lad was busy in a sunlit meadow raking hay. As he dragged the loose bundles over the stubble, he heard a footfall in his rear. Turning about he saw that a sturdy Indian dressed in warrior's garb had stolen upon him. The boy involuntarily raised his rake as though ...
— The War Chief of the Six Nations - A Chronicle of Joseph Brant - Volume 16 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • Louis Aubrey Wood
... very faint stir somewhere down the hall—the slow, cautious opening of a door, then a footfall—or had I imagined the latter? I could hear ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... leisurely footfall on the tiles and then his quiet voice below. Her heart began to thump with thick, uncertain ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... silent in the coppice, and hardly a leaf astir in the huge beeches that fling their cool shade over the grass. Afar off a gilded vane flares out above the grey Jacobean gables of Knoll, the chime of a village clock falls faintly on the ear, but there is no voice or footfall of living thing to break the silence as I turn over leaf after leaf of the little book I have brought with me from the bustle of town to this still retreat, a book that is the record of a broken life, of a life "broken off," ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... dance are broken off, never to be resumed, when the staid footfall of the lady is heard approaching. Milton cannot draw ugliness; it turns into beauty or majesty on his hands. Satan has a large and enthusiastic party among readers of Paradise Lost. Comus, we are told, stands for a whole array of ugly vices—riot, intemperance, gluttony, and luxury. But ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... shut just so for years; the lonely bars of sunlight flecked the solitude of the room, and the lilies faded on the table. We children passed it with hushed footfall, and shrank from it at twilight, as from a room that held the dead. But ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... house he heard a soft footfall enter the big room, and then stop. She was standing by the table when, soon after, he came out of his room. At the sound of his footstep she turned the flame of the shaded lamp to its full height, and then raised ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... Hush, thy footfall! No, 'tis a streamlet hidden in the fern, Thus from dawn to dark I wait, I learn Sorrow ...
— The Fairy Changeling and Other Poems • Dora Sigerson
... the London night as though some strayed reveler of a breeze had left his comrades in the Kentish uplands and had entered the town by stealth. The pavements are a little damp and shiny. Upon one's ears that at this late hour have become very acute there hits the tap of a remote footfall. Louder and louder grow the taps, filling the whole night. And a black cloaked figure passes by, and goes tapping into the dark. One who has danced goes homewards. Somewhere a ball has closed its doors and ended. Its yellow lights are out, its musicians are ...
— A Dreamer's Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... yellow. I took the liberty to possess myself of the letters. We found nothing else in the room worth noticing—nor did the light reappear; but we distinctly heard, as we turned to go, a pattering footfall on the floor—just before us. We went through the other attics (in all four), the footfall still preceding us. Nothing to be seen—nothing but the footfall heard. I had the letters in my hand: just as I was descending the stairs I distinctly felt my wrist seized, and a faint soft effort ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... darker hell on high Reared its strength upon the sky, And our footfall on the track Fetched the daunting echo back. But the soldier pacing still The insuperable sill, Nursing his tormented pride, Turned his head to neither side, Sunk into himself apart And the hell-fire of his heart. But against our entering in From the drawbridge Death and ...
— Last Poems • A. E. Housman
... in the regal class Nature has broadly severed from the mass Of men, and framed for pleasure, as she frames Some happy lands, that have luxurious names, For loose fertility; a footfall there Suffices to upturn to the warm air Half-germinating spices; mere decay Produces richer life; and day by day New pollen on the lily-petal grows, And still ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... own fault? If so, the greater pathos. The lonely souls that hold out timid hands to an unheeding world have their meed of interior comfort even here, while the sons of consolation wait on the thresh-hold for their footfall: but God help the soul that bars its own door! It is kicking against the pricks of Divine ordinance, the ordinance of a triune God; whether it be the dweller in crowded street or tenement who is proud to say, "I keep myself to myself," or Seneca writing in pitiful complacency, ...
— The Roadmender • Michael Fairless
... him! Since the night he had flung himself out of her house, tortured in every nerve, she had not for a moment left him. When he walked through the house, she followed him, her stealthy footfall sounding just the merest fraction of a second after his. He avoided the bare polished floors and walked on the rugs whenever possible, that he might not hear that soft, slow step so plainly. Ralph had laughed at him, ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... stealthy journey through the streets of Babylon, she came to the grove of mulberries near the tomb of Ninus. The place was deserted, and once there she put off the veil from her face to see if Pyramus waited anywhere among the shadows. She heard the sound of a footfall and turned to behold—not Pyramus, but a creature unwelcome to any tryst—none other than a lioness crouching to drink from the ...
— Old Greek Folk Stories Told Anew • Josephine Preston Peabody
... till its work is done; The stalk falls down when the flower is gone; And the stars of heaven when their course is run Melt silently away! There was a footfall on the snow, A line of light on the ocean-flow, And a billow's dash on the rocks below That stand by the wintry bay:— The snow was gone on the coming night; Another wave arose in his might, Uplifted his foaming breast of white, And died like ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... the front door. Mr. Crowninshield was on the veranda, sitting quietly in a big wicker chair, looking out toward the sea. He was thinking so intently on some imagining of his own that he did not hear the lad's footfall and Walter was obliged to address him twice before he answered. Then he started suddenly, as ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... her and fix their eyes, But cease not passing inward;—one Sneering with lips still curled to lies, Sinuous of body, serpent-wise; Her footfall creeps, and her looks shun The very thing on which ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... the sound of a dull, heavy blow, a hoarse gasp, a momentary commotion in the shrubbery, and—again silence. Barnes's blood ran cold. He waited for the next footfall of the passing man. It ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... he called the name aloud. So absorbed and preoccupied in his grief had he been that he was not aware of a figure softly moving along the balcony in the shadow. He did not hear a footfall coming through the open window that gave into the room. He did not realize that he had an auditor to his words, a witness to his grief, until a touch soft as a snowflake fell upon his fair head and a voice for which he ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... heart is eased with hearing, Only mine eyes are soothed with seeing, A face brought nigh, a footfall nearing, Till hopes take form ...
— A Dark Month - From Swinburne's Collected Poetical Works Vol. V • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... approached for the vessel to arrive in New York a shivering nervousness took possession of him. He would stand behind the door by the hour listening for her lightest footfall, hoping against hope that, after all, her heart would soften toward him. One thought absorbed him: would she betray him, and if so, when and where? Would it be to the First Officer—the friend of Hobson—or would she wait ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... go gently to the left, past the window; and yet her footfall was all but inaudible. No rain had fallen, and her shoes ought to have sounded on the hard earth. She must have taken them off. There, she was stopping, just by the school-door. Now she moved again. She must have stopped to put on her shoes; for now Grace could hear her steps distinctly, down ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... Stop your footfall on the rime! Hard you push, your hand is rough; You have swung me long enough. "Nay, no stopping," say you? Well, Some of your best stories tell, While you swing me—gently, do!— From the ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... moan a wordless lovesong, very low and terrible in the night alone before the door, and did not answer. Then she saw him go softly down the steps, look up and down the street, move guiltily across the yard, hiding behind a bush at a distant footfall, and slip slowly into the sidewalk and go hurrying away from the house. In half an hour she was waiting for Henry Fenn as a cat might wait ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... he lay thus, after some while he heard a swift, light footfall, the whisper of mail, and knew that she stood above him; yet he heeded not, wherefore at last she ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... the park from Fifty-ninth Street—a big studio and apparently many comfortable rooms—a large, still place where no servants were in evidence and where thick velvety carpets from Ushak and Sultanabad muffled every footfall. ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... won back the sea for England's dower; His footfall bade the Moor change heart and cower; His word on Milton's tongue spake law to France When Piedmont felt the ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... footfall: Is my gloom, after all, Shade of His hand outstretched caressingly? 'Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest, I am He whom thou seekest! Thou drawest love ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon
... him, so dreadful that he recoiled from belief. Yet his face grew ashy white, and he gasped to fetch back motion to his checked heart. Unbelievable? Closer attention showed how the smaller footfall had altered for greater speed, striking into the snow with a deeper onset and a lighter pressure on the heels. Unbelievable? Could any woman but White Fell run so? Could any man but Christian run ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman
... desperate experiment, he was at last allowed to go into the dressing-room, where she was lying on the sofa. He begged to enter alone, only announced by a soft knock, to which she replied with a listless "Come in," and did not look up till she suddenly became conscious of a footfall firmer though softer than those she was used to. She turned, and saw who it was who stood at a window opposite to her feet, drawing up the Venetian blind, from whose teasing divisions of glare and shade she had been hiding her eyes from the time she had come in, fretted by the low ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the other end of the room. I knew he must be suffering acute pain in his eye. A far lighter blow had kept me sleepless a whole night. A fear possessed me that I might have permanently injured his sight. The splash of water ceased. His footfall stopped beside me. I could feel he was within touching distance, but I ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... smiles to the lips of the employes. He would not call on Miss Voscoe. He made himself wait till the Sketch Club afternoon—made himself wait, indeed, till all the sketches were criticised—till the last cup of tea was swallowed, or left to cool—the last cake munched—the last student's footfall had died away on the stairs, and he and Miss Voscoe were alone among the scattered tea-cups, blackened bread-crumbs and ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... sighed. It was the rustle of the trees about him, stirred by a gentle rising breeze. But was it? Hark! That sounded like a footfall. But a footfall was not wanted. It was the sound of wheels for which his ears were straining. Ah, that was surely the wind. And—yes—listen. A rumble. It might be the wheels at last, or was it thunder? He sat up. The strain was hard to bear. ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... seen the eyes that, in the palace, had filled her with mislike and abhorrence as they looked upon the Queen. Again and again in her fitful sleep had she dreamt of him, and a sense of foreboding was heavy upon her—she seemed to hear the footfall of coming disaster. The anxiety of her soul lent an unnatural brightness to her eyes; so that more than one enamoured courtier made essay to engage her in conversation, and paid her deferential compliment when the Queen's eyes were not turned her way. Come to the dais, she was placed ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Lopez, starting off at a quick pace. They were then close to the turn in the park, and Lopez went on till he had nearly reached the park front of the new offices. As he had walked he had listened to the footfall of his friend, and after a while had perceived, or had thought that he had perceived, that the sound was discontinued. It seemed to him that Wharton had altogether lost his senses;—the insult to himself had been so determined and so absolutely groundless! He had striven his best to conquer the ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... shoes on, possessed the stolid steadiness of a wooden grenadier, for the heaviness of the massive boots seemed to permeate her whole being, and communicated what might be considered a slow and heavy footfall to her intellect. Peggy, without shoes, was a panther on two legs, and her mind, like her body, was capable of enormous leaps. Slipping off her heavy brogans, she made a single bound, and stood upon the railing of the porch, and, throwing her arm around a post, gazed ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... Where the mind sees its visionary self, As, when the kingfisher flits o'er his bay, Across the river's hollow heaven below His picture flits,—another, yet the same? But suddenly the sound of human voice Or footfall, like the drop a chemist pours, 200 Doth in opacous cloud precipitate The consciousness that seemed but now dissolved Into an essence rarer than its own. And I am narrowed to myself ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... only have been the end! But, while he was still throbbing with bliss, he heard a sound, at which his "bedded hair" started up and stood on end—the ill-omened sound of a slow and heavy footfall. ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... vaulted cloisters, with Gothic arches, once the secluded walks of the monks: the corridor along which we were passing was built above these cloisters, and their hollow arches seemed to reverberate every footfall. Everything thus far had a solemn monastic air; but, on arriving at an angle of the corridor, the eye, glancing along a shadowy gallery, caught a sight of two dark figures in plate armor, with closed visors, ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... a little clock upon a desk announced—half after five. Yet some one in the house was up, for Roberta heard a light footfall outside her door. There followed a soft sound which drew her eyes that way; she saw something white appear beneath the door—in the old house the sills were not tight. The white rectangle was obviously ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... "an hour ago. And we couldn't get her round again. I sent—ah! there he is coming down." And a steady, slow step, sounding to the two listeners like the footfall of Fate, was heard coming down from above. Sir William went to meet the doctor, knowing already what he was going ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... woman, with yellowish flaxen hair and light gray eyes, with a droop in the left eyelid. He noticed those things and fixed them on his mind before she was round at the side of the bed. Speechless, with no expression in her face, with no noise following her footfall, she came closer and closer—stopped—and slowly raised the knife. He laid his right arm over his throat to save it; but, as he saw the knife coming down, threw his hand across the bed to the right side, and jerked his body over that ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... Woodlands. Here an ampler air clothes the meadows in lustrous sheen, and they know their own sun and a starlight of their own. Some exercise their limbs in tournament on the greensward, contend in games, and wrestle on the yellow sand. Some [644-676]dance with beating footfall and lips that sing; with them is the Thracian priest in sweeping robe, and makes music to their measures with the notes' sevenfold interval, the notes struck now with his fingers, now with his ivory rod. Here is Teucer's ancient brood, a generation excellent in beauty, ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... discover the benefits of the new regime. Instead of the old system of roughness and neglect, they found now a very different order of things, as nurses, perfectly trained, with soft voice and gentle footfall, passed from bed to bed, ministering to the sick and dying. Interesting and helpful books for those who were well enough to read found their way into the wards. Flowers—for Agnes Jones, who loved intensely ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... already fallen upon this primitive little burgh; nothing disturbed this awful silence, excepting now and then the bark of some profligate night-walking dog, or the serenade of some romantic cat. It is true, Wolfert fancied more than once that he heard the sound of a stealthy footfall at a distance behind them; but it might have been merely the echo of their own steps echoing along the quiet streets. He thought also at one time that he saw a tall figure skulking after them—stopping when they stopped, and moving on as they proceeded; but the dim and uncertain ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... a satisfactory conclusion, but he followed it with his usual promptness. He was in the very act of rising from the ground, when his quick ear caught a faint footfall. Like a flash he raised his head, and observed a noble buck approaching the water with the purpose of drinking from it. It was not to be expected that the animal had any fear of hunters in such a solitary place, and he ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... yester-even Made these walls and arches ring With their high-sung hopes of Heaven, And the glories of its King; Now my footfall sounds alone On the aisle's long path of stone, Save that yonder from the loft, With a solemn tone and soft, Beating on with muffled shock, Conscience-waking, speaks the clock. Holy scene, and dear as holy, Let me ponder ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule
... The night so fair, As prone among the glistening leaves I lay, On Adam shone. Not sad, as on a day Erstwhile he seemed. And I could almost swear The sound of silvery laughter on the air Fell soft. And a fleet footfall 'mong the flowers Scattered the dew. Yet 'mid those silent bowers Naught else I saw or heard save rippling flow Of waters, and the moonshine white. Oh, low Speak, Eblis, lest aloud the night may tell Thy secret to the stars. Yet it ...
— Lilith - The Legend of the First Woman • Ada Langworthy Collier
... was again. A distinct footfall. She raised herself on her elbow and peered into the shadows. Far over at the other side of the chamber—it seemed an infinite distance just then—stood a figure. Grace looked at it calmly. She had ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... before dusk, and retires into her quarters below; though she hears not, her sight is unimpaired, and she perhaps dreads to meet the hunchback figure which is said to glide up the stairs, or the shadowy form of a grey lady who paces with noiseless footfall the lonely corridor, and has been seen to pass through the door of one of the rooms. Within the last two months a man with bronzed complexion and bent figure has been seen by two gentlemen, friends of mine. They both describe him as having come through the ...
— The Alleged Haunting of B—— House • Various
... a vision of the tenuous figure of Lichfield Stope; he was surprised that such acute agony had left the slightest trace of humanity; yet the other, after forty years of torment, still survived to shudder at a chance footfall, the advent of a ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer
... o'er his untasted meal; Still o'er his shame was brooding, the tears his thoughts reveal; Beset with a thousand fancies, and crazed with honest care, Sensitive to a footfall lest some foe were lurking there, When Rod'rick, bearing by the locks the Count's dissevered poll, Tracking the floor with recent gore, advanced along the hall. He touched his father's shoulder and roused him from his dream, And proudly flaunting his revenge he thus addresses him: "Behold ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... she had not asked Martha to sleep with her. But it was not too late even now. She slipped hastily to the floor, crossed to the huge wardrobe, and was in the very act of taking her dressing-gown from its peg when an unmistakable footfall was heard on the stairs. The robe dropped from her shaking fingers, and with a quickly beating ...
— Night Watches • W.W. Jacobs
... enormous teeth in his open mouth, and the gleaming fringe of claws upon his short, powerful forearms. With a scream of terror I turned and rushed wildly down the path. Behind me the thick, gasping breathing of the creature sounded louder and louder. His heavy footfall was beside me. Every instant I expected to feel his grip upon my back. And then suddenly there came a crash—I was falling through space, and everything ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... appearance and manner seemed to indicate that he was a country servant. The stranger was scarcely placed in the boat when, somewhat to his surprise and pleasure, he saw this old man carefully depositing the duenna of his young friend in a seat near him; and in another moment there was a light footfall on the ladder, a waving of white garments, and she was herself placed beside him, whilst the sailors, pushing off from the side of the vessel, made all speed towards the shore. Both turned round hastily, and their eyes met in a glance of recognition. ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... it more violently than ever. By listening intently both men could hear its faraway summons. But nothing happened. The house itself seemed empty. There was not even the sound of a footfall. ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... hand against his ear, To list a footfall ere he saw The wood-nymph, stayed the Tuscan king to hear Of wisdom and ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... street off the north side of Oxford Street, the insistence on the matter-of-fact attitude of the watcher, and on the cool courage of his servant, the abject fear of the dog, who dies in agony, all tend to create an atmosphere of grave conviction. The eerie child's footfall, the moving of the furniture by unseen hands, the wrinkled fingers that clutch the old letters, the faintly outlined wraiths of the man and woman in old-world garb with ruffles, lace, and buckles, the hideous phantom of the drowned man, the ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... to happen in the flat before long. The air of the room proclaimed this fact. And plainly Barber was uneasy, for he stalked about, starting nervously whenever Father Pat shut the watch, or when a footfall sounded ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... town is quiet, and the moon Divides the whole long street with light and shade. No footfall—no Fitzurse. We have seen ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... on the table before him, and his pen was poised while he considered. Then the slow, heavy footfall of old Rube sounded approaching through the kitchen. The scribe waited to hear him pass up-stairs, or settle himself in an armchair in the kitchen. But the heavy tread came on, and presently the old man's vast ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... sat up on his chair with his nerves all on edge. The light was advancing slowly towards him, pausing from time to time, and then coming jerkily onwards. The bearer moved noiselessly. In the utter silence there was no suspicion of the pat of a footfall. An idea of robbers entered the Englishman's head. He snuggled up further into the corner. The light was two rooms off. Now it was in the next chamber, and still there was no sound. With something approaching to a thrill of fear the student observed a face, floating in the air as it were, behind ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... building, tossed the light of the candle to and fro about their steps, until they came into the shelter of the theatre, where they sat down silently to wait. London hummed solemnly all around; but nearer at hand, the stillness was only broken by the sound of a footfall moving to and fro along the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Summer by summer the sun rises shorn yet closer of his beams, and now the lingering transit of the moon is but from one wood by a narrow crystal arch to another. They will have me yet, sir. How weary will the sleepy ones be of my uneasy footfall!" ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... once more the tread of a horse's feet, and counted each footfall mechanically. They grew fainter and fainter, till at last the forest silence swallowed them, and a great solitude seemed ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... not enter that, but supposed you would skirt around on the east and south side, as the path led southwesterly to it. Of course I looked and searched the ground, and could occasionally see where a footfall had disturbed ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... halted, and listened, and they could catch the distant footfall of the patrols echoing in some far-off corridor. That reassured them. They ceased to fancy the smell of burning and to be victimized by the illusion that a little tongue of ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... All-father sent Skirnir, the messenger of Frey, into the country of the Dark Elves (Svartalfaheim) to engage certain dwarfs to make the fetter called Gleipnir. It was fashioned out of six things; to wit, the noise made by the footfall of a cat; the beards of women; the roots of stones; the sinews of bears; the breath of fish; and the spittle of birds. Though thou mayest not have heard of these things before, thou mayest easily convince thyself that ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... hear I now A footfall? Comes the maiden? No,—'twas the fruit slid from the bough, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... deeps filled with bracken; she saw stretches of hillocky, fine-grassed rabbit warren, and hollows holding shadowy pools; she caught the gleam of a lake with swans sailing slowly upon it with curved necks; there were wonderful lights and wonderful shadows, and brooding stillness, which made her footfall upon the ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... roofs, inert and dull, Shaking her lap, of silv'ry music full, Rousing without remorse the drones abed, Tripping like joyous bird with tiniest tread, Quiv'ring like dart that trembles in the targe, By a frail crystal stair, whose viewless marge Bears her slight footfall, tim'rous half, yet free, In innocent extravagance of glee The graceful elf alights from out the spheres, While the quick spirit—thing of eyes and ears— As now she goes, now comes, mounts, and anon Descends, those delicate degrees upon, Hears her melodious spirit from step ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... applied to the end of a large telescope that stood before him on a tripod. This sort of presence was unexpected, and the lady started back into the shade of the opening. The only effect produced upon him by her footfall was an impatient wave of the hand, which he did without removing his eye from the instrument, as if to forbid ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... child's reverie, and who had grown dizzy with watching the swimming reflection in the whirlpool. She had a strange fleeting hallucination that she was again sitting in the moonlight, her cheeks flushed and her strong young pulse beating high to hear Nathaniel's footfall draw nearer down the road. She felt again the warm, soft weight of her little son, the first-born, the one who had died young, as she remembered how proud she and Nathaniel had been when he first noticed ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... fled east, all night the soft footfall of the woman's beast pursued them; all night the wind freshened until Laodice's bared face stiffened with the cold and the breath of the mute that sat upon her camel's neck steamed in the moonlight. Up and up, by steep and winding ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... know not and dream not if ill things be, Or if aught of the work of the wrong of the world be thine. We hear not the footfall of terror that treads the sea, We hear not the moan of winds that assail the pine: We see not if shipwreck reign in the storm's dim shrine; If death do service and doom bear witness to thee We see not,—know not if blood for thy ...
— Astrophel and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne, Vol. VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... if he had seen an apparition, and he was vainly striving to drive away a terrible, mysterious fear, when a heavy footfall made the floor of the dining-room creak anew. The noise restored him to consciousness of his position. "It is the baron!" he thought; "he is coming this way! If he finds me here I am lost; he will never consent to help ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... go again. He did not mean to watch the wistaria vine. He went, he told himself wildly, to evade the summons that was sure to come from Adam Craig. But when the glimmer of wistaria swayed beneath a footfall, madness came upon him and he went stealthily through orchard and forest, stalking the flutter of ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... saw an old man with a horn. He had a white beard marvellously long, and still went on saying slowly, "Beware, beware." He had clearly just come from the tower by which he stood, though I had heard no footfall. Had a man come stealthily upon me at such an hour and in so lonesome a place I had certainly felt surprised; but I saw almost at once that he was a spirit, and he seemed with his uncouth horn and his long white beard and that noiseless step of his to be so native to ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany
... Nan's side alone in the great dining room, while servants in gorgeous liveries hurried with soft light footfall to do her slightest bidding, Stuart could scarcely shake off the impression that he was dreaming. Such pictures he had weaved in his fancy the first wonderful days of their conscious love-life. But it ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... can play at that." And so after some rude jests, and laughter, and a few more oaths, I heard Charlie (or at any rate somebody) coming toward me, with a loose and not too sober footfall. As he reeled a little in his gait, and I would not move from his way one inch, after his talk of Lorna, but only longed to grasp him (if common sense permitted it), his braided coat came against my thumb, and his leathern gaiters brushed my knee. ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... intervals a dim fleck of white or gray on a wave-summit, which we knew was a castle. We crossed broad natural lawns sparkling with dew, and we moved like spirits, the cushioned turf giving out no sound of footfall; we dreamed along through glades in a mist of green light that got its tint from the sun-drenched roof of leaves overhead, and by our feet the clearest and coldest of runlets went frisking and gossiping over its reefs and making a sort of whispering music, comfortable to hear; ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... wolf" to Mr Stoddart's room, when the drawing-room door opened, and Miss Oldcastle came half out, but seeing me drew back instantly. A moment after, however, I heard the sound of her dress following us. Light as was her step, every footfall seemed to be upon my heart. I did not dare to look round, for dread of seeing her turn away from me. I felt like one under a spell, or in an endless dream; but gladly would I have walked on for ever in hope, with that silken vortex of sound following me. Soon, however, it ceased. She had ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... stepped along she heard a footfall behind her. The step was quickened, and a hand was laid on her shoulder. She turned, ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... all unvexed Though wild words part my soul from thee. Thou art like silence unperplexed, A secret and a mystery Between one footfall and the next. ...
— Poems • Alice Meynell
... faintness seized me, and I lay stretched out on the hard ground. As my senses returned, my ear being close to the ground, I fancied that I heard a footfall. Opening my eyes,—a cloud at that moment having passed the moon, which now shone brightly forth,—I saw approaching, a few paces off, the figure of a tall black man, with a scimitar raised in his hand—the ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston
... broke, and, stricken with utter panic, Wambe's soldiers streamed away a scattered crowd of fugitives, while after them thundered the footfall of the victors. ...
— Maiwa's Revenge - The War of the Little Hand • H. Rider Haggard
... hobnails of the boys who ran across the brickfields in the Roman town of Silchester, may still be seen, mingled with the impress of the feet of dogs and hoofs of goats, in the tiles discovered there. Such traces might serve as a metaphor for the footfall of artistic genius, when the form-giver has stamped his thought upon the moist clay, and fire has ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... thus cogitating when a sound reached me. I thought I could distinguish a horse's footfall. I stopped—the sound was louder—coming and coming fast. I dismounted and led my horse into the woods a few yards and covered his mouth with my hands. Still the sounds reached me—the constant cadence ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... at once and flitted along beside us on our landward side. We could not hear a footfall, or a breath. They passed through dry grass without rustling, neither stumbling nor crowding one another, but all so governed by one all-absorbing thought that they acted in absolute unison. That the thought was food did not, even in their starving state, make them forget the crowning ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... to her room, seeing nothing but her own gliding shadow, hearing nothing but her own stealthy footfall in the midnight stillness of the house. After mechanically putting the keys away in their former hiding-place, she looked toward her bed, and turned away from it, shuddering. The warning remembrance of what she had suffered that morning in the ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... that waiting! They could hear in their sitting-room the steps coming up the stone stairs outside their flat, and every step seemed to be his. Ah, he had come earlier than he had fixed. Vera had stupidly forgotten, perhaps, or he had found waiting any longer impossible. Yes, surely that was his footfall; she knew it so well. There, now he was turning towards the door; there was a pause; soon there would be the tinkle of ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... the breakfast-parlour when Fleda came down, so she took her book and the dormeuse, and had an hour of luxurious quiet before anybody appeared. Not a footfall in the house, nor even one outside to be heard, for the soft carpeting of snow which was laid over the streets. The gentle breathing of the fire the only sound in the room, while the very light came ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... left sleeve a single twist and Nettie Vollar would choke in a cloud of thick satin made gay with unfading flowers and the embroidered symbol of long life. She felt her body grow rigid with purpose when the sound of a footfall below held her motionless in ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... early in March Seti stood beside the parapet on the palace of the king in Tanis. His eyes were fixed on the shimmering line of the northern level, but he did not see it. Some one came with silent footfall and laid a ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... subdued voices. The words dropped in two heavy sighs. People stepped forward, each footfall audible. A new song, determined ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... down, while the ropes were being drawn up, while the trap-door was shut down and fitted into place. Then I was in the pitchest darkness, into which no ray, no glimmer of light could penetrate. I saw nothing whatever, yet I seemed to feel a presence, seemed to hear a faint footfall, seemed to be aware of another human being standing close to me. Then I heard a deep, ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... when she heard, with her fine sense quickened by the irritability of sickness, a light footfall on the stair, with a cadence unlike that of any ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... men might delight in desperate risks for the mere sake of the exalted and supreme sense of perfect self-possession that danger brings to some natures. Not, indeed, that she stopped to indulge any psychological speculations. The coast was clear; not a footfall or hoof-stroke sounded from the road, and without delay she began to look about for a wide place between the rails where she might get through. Just as she found it, she was startled by an unmistakable human snore, which seemed to come from a patch of high corn close to the melons, ...
— Hooking Watermelons - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... of a headland in shape like the figure of a couchant lion. Back from the shore-line, a narrow littoral of dense scrub, impervious to the rays of the sun, and unbroken in its solitude except by the cries of birds, or the heavy footfall of wild cattle upon the thick carpet of fallen leaves; and then, far to the west, the dimmed, shadowy outline of ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... of the drive, paused, listening with every faculty alert. There was no sound but the muted soughing of the night wind in the trees—not a footfall, not the clap of a hoof or the echo of a motor's whine. She moved on a yard or two, and found herself suddenly in the harsh glare of an arc-lamp. This decided her; she might as well go forward as retreat, now that she had shown herself. She darted at a run across the road and ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... tears, how Martha and Mary and Lazarus were grieving for him, how all were watching, waiting, hoping and yet hardly daring to hope,—oh, how little our griefs seem to us beside such grief as theirs! And the third day since he had been taken from them. Did they expect again to hear his footfall or his voice? He could see, all this time, the hands outstretched in prayer, he could hear their cries, he could feel the beating of every heart, and yet how slowly he was going forth to meet them. ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin
... eyes upon the grey dawn; but upon what dawn I knew not, whether of earth or purgatory or hell itself. They saw it swimming in a vague light: but my ears, from a sound as of rushing waters, awoke to a silence on which a small footfall broke, a few yards away. Marc'antonio must have unpenned the hogs; for the sty was empty. And the hogs in their rush must have thrown down the hurdles protecting me; for these lay collapsed, the one at my side, the ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... in with dense shadows where the moonlight failed to penetrate, and the peace of a world at rest was upon the countryside, when even the birds had ceased to chirp and flutter in their nests, the air would feel charged with expectancy. A footfall without would cause Meredith to lift his head from his papers or book, wondering if there was a message for him—Joyce taken ill—or the baby? The silence bred nerves, till a chorus of jackals howling in an adjacent paddy field would break the ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... Everglades. There was heavy timber about the camp and more than once during the night the boys heard the tread of a wild animal. Once it seemed to be the step of a deer in shallow water near the camp, then it was the soft footfall of some catlike animal and when Ned raised himself on his elbow to listen to a heavier tread, the "wouf" of the startled beast told that Bruin had caught the offensive scent of the white man's camp. As the boys ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... the old man up the velvet-shod stairs that gave back no sound from footfall, and pondered as she went. Then that was her father, that boy with the beautiful face and the heavy wavy hair tossed back from his forehead, and the haughty, imperious, don't-care look. And here was where he had lived. Here ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... at that moment distracted by the footfall of men coming in haste up the path from my father's wharf. 'Twas not hard to surmise their errand. My sister sighed—I ran to the door—the doctor began at once to get into his boots and greatcoat. But, to our surprise, two deck-hands from the mail-boat pushed their way into the room. ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... night for those four perfect nights, the last happy hours I ever was to know, we sat hand in hand upon the deck and heard the waters lap the vessel's side, and watched the soft footfall of the moon as she trod the depths of Nile. There we sat and talked of love, talked of our marriage and all that we would do. Also I drew up plans of war and of defence against the Roman, which now we had the means to carry out; and she approved them, sweetly saying that ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... twinging and pecking about the fir-cones a few minutes since, are gone: and now there is not even a gnat to quiver in the slant sun-rays. Did a spider run over these dead leaves, I almost fancy I could hear his footfall. The creaking of the saddle, the soft step of the mare upon the fir-needles, jar my ears. I seem alone in a dead world. A dead world: and yet so full of life, if I had eyes to see! Above my head every fir-needle is breathing—breathing for ever; currents unnumbered circulate in ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... criticism went away, faded and died out together with the soft footfall of his bare feet in ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... the footfall of a cat, but jarring harshly upon his straining, over-acute ears, told him. He swung about with a sharp cry. There was the explanation. There, just behind him, barefooted, bent almost double, crouching ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... of a wounded lioness, the Countess, taking no notice of the doctor's presence, rushed from the room. Her rapid footfall could be heard on the stairs, and the rustle of her silken skirts against the banisters. As soon as he was left alone, the doctor rose from his seat with a ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... said, arising as he heard her footfall. "Been watching the people drive by. Pretty smart traps, some of them, too. The old families that came over in the Ark with Moses—er, Noah, I should say." There was deep concern in the remark, but she was confident that he vaguely understood why ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... some sort of monotonous reading or reciting, and it seemed first to advance to the window near which he stood and then to recede. He soon discovered that it was accompanied by a soft but regular footfall. It was plain that somebody—some woman, evidently—was pacing the floor of the room to which this window belonged, and that she was repeating poetry, either to herself or to some silent listener. As she came near the window, Stretton heard ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... her share in the household where accident had thrown her. She had that genius of ministration which is the special province of certain women, marked even among their helpful sisters by a soft, low voice, a quiet footfall, a light hand, a cheering smile, and a ready self-surrender to the objects of their care, which such trifles as their own food, sleep, or habits of any kind ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... As they traversed here and there, And the breath through the clench'd teeth heavily drawn When breath there was none to spare; Sharp ringing sword play, dull, trampling heel, Short pause, spent force to regain, Quick muffled footfall, harsh grating steel, Sharp ringing rally again; They seem'd long hours, those moments fleet, As I counted them one by one, Till a dead weight toppled across my feet, And I knew ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... detective and her father had moved a few steps away and were talking in low tones. Melissy became aware of a footfall. The man who called himself Morse came around the corner of the house and stopped at ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... again and went on down towards the sea. I found the hot stream broadened out to a shallow, weedy sand, in which an abundance of crabs and long-bodied, many-legged creatures started from my footfall. I walked to the very edge of the salt water, and then I felt I was safe. I turned and stared, arms akimbo, at the thick green behind me, into which the steamy ravine cut like a smoking gash. But, as I say, I was too full of ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... these words audibly, with an appreciative thrill, he heard the latch of his gate click, and a light footfall sounding on the steps. He turned his head, and saw a woman standing before ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... heedless and unaware that they were alone, nor counting how little three women could do against thousands. But the people heard the hammering hoofs of the two big horses, and the Arab's light footfall resounded quickly and steadily, as the fingers of a dancer striking the tambourine. Hundreds glanced back to see who rode so fast, and thousands turned their heads to know why the others looked; and all, seeing the Queen, pressed back to right and left, making ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... a footfall on the road, which passed but some few yards distant from his window, a quick, cheery, almost running footfall, a step full of youth and life, sounding crisp on the hard frozen ground; and he knew that the young man whom he hated had come. Though he had never ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... no time, for the next moment she heard him hurrying down-stairs, she saw him speeding up the garden. There was nothing for her to do but to dress as fast as possible, and as she was finishing she heard his tread slowly mounting, the very footfall warning her what to expect. She opened the door and met him. 'Thank God,' he said, as he took her hand into his own, ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the Storm Song under his breath. Janesse stood with his back to the heat, facing darkness and the west. He raised a hand, and all listened. For sixty years his world had been bounded by the four walls of the forests. It was said that he could hear the padded footfall of the lynx—and so all listened while the hand was raised, though they heard nothing but the wailing of the wind, the crackling of the fire, and the unrest of the dogs in the timber behind them. For many seconds Janesse did not lower his hand; and then, ...
— God's Country—And the Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... of the night, and almost all the town lay still and dark. Marchmont lifted the brass knocker and let it fall. The sound, deep and reverberant, should have reached every ear within, however inattentive. He waited, but there came no answering footfall. He knocked again—no light nor sound; again—only interstellar quiet. He shook the door. "Go around to the back, Roberts, and see if you can get in." Roberts departed. Marchmont picked up some pieces of gravel ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... and he left her. She stood listening, until the echo of his footfall ceased along the frosty road; then, clasping her hands, she lifted once more the petition "for those who have erred and are deceived," the prayer which she had once uttered—unconscious how much and by whom it was needed. Now she said it with a yearning cry—a cry that would fain pierce heaven, ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... so appealingly, you will hear the dull clank of chains, see the glare of vacant eyes, and shudder at the pale, cadaverous faces of beings tortured with starvation. A low, hoarse whisper, asks you for bread; a listless countenance quickens at your footfall. Oh! could you but feel the emotion that has touched that shrunken form which so despondingly waits the coming of a messenger of mercy. That system of cruelty to prisoners which so disgraced England during the last century, and which for her name she would were erased from her history, we ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... wooden steps, turned the knob, and pushed it open—very softly this time. No one appeared. But, as he stood on the threshold, while the pupils of his eyes dilated to the gloom of the hall into which he looked, his ears seemed to detect somewhere in the house a muffled footfall and the sound of ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... that night down the darkest streets and along the shadiest sides of them, like a burglar. I trembled whenever I saw a policeman or heard a footfall on the road. ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... onward, and once out of footfall of the inn, pricked him into a gallop. Out of the town he fled, past the end of the Stafford road, along which two hours of Sultan's best would bring me to the Hanyards and mother and Kate, and I kept him at it for ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... opening. An instant afterward a pair of shining shoulders followed. Then slowly the whole figure of a man in complete plate-armor emerged on the deck. In his gauntleted hand he carried a heavy steel mace. With this uplifted he moved toward his enemies, silent save for the ponderous clank of his footfall. It was an inhuman, machine-like figure, menacing and terrible, devoid of all expression, slow-moving, ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... experiments. All things in this new land are moving farther on: the wine-vats and the miner's blasting tools but picket for a night, like Bedouin pavilions; and to-morrow, to fresh woods! This stir of change and these perpetual echoes of the moving footfall, haunt the land. Men move eternally, still chasing Fortune; and, fortune found, still wander. As we drove back to Calistoga, the road lay empty of mere passengers, but its green side was dotted with the camps of travelling ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... cattle-drover. These, with other vehicles of less note, all roll off the ground by a quarter after ten o'clock or so; and the ladies and their servants, with some few exceptions, are left in undisputed possession of home, while not a footfall of man or beast is heard in the sunshiny ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 - Volume 18, New Series, July 31, 1852 • Various
... on every hand and they made the wrecked and drenched woods to seem haunted. Now and again a sound almost human would startle the cautious wayfarers as they picked their way amid the sodden chaos. In places it seemed as if the merest footfall would dislodge some threatening bowlder which would blot their lives out in a second. And the ragged, gaping chasms left by roots made the soggy ground uncertain support ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... the grey dawn; but upon what dawn I knew not, whether of earth or purgatory or hell itself. They saw it swimming in a vague light: but my ears, from a sound as of rushing waters, awoke to a silence on which a small footfall broke, a few yards away. Marc'antonio must have unpenned the hogs; for the sty was empty. And the hogs in their rush must have thrown down the hurdles protecting me; for these lay collapsed, the one at my ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... living, breathing vision of my happy past, to-night. I never saw such a likeness before." His words sank into a whisper as my step-mother's footfall sounded on the stairs outside. He heard it, and turning away left the room abruptly. I drank my cup of tea and prepared to leave as one moving about in a dream. This was one of the strangest experiences I had ever had; some secret spring seemed to have been magically touched within me, and all ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... that moment distracted by the footfall of men coming in haste up the path from my father's wharf. 'Twas not hard to surmise their errand. My sister sighed—I ran to the door—the doctor began at once to get into his boots and greatcoat. But, to our surprise, two deck-hands from the ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... me into the dingy undusted drawing-room, filled with evening sunshine and the green-dyed light that penetrated the leaves overhanging the long French windows. I sat down and waited on and on, occasionally aware of a creaking footfall overhead. At last the door opened a little, and the great face I had once known peered round at me. For it was enormously changed; mainly, I think, because the old eyes had rather suddenly failed, and so a kind of stillness and ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... sound of a footfall on the turf close behind him, and turned about with a slight frown; which readily yielded, however, and became a smile ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... time of the heart beat, unless there be "in the air" some more impressive stimulus; as, for example, when on shipboard, the beat is with me invariably that of the engine throbs. When walking it is the rhythm of the footfall. On one occasion a knock of four beats on the door started the Marseillaise in my ear; following up this clew, I found that at any time different divisions of musical time being struck on the table ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... to discover the benefits of the new regime. Instead of the old system of roughness and neglect, they found now a very different order of things, as nurses, perfectly trained, with soft voice and gentle footfall, passed from bed to bed, ministering to the sick and dying. Interesting and helpful books for those who were well enough to read found their way into the wards. Flowers—for Agnes Jones, who loved intensely all God's works in Nature, had great ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... No footfall could be heard on that sand. But he knew that he was no longer alone. He braced his hands and with painful effort levered up his body. Somehow he made it to his knees, but he could not stand. Instead he half tumbled back, so that he faced ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... had lost her son and the hope of seeing him once more. That night was hideously silent. Once, for the Countess, there was an awful interval, when the battalion of conscripts entered the town, and the men went by, one by one, to their lodgings. Every footfall, every sound in the street, raised hopes to be disappointed; but it was not for long, the dreadful quiet succeeded again. Toward morning the Countess was forced to return to her room. Brigitte, ever keeping watch over her mistress's movements, did not see her come out again; and when she went, she ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... beside the elderly Spanish verger, chatting of his native Cordova, listening to tales of Father Juniperra Serra, Father Somera, and the legend of the Indians with the miraculous portrait of the Madonna, she had started more than once at a footfall, fancying it ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... and the twitter of birds silent in the coppice, and hardly a leaf astir in the huge beeches that fling their cool shade over the grass. Afar off a gilded vane flares out above the grey Jacobean gables of Knoll, the chime of a village clock falls faintly on the ear, but there is no voice or footfall of living thing to break the silence as I turn over leaf after leaf of the little book I have brought with me from the bustle of town to this still retreat, a book that is the record of a broken life, of a life "broken off," as he ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... affected the imagination; and I stood admiring it in that delicious dreamy mood in which one can forget all but the present enjoyment, when I was roused to a recollection of the business of the evening by the sound of a footfall echoing from within. It seemed approaching by a sort of cross passage in the rock, and, in a moment after, a young man, one of the country people whom I had left among the cliffs above, stood before me. He wore a broad Lowland bonnet, and his plain homely ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... was the rustle of the trees about him, stirred by a gentle rising breeze. But was it? Hark! That sounded like a footfall. But a footfall was not wanted. It was the sound of wheels for which his ears were straining. Ah, that was surely the wind. And—yes—listen. A rumble. It might be the wheels at last, or was it thunder? He sat up. The strain was hard to bear. It was thunder. ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... pleasant, and never attempted any other. I had only to mount my beast, and tell my donkey-boy the point for which I was bound, and instantly I began to glide on at a capital pace. The streets of Cairo are not paved in any way, but strewed with a dry sandy soil, so deadening to sound, that the footfall of my donkey could scarcely be heard. There is no trottoir, and as you ride through the streets you mingle with the people on foot. Those who are in your way, upon being warned by the shouts of the donkey-boy, move very slightly ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... advantage, to let her pass him if she wished to do so. Audrey could read this determination in his averted face. Most likely he wished her to think that his abstraction was too great to allow him to notice her light footfall; he would make it easy for her to pass him—a man's eyes can only see what they are looking at. But this time Audrey's prudence counselled her in vain; her soft heart would not allow her to go past him as a stranger. She stopped and ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... the monumental statue on horseback of the murdered commander, gleaming by pale moonlight in the convent cemetery; how my heart quaked as he bowed his marble head, and accepted the impious invitation of Don Juan: how each footfall of the statue smote upon my heart, as I heard it approach, step by step, through the echoing corridor, and beheld it enter, and advance, a moving figure of stone, to the supper table! But then the convivial scene in the charnel-house, ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... directions called for "Lord Gregory," and she sang it with the same thin, silvery piping which was all she could contribute now to the demand of drama. It was both an annoyance and a surprise to hear a footfall and the swish of robes and to turn and see ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... stopped, and drew back close to him, beneath the shade of the wall. A footfall was heard; and he saw that she trembled in every limb. Presently a figure emerged from behind the tower, and stood, for some minutes, gazing up in the sky, as if contemplating the glorious galaxy of stars, which shone down from it. At length it advanced ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... later the whole camp is wrapped in sleep, nothing is heard but the neighing of horses, the lowing of cattle, the bleating of sheep, and the occasional barking of a dog. There is no clatter of arms, no ringing of bugles, no deep-toned challenge of sentries, no footfall of changing pickets. ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... spent a half-hour observing his frisky gambols on the hillside across the dingle below my porch, as he jumped apparently for mice in the sloping rowen-field. How quickly he responded to my slightest interruption of voice or footfall, running to ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... a kind of music in the air. The whisper of the wind that stirred the willows made soft accompaniment of the splash of paddle in the stream: the birds sang lustily amid the gentle rustle of the garden trees, and when the thrush retired to roost the nightingale took up the tale. The very footfall of the men hurrying to lecture was a pleasant sound, for then they needed not to punctuate their progress with the sharp tang of the bicycle bell. And best of all the bells made music morning and ...
— Oxford • Frederick Douglas How
... Every footfall was taken to-day with reference to this. An impression of Justin as of something noble and firm seemed to emanate from the room where he lay and fill the house; in his complete abdication, he dominated as never before. More than that, there seemed to be a peculiar poignancy, a peculiar sweetness, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... are arranging the chamber of death—that which was long the apartment of connubial happiness, and of whose arrangement (better than in richer houses) she was so proud. They are treading fast and thick. For weeks you could have heard a footfall. ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... very hot. Not a breath of air was stirring throughout the western wing of the Greyport Hotel, and the usual feverish life of its four hundred inmates had succumbed to the weather. The great veranda was deserted; the corridors were desolated; no footfall echoed in the passages; the lazy rustle of a wandering skirt, or a passing sigh that was half a pant, seemed to intensify the heated silence. An intoxicated bee, disgracefully unsteady in wing and leg, who had been holding an inebriated conversation with himself in the corner of my window ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte
... If so, the greater pathos. The lonely souls that hold out timid hands to an unheeding world have their meed of interior comfort even here, while the sons of consolation wait on the thresh-hold for their footfall: but God help the soul that bars its own door! It is kicking against the pricks of Divine ordinance, the ordinance of a triune God; whether it be the dweller in crowded street or tenement who is proud to say, "I keep myself to myself," or Seneca writing in pitiful complacency, ...
— The Roadmender • Michael Fairless
... lay there motionless, their wide eyes staring into the dark, their ears straining to every faint, mysterious sound, their sensitive noses questioning every scent that came breathing in to them from the still night forest. At last they heard a stealthy footfall outside the back door. It was as light—oh, lighter than a falling leaf. But they heard it. If you and I had such ears as that, maybe we could ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... pathway opened into the street, he now and then saw a dark shape reel past and disappear in the night like a shadow, the soft snow deadening the footfall. These were jolly roysterers, ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... corn-cobs or broken crockery, there is no telling, but I rolled about a good deal, and could not sleep for a long time. At last I slid off into a light doze, and had pretty nearly made a good offing towards the land of Nod, when I heard a heavy footfall in the passage, and saw a glimmer of light come into the room from under the door. Lord save me, thinks I, that must be the harpooneer, the infernal head-peddler. But I lay perfectly still, and resolved ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... in his own quiet room at the back of this enduring building, a very splendid room that any Secretary of State might have envied, but arranged in excellent taste. Its walls were panelled with figured teak, a rich carpet made the footfall noiseless, an antique Venus stood upon a marble pedestal in the corner, and over the mantelpiece hung a fine portrait by Gainsborough, that of a certain Miss Aylward, a famous beauty in her day, with whom, be it added, its present owner could boast ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... excitedly as the trains drew away. Life as a Sahib was amusing so far; but he touched it with a cautious hand. Then they marched him back in charge of a drummer-boy to empty, lime-washed barracks, whose floors were covered with rubbish and string and paper, and whose ceilings gave back his lonely footfall. Native-fashion, he curled himself up on a stripped cot and went to sleep. An angry man stumped down the veranda, woke him up, and said he was a schoolmaster. This was enough for Kim, and he retired into his shell. He could just puzzle out the various English Police notices in Lahore ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... Our footfall echoed on the metal grids as we hurried along. I felt depressed and oppressed. As though prying eyes were upon me. We walked for a time in silence, each of us busy with memory of what had transpired at ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... leaped to their feet, wildly yelling, and, with the exception of Sololo, who stood still—although the picture of terror— disappeared into the surrounding darkness. For some seconds after the sound of the last footfall had died away, the rattle of Shasha's charms, as ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully
... the temperature at every moment during the period; and by an arrangement of the wing, the circulation of the blood is recorded. A more delicate experiment can hardly be imagined, as a strong breath, a sneeze, or a footfall will cause the subject of the experiment to recover enough to respire several times; and the effect of this on the machine can be imagined when it is known that though, while in this condition, they produce no effect upon the oxygen of the air about them, they consume when respiring ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various
... still moved with measured tread. The lights gradually disappeared, except those that told of some one watching over the sick or dying, or some chance-beam betraying a late carousal. In the palace, the soft footfall of the attendants in the antechambers, could not disturb the slumbers of the monarch, while strains of sweetest music were ready to lull him to repose, as warder and sentinel kept watch over his safety. But still "that night the king could ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous
... were open, but with the sultry breath of August little din of business came into the room; the place was very quiet. The house was empty and still; seldom a footfall could be heard overhead. Clam was busy, up stairs and down, but she went with a light step when she pleased, and she pleased it now. It was a relief to have the change of falling night; and then the breeze from the sea began ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... a whisk of her skirts, and a footfall on the gravel path, she was gone. He stood dumbfounded, poor comedian, having come to play the chief role, but to find the scene taken out of his hands. Then catching the flutter of her wrap, as she disappeared into the darkness ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... A fond, a devoted, a trusting wife waiting at home, watching the hands of the clock as they neared the mark of twelve, and listening for thy footfall! Thou, trusting in thine own strength, but to learn thy weakness, lying senseless among thy drinking mates in the ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... his room. As he walked along the still corridor and down the stairs it was noticeable that he made absolutely no sound, without, however, indulging in any of those contortions which are peculiar to late arrivals in church. It would seem that Nature had for purposes of her own made his footfall noiseless—if, by the way, Nature can be credited with any purpose whatever in her allotment of ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... asked a clear but rather harsh voice. We could not hear the servant's reply, but the door closed, and some one began to ascend the stairs. The footfall was an uncertain and shuffling one. A look of surprise passed over the face of my companion as he listened to it. It came slowly along the passage, and there was a feeble tap at ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle
... rely, and he used all the wilderness caution that he had acquired through nature and training. He called into use every faculty of his perfect physical being. His trained eyes continually pierced the darkness. At times, he stopped and listened with ears that could hear the footfall of the rabbit, but neither eye nor ear brought report of anything unusual. The river flowed with a soft, sighing sound. Now and then a wild creature stirred in the forest, and once a deer came down to the margin to drink, but this was the ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... had left her, her busy thoughts roaming over many things in the far past, and the sad present, and the uncertain future. She was unconscious of the passage of time, and did not notice how the silence deepened as the night drew on, till scarce a footfall was heard in the street, and the ticking of the clock sounded with that sad distinctness, which seems to say, "Time is going on—time is going on—and you are going with it,—do what you will you can't help that." It was just upon the stroke of ten, and Mrs. Montgomery ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... at the far end of the room, and some one entered. St. George did not turn, but as her soft skirts touched and lifted along the floor he was tinglingly aware of her presence. Even before Mrs. Hastings heard her light footfall, even before the clear voice spoke, St. George knew that he was at last in the presence of the arbiter of his enterprise, and of how much else he did not know. He was silent, breathlessly waiting ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... not mean to go again. He did not mean to watch the wistaria vine. He went, he told himself wildly, to evade the summons that was sure to come from Adam Craig. But when the glimmer of wistaria swayed beneath a footfall, madness came upon him and he went stealthily through orchard and forest, stalking the flutter of ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... formed the summit of the column, his eye being applied to the end of a large telescope that stood before him on a tripod. This sort of presence was unexpected, and the lady started back into the shade of the opening. The only effect produced upon him by her footfall was an impatient wave of the hand, which he did without removing his eye from the instrument, as if to ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... halted close to the window, rose more distinctly upon his ear. It was the sound of a voice engaged in some sort of monotonous reading or reciting, and it seemed first to advance to the window near which he stood and then to recede. He soon discovered that it was accompanied by a soft but regular footfall. It was plain that somebody—some woman, evidently—was pacing the floor of the room to which this window belonged, and that she was repeating poetry, either to herself or to some silent listener. As she came near the window, Stretton heard the words ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... stool, ensconced from view on the side towards the trackway. Soon she heard the brushing of other feet than the reddleman's, a not very friendly "Good day" uttered by two men in passing each other, and then the dwindling of the footfall of one of them in a direction onwards. Eustacia stretched her neck forward till she caught a glimpse of a receding back and shoulders; and she felt a wretched twinge of misery, she knew not why. It was the sickening feeling which, if the changed heart has ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... in the grim old house. Cook and housekeeper have gone to market for the means of providing supper. Not a footfall sounds in the street; only the wailing voice of the watchman calling the hour at a distance breaks the dead silence, amidst which the old man can hear the ticking of the gold repeater in his pocket, the tinkle of the ashes that stir in the old ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... thought he had never seen so fair a dawn. It filled the farthest heaven with brightness, and penetrated even to the woody crevices of the glen, as the grace of God had entered into the obscurest folds of his heart. The morning airs were hushed, and he heard only the sound of his own footfall, and the murmur of the stream which, though diminished, still poured a swift current between the rocks; but as he reached the bottom of the glen a sound of chanting came to him, and he knew that the pilgrims were at hand. His heart ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... are broken off, never to be resumed, when the staid footfall of the lady is heard approaching. Milton cannot draw ugliness; it turns into beauty or majesty on his hands. Satan has a large and enthusiastic party among readers of Paradise Lost. Comus, we are told, stands for a whole array of ugly vices—riot, intemperance, ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... first light of the morning the Ducharme woman, creeping from her room in the rear, caught sight of them. Mrs. Preston's head was lying on the doctor's arm, while he knelt beside the table, watching her pale face in its undisturbed sleep. At the footfall, he roused her gently. Mrs. Ducharme hastily drew back. She, too, did not seem to have passed a peaceful night. Her flabby fat face was sickly white, and she trembled as she opened the side door to the hot morning sun. She threw some small thing into the ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... walk my parlor floor, And, through the open door, I hear a footfall on the chamber stair; I'm stepping toward the hall To give the boy a call; And then bethink me ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... clear starlight. The sentinels were all slumbering at their posts. He advanced stealthily in the dusky streets. Not a watchman was going his rounds. Soldiers, burghers, children, women, exhausted by incessant fatigue, were all asleep. Not a footfall was heard; not a whisper broke the silence; it seemed a city of the dead. The soldier crept back through the crevice, and hastened to apprise his ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... serviceable, red-handed, broad-and-high- shouldered type; one of those imported female servants who are known in public by their amorphous style of person, their stoop forwards, and a headlong and as it were precipitous walk,—the waist plunging downwards into the rocking pelvis at every heavy footfall. Bridget, constituted for action, not for emotion, was about to deposit a plate heaped with something upon the table, when I saw the coarse arm stretched by my shoulder arrested,—motionless as the arm of a terra-cotta caryatid; she couldn't set ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... exchanging another word, I put on my great coat, and we sallied forth together to the rendezvous of the lovers. The fair fugitive was true to her appointment, and at the first sound of the expected footfall, glided from her concealment into the happy scoundrel's arms. The action which followed I could not see (though it was a bright moonlight,) for a breeze lifted the large veil which hung over the lady's shoulder, in such a manner as to envelope the countenances ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 275, September 29, 1827 • Various
... I had bought from a number of such toys brought in by the Southampton, and had given to Mistress Percy. My eyes rested upon it, idly at first, then closely enough as I saw within it a man enter the room. I had heard no footfall; there was no noise now behind me. The fire was somewhat sunken, and the room was almost in darkness; I saw him in the glass dimly, as shadow rather than substance. But the light was not so faint that the mirror could not show ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... falsehood's trade Shall be as hateful and unprofitable As that of truth is now. Where is the fame Which the vainglorious mighty of the earth Seek to eternize? Oh! the faintest sound 140 From Time's light footfall, the minutest wave That swells the flood of ages, whelms in nothing The unsubstantial bubble. Ay! today Stern is the tyrant's mandate, red the gaze That flashes desolation, strong the arm 145 That ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... the truth," said the Queen's voice behind them. They had not heard the heavy royal footfall which sets empty cells vibrating. Sacharissa offered her food at once. She ate and dragged her weary body forward. "Can you ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling
... to allow some one to pass. Awakening interest ran abroad over the street ahead of him. A lane between the wandering multitude opened almost by magic. Through it, walking swiftly, his head up, his mystic eyes ignited, came Seraiah, soldier of Jehovah. There was no sound of his footfall. His garments flashed in the light of the beacons, but there was not even a whisper of their motion. But he had changed. There was fierce, superhuman intent in the despatch of his gait and in the uplift of his superb head. After him, as he passed, ran whispers. ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... the good knight, Fair Ellayne le Violet, Mary, Constance fille de fay, Many dames with footfall light. ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris
... so for years; the lonely bars of sunlight flecked the solitude of the room, and the lilies faded on the table. We children passed it with hushed footfall, and shrank from it at twilight, as from a room that held the dead. But ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... sadly and silently, leave the dead one in the company of the spirits of darkness. Henceforth this, the resting place of one who was beloved in life, possibly of a loving wife, or of a darling child, will be eschewed as a place of terror where stalk with silent footfall and dark-visaged face the ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... torn from its hinges by the hurricane. It was at the risk of life that any ventured abroad at this hour and amid the whirl of falling masonry. Larralde and Conyngham had the Calle Preciados to themselves—and Larralde cursed his spurs, which rang out at each footfall, and betrayed ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... explore or to see—with the eyes of a man who can rebuild a mighty past. Solitude in the halls and marble stairways, ruin of time in the fretted screens, and broken cisterns holding nothing but dry earth. Nothing there now but the lion and the lizard, not even the ghost of a light footfall, or the tinkle of glass ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... Motion — N. motion, movement, move; going &c v.; unrest. stream, flow, flux, run, course, stir; evolution; kinematics; telekinesis. step, rate, pace, tread, stride, gait, port, footfall, cadence, carriage, velocity, angular velocity; clip, progress, locomotion; journey &c 266; voyage &c 267; transit &c 270. restlessness &c (changeableness) 149; mobility; movableness, motive power; laws of motion; mobilization. V. be in motion &c adj.; move, go, hie, gang, budge, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... the apertures out of which they protrude so appealingly, you will hear the dull clank of chains, see the glare of vacant eyes, and shudder at the pale, cadaverous faces of beings tortured with starvation. A low, hoarse whisper, asks you for bread; a listless countenance quickens at your footfall. Oh! could you but feel the emotion that has touched that shrunken form which so despondingly waits the coming of a messenger of mercy. That system of cruelty to prisoners which so disgraced England during the last century, and which for her name ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... town like a great bird, but it had snowed on the preceding days, and through the darkness Dolf could see the blanched face of the earth, white as the face of the dead. He ran full speed along the river bank as one pursued by the tide, though, even then, his footfall was not so rapid as the beating of his heart. The distant lights through the fog seemed to him like a procession of taper-bearers at a funeral; he did not know how this idea arose, but it terrified him, for behind it again he saw death. Then he came upon silent figures ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish • Various
... Wituwamat above the gate of the Fort until the wrens who nested there began to fly restlessly in and out, fancying that the captain planned an invasion of their territory. He still stood in this posture when the rustle of a footfall among the dried herbage reached his quick ear, and turning he confronted Barbara, whose down-dropt eyes hid the gleam of amusement the sight of his melancholy attitude had kindled ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... they who yet remember 'mid the fever of exchange, When the hot excitement throttles and the millions make or break, How a camel's silent footfall on the ashen desert range Swings cushioned into distances where thoughts unfettered wake, And the memory unbidden plucks an unconverted heart Till the glamour goes from houses and emotion from the street, And the truth glares good and gainly in the face ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... soft footfall, a rustle, and a moving shadow Joan's mingled emotions merged into a poignant sense of the pain and suspense and tenderness of ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... saw her. She had almost reached him, but he had not heard her, her footfall upon the old Turkey carpet with its faded roses and lilies had been so light. She was in white, and the light from the old lamp shone on her arms end face and brought out the shadows of her hair and eyes. She put out both hands—then quickly drew back one as her glance ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... the prisoner lay rigid, staring at the open door of his cell. The opening was black, deserted, like the mouth of a deep tunnel, leading to hell. And then, suddenly, from the gloom beyond that opening, came an almost noiseless, padded footfall!" ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... was burning dimly, and the girl's white face was lost in the shadow, when the young man first glanced at her, so he had no suspicion of the truth, though a most indefinable sensation crept over him as he heard the timid footfall, and the rustling of female garments as Adah Hastings drew near with her boy in her arms. He knew she stopped before him; he knew, too, why she stopped, and for a brief instant his better nature bade him be a man and offer her what he knew she wanted. But only for an instant, and then his ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... thinking; and every now and then he bent forward, and looked out of the window into the darkness of the night. He could only distinguish the faint outline of the landscape as the train swept on upon its way, past low meadows, where the snow lay white and stainless, unsullied by a passing footfall; and scanty patches of woodland, where the hardy firs looked black against the ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... oblivious of her presence, to concentrate again solely on the matter in hand. A long, long interval passed. Chug! chug! the engines continued to grind. How far away they sounded. Another sound, too, at length broke the stillness—a stealthy footfall on the deck. It sent him at once softly to the window; he gazed out. ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... hear in their sitting-room the steps coming up the stone stairs outside their flat, and every step seemed to be his. Ah, he had come earlier than he had fixed. Vera had stupidly forgotten, perhaps, or he had found waiting any longer impossible. Yes, surely that was his footfall; she knew it so well. There, now he was turning towards the door; there was a pause; soon there would be the ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... talk of her elders in a happy child's reverie, and who had grown dizzy with watching the swimming reflection in the whirlpool. She had a strange fleeting hallucination that she was again sitting in the moonlight, her cheeks flushed and her strong young pulse beating high to hear Nathaniel's footfall draw nearer down the road. She felt again the warm, soft weight of her little son, the first-born, the one who had died young, as she remembered how proud she and Nathaniel had been when he ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... "Good-night" again, and was gone—for he seemed to be in a dreadful hurry—before I had the sense to ask him what he meant about "my things." But as his footfall died away a sudden ...
— George Bowring - A Tale Of Cader Idris - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... with fond pretence; let winter come With snow that strikes the heaviest footfall dumb. We know the worst, and face his rage with glee; And, though the world without be ne'er so glum, Sit by the hearth, and ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 24, 1891 • Various
... leaves of fringing oaks and sycamores. Giving his horse to a servant in the court-yard, he did not enter the patio, but, crossing the lawn, stepped upon the long veranda. The rain was dripping from its eaves and striking a minute spray from the vines that clung to its columns; his footfall awoke a hollow echo as he passed, as if the outer shell of the house were deserted; the formal yews and hemlocks that in summer had relieved the dazzling glare of six months' sunshine had now taken gloomy possession of the garden, and the evening shadows, thickened by ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte
... and forwards, I heard a little noise outside, a light footfall on the stairs or landing. I stood still, my heart seeming to knock about inside my chest as if it wanted to leap out between the ribs. Then I went to the door and threw it wide open. She stood there just outside. The light from within fell upon her, and my eyes ran ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... nor ever regretted, shall wave the Egyptian palms and the Italian pines. Untrodden by me, the Forum shall still echo with the footfall of imperial Rome, and the Parthenon unrifled of its marbles, look, perfect, ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... me his glass with ironical invitation, while I sat aghast and speechless, my heart pounding against my ribs. This intolerable colloquy could not last forever. I deliberated what I should do if we were surprised. At the sound of a footfall or the soft creak of a plank I felt that I might lose all control and leap up and brain him with the heavy bottle in my grasp. I had an insane desire to spring at his throat and throttle his infamous bravado, tumble him overboard and annihilate the ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... a shadow I drew out of sight, turned away, and went almost back to the gate before I let my footfall be heard, ...
— Strong Hearts • George W. Cable
... than the footfall of a cat, but jarring harshly upon his straining, over-acute ears, told him. He swung about with a sharp cry. There was the explanation. There, just behind him, barefooted, bent almost double, crouching to leap upon him, a great Chinaman, a long, curved knife clenched ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... had been restless and depressed, starting at the sound of a footfall only to drop her eyes again in disappointment and relapse into unquiet revery; the weight of empire hung heavily upon her girlish spirit and she was unutterably lonely in the absence of Janus which seemed so unduly prolonged. It was the latest day that he ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... popping noises. Steering started now and again and held his head waitingly. He had been watching and hoping for Piney for days, and was on the alert. Every noise, however, resolved itself into the noise of bird, squirrel, or sapling. There was never the voice nor the footfall of the human. Once that very afternoon, he had been so sure that he had heard Piney's pony up on the bluff that he had gone up there searchingly, joyfully. But except for a little scatter, that he took to be the lift of a covey of quail somewhere off in ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... she followed him! Since the night he had flung himself out of her house, tortured in every nerve, she had not for a moment left him. When he walked through the house, she followed him, her stealthy footfall sounding just the merest fraction of a second after his. He avoided the bare polished floors and walked on the rugs whenever possible, that he might not hear that soft, slow step so plainly. Ralph had laughed at him, once, for taking a long, awkward ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... were a few odds and ends of female dress, and two letters tied round with a narrow ribbon of faded yellow. I took the liberty to possess myself of the letters. We found nothing else in the room worth noticing,—nor did the light reappear; but we distinctly heard, as we turned to go, a pattering footfall on the floor, just before us. We went through the other attics (in all four), the footfall still preceding us. Nothing to be seen,—nothing but the footfall heard. I had the letters in my hand; just as I was descending the stairs I distinctly felt my wrist seized, and a faint, soft effort made ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... from Hervey stopped the foremost as they ran for the entrance. In fact, not one of them was peculiarly keen to follow such a trail as this in the darkness. Breathless silence fell over the patio, and then they heard the departing beat of the hoofs of Red's horse. And the shock of every footfall struck home in the heart of Marianne and filled her with a great loneliness and terror. And then the noise of the gallop died ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... she listened. The stealthy footfall had not paused in the hall below. It was on the short, ladder-like steps now, leading up here to the garret—and now it had halted outside her door, and there came a low, insistent ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... faded. With her right arm across the supine body and enveloping the face in her left sleeve a single twist and Nettie Vollar would choke in a cloud of thick satin made gay with unfading flowers and the embroidered symbol of long life. She felt her body grow rigid with purpose when the sound of a footfall below held her motionless in ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... every trembling footfall, Till they gain at last— Safe in Science, bright with glory— Just the way Thou hast: Then, O tender Love and wisdom, Crown the lives thus blest With the guerdon of Thy bosom, Whereon ...
— Poems • Mary Baker Eddy
... broad window-seat she hesitated for a moment, looked out at the clear, wintry night, and then slipped down the stairs so lightly that even the cushioned velvet carpet took no impress of her footfall. ...
— Dorothy Dale's Queer Holidays • Margaret Penrose
... once and flitted along beside us on our landward side. We could not hear a footfall, or a breath. They passed through dry grass without rustling, neither stumbling nor crowding one another, but all so governed by one all-absorbing thought that they acted in absolute unison. That the thought was food did not, even in their starving ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... guns beside them. The night was clear and hot, scarcely a breath of air moving. Here and there against the sky-line passed the dark silhouette of a sentinel. There was no sound of firing, only an occasional footfall to break the silence of the night. The wounded had been taken to the field hospitals at the rear; down in our front lay the bodies of the dead, and among these shone the dim lights of lanterns where the last searching parties were yet busy at their grewsome ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... I pass out there too. They are all gone. I catch sight of a small door, in the panelling, on my right at the end of this corridor, closing quickly. They are gone evidently to visit some other quarter of the house. They might have stopped for me. Very unsociable. One seems to hear every footfall in this house. And even when you're not speaking, your thoughts appear to find an echo, and to be repeated aloud. In this short narrow gallery, there is an old picture of a man in a Spanish dress, holding ...
— Happy-Thought Hall • F. C. Burnand
Copyright © 2025 e-Free Translation.com
|
|
|
