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More "Footstep" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 'There's a footstep coming: look out and see,' 'The leaves are falling, the wind is calling; No one cometh across ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... sitting in the big chair against the wall when he heard a footstep in the garden, and as he rose to look out Beroviero entered. The master was wrapped in a long cloak that covered something which he was carrying. There was no lamp in the laboratory, but the three fierce eyes of the furnace shed a low red glare in different ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... roads near the lower slopes of the Pyrenees, some twenty miles north of Vittoria. He had one of his sandals off, and appeared to have just risen from a bed of leaves in the forest behind him. The dawn had broken, but it was still twilight. Presently he heard a footstep coming along the road, and at once applied himself to wrapping the bandages, which serve for stockings to the Spanish peasant, round his leg, looking eagerly from under his wide sombrero to see who was approaching. As the new-comer came in sight, the pedlar at once ceased his ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... abhorrence of anything that could in any way be contorted into Papist practices, Letty crossed herself. As she did so, a noise in the passage outside augmented her terror. She strained her ears painfully, and the sound developed into a footstep, soft, light, and surreptitious. It came gently towards the door; it paused outside, and Letty intuitively felt that it was listening. Her suspense was now so intolerable, that it was almost with a feeling of relief that she beheld the door slowly—very slowly—begin ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... some islands in the bay. We found here no fresh water, except by digging. There were various trees, and among these the tree producing dragon's-blood. We saw no fruit-trees, nor so much as the track of any animal, except one footstep of a beast, which seemed the size of a large mastiff. There were a few land-birds, but none bigger than a black-bird, and scarcely any sea-fowl; neither did the sea afford any fish, except tortoises and manatees,[201] both of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... be seen in hundreds in the meres of eastern Europe, sunning their backs on fallen logs, and diving into the water at the sound of a footstep, are eaten largely in continental capitals (as is their cousin the terrapin, Emys picta, in the Southern States). They may be bought at Paris, at fashionable restaurants. Thither they may have been sent from ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... when nature embellished the tint Of thy fields and thy mountains so fair, Did she ever intend that a tyrant should print The footstep of slavery there? ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... the head of the island by means of a skiff, and, ascending the high grounds on the shore of the mainland, proceeded in a northwesterly direction, through a tract of country excessively wild and desolate, where no trace of a human footstep was to be seen. Legrand led the way with decision; pausing only for an instant, here and there, to consult what appeared to be certain landmarks of his own contrivance upon a ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... in her habits or demeanour; she was never listless for a moment in her school; she was more gay and amusing than ever, when she gathered her little ones around her for a story: but still there was the unseen burden, grinding her heart slowly, till she felt as if every footstep was stained with a drop of her heart's blood.... Why not? It would ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... recalled to ourselves when presently, along the passage outside our door, there resounded a footstep which instinct told us belonged to the Henniker. Not much chance of feeling comfortable with that ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... moments had elapsed, she heard his well-known footstep on the rocky road, and involuntarily ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... hours seemed to Ann interminably long. Insensibly she was keyed up to a delicate pitch of expectancy, her ear nervously alert for the sound of a familiar footstep on the flagged path. And as the leaden moments crawled by, and the warm, sunshiny silence which enfolded the Cottage remained unbroken, a vague sense of apprehension crept into her heart. The glamour of those moments alone with Eliot at the gate, the pulsating ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... times. By peering through the crevices in the woodwork he also commanded a full view of the entrance, and was thus enabled to see all who entered the barn. Slowly the morning waned away and as yet no sign of the man for whom he was waiting. How many times he had fancied he heard the longed-for footstep, and peered anxiously out, only to be disappointed, it would be impossible to tell. At length, however, just as he was about to despair of success, he heard footsteps at the door, and peeping through the opening in the stall, he saw the figure ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... A footstep was heard upon the gravel. The dogs shut up in the cave scratched furiously, then barked loudly. Following the footsteps a bareheaded peasant appeared, his red shirt open, showing his sunburnt chest. He ran up to the open door, a letter in his hand. Seeing Enrica sitting on the ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... an odd, light footstep drawing near. In the course of his nightly patrols, he had long grown accustomed to the quaint effect with which the footfalls of a single person, while he is still a great way off, suddenly spring out distinct from the vast hum and clatter ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
... woman in a sad abstraction, standing with plates in her hand listening (I could swear) for a footstep ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... generate a stupidity that will rob you of joy and soul satisfaction. It will deaden the sensibilities of your inner nature and prevent your hearing God's footstep, and deprive you of many a blessing. Communion with the Lord and meditating upon his Word will elevate the soul to a plane all radiant with Heaven's light and love, and put a humility in your heart and a sweetness in every expression that will distinguish you from the coarse ways of the world. ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... starlight. The moon hadn't come up yet, and at first I could hardly see my hand before my face. I never saw such ugly shadows, and once I had to stop and get breath before I could make up my mind to pass a clump of old mulberry bushes. Once in a while I heard a crackle behind me like a footstep, but I didn't look back. I knew my only chance was to plod ahead, no matter how my heart thumped or my knees shook. I thought of everything I could to bolster me up—of dear old Aunt Pam and poor little Maggie. But the sound of the ...
— Harper's Young People, January 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... silence was interrupted by a clear, loud, ringing whistle, repeated at brief intervals and now and then exchanged for the call—"Leonillo! Leon!" A footstep approached, rapidly overtaken and passed by the rushing gallop of a large animal; and there broke on the scene a large tawny hound, prancing, bounding, and turning round joyfully, pawing the air, and wagging his tail, in welcome to the figure ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... must have a letter, Jane," she said the moment the door opened. "I felt it when I heard your footstep." ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... with his head thrown back, and would walk right down the steps on to the beach with his chin in air, drinking in the fresh breezes as if he could never have enough. I do not know why this excited such keen curiosity on my part, but I remember well that whenever I heard his footstep I flew out to see him coming, and when one day he spoke to me my joy ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... battle, With his cap and feather gay, Singing out his soldier-prattle, In a mockish manly way— With the boldest, bravest footstep, Treading firmly up and down, And his banner waving softly, O'er his ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... many feet above the road, which descended the hill between steep hedges. She heard M. Raoul's footstep as she reached it, and, peering over, saw him before he caught sight of her; indeed, he had almost passed ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... no strength of will would hold it back, a little moan. The front door below had opened, a heavy footstep sounded in the lower hall. She couldn't see, of course. But she knew. It was Rorke! She heard him coming ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... entrance she paused; her heart throbbed violently. Had she been observed? No.—There was not a cry, not a following footstep—every dog knew her; the soldiers who were commonly on guard here had quitted their posts and were sitting with their ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... chimney, and the wail of an old ballad reached his ears. Singing, the girl did not hear him coming, and through the open door he saw that the room had been tidied up and that she was cooking supper. The baby was playing on the floor. She turned at the creak of his footstep on the threshold and for the first ...
— In Happy Valley • John Fox
... an hour had elapsed, I heard his footstep, and soon perceived him advancing, bearing something bulky in his arms, while he called loudly upon me in a distressful tone. I hastened towards him, and upon my arrival he exclaimed, "Alas, alas! the beloved daughter of my uncle is no more, and ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... ear caught the soft fall of an almost noiseless footstep and he could distinguish a shadow a little darker than the surrounding shade, moving quickly along the wall. He rose to his feet and crossed the street, not believing, indeed, that the newcomer could be the man he wanted, but anxious to be fully satisfied that ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... reminded her of something mildly amusing, the smoothness of her face was ruffled by a smile, the stillness of her pose by a quick glance about her, but if she looked for anyone she did not find him. There were small sounds from the larch wood, little creakings and rustlings, but there was no human footstep, and the only visible movements were made by the breeze in the trees and in the grass, the flight of a bird and the distant ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... too frightened to cry. She had heard the angry shout of the tramp when Max had stumbled over him, and now, although he had not uttered a word since, nor had she heard a footstep, she trembled and constantly looked about her to learn if ...
— Princess Polly At Play • Amy Brooks
... girl interrupted, "hold my hand for a moment. That is the doctor coming. I hear his footstep. I ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... exactly!" returned Montreal, proudly. "Highborn and great as your magnates deem themselves, I would not, while the mountains can yield one free spot for my footstep, change my place in the world's many grades for theirs. To the brave, there is but one sort of plebeian, and that is the coward. But you, sage Rienzi," continued the Knight, in a gayer tone, "I have seen in more stirring scenes than the ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... friends; and before daylight I might be lying here with my throat slit. At the reflection I hastily bolted the door, and tried the fastenings of the window. All seemed secure, but the sound of a footstep in the passageway gave me a ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... work, when a footstep in the hold forced me to make use of it. A man passed by my place of concealment with a feeble and unsteady gait. I could not see his face, but had an opportunity of observing his general appearance. There was about it an evidence of great age and infirmity. His knees tottered beneath a load ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... in answer to my silent call, a footstep! My hands dropped into my lap. A man stood near. I did not look up; I knew who he was. We need hear but once the footfall of certain people and always after know instantly if they are near. A voice: ...
— The Inner Sisterhood - A Social Study in High Colors • Douglass Sherley et al.
... at sound of a footstep, and saw a young man approaching. He wore a coat like the Duke's, and in his hand he dangled a handkerchief. He bowed awkwardly, and, holding out the handkerchief, said to her "I beg your pardon, but I think you dropped this. I have just ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... that lies next to you, divinely ordained for you. What does the 119th Psalm say?—'Thy word is a lamp unto my feet.' We have no light promised us to show us our road a hundred miles away, but we have a light for the next footstep, and if we take that, we shall have a light for the one which is to follow. The inspiration of the Almighty could not make clearer to me the message I deliver to you. Forgive me—you are a minister, I know, and perhaps ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... can see to it that leaving this company shall be easy to thee: only thou must make up thy mind speedily, since the time draws so nigh, and when thou art come to Utterbol with all this rout, and the house full, and some one or other dogging each footstep of thine, fleeing will be another matter. Now thus it is: on that same second night, not only is the wood at hand to cover thee, but I shall be chief warder of the side of the camp where thou lodgest, so that I can put thee on the road: and if I were better worth, I would say, take me with ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... her sleep. As mademoiselle might have discovered from her breath that she had been drinking, she ate shallots and garlic, and concealed the fumes of liquor with their offensive odors. She even trained her intoxication, her drunken torpor to awake at her mistress's footstep, and remain awake ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... call on Prudence. The maid announced me, and I had to wait a few minutes in the drawing-room. At last Mme. Duvernoy appeared and asked me into her boudoir; as I seated myself I heard the drawing-room door open, a light footstep made the floor creak and the front door ...
— Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) • Alexandre Dumas, fils
... resolve, Sally was quite cool. She turned to greet her mother with entire self-possession. But her ears were strained, because overhead she heard a heavy footstep. ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... for she felt two hands laid unexpectedly upon her shoulders, and some one kissed her hair. She had not heard her mother's footstep, nor the opening and shutting of the door, nor anything but Brook ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford
... and stand in quiet village churches, nestling amongst trees where rooks are building; or in gaps of the chalk downs, where the village shelters from the wind; or in stately cathedrals, where the aisles echo to the footstep and the sound of the chimes comes down, with the memory of the centuries which have lived and died. Here the old artists set their handmark to live now they are gone, and we who see it today see, if our eye be single, ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... not hearing her. "It would not have done any good, for I have loved you from the first minute when I saw your blue drapery flutter in your flight from me. Some deeper sense than mortals have told me that every footstep was falling on my sleeping heart and waking it to life. You were not running away; in some divine sense you were coming toward me. Daphne, Daphne, I cannot let ...
— Daphne, An Autumn Pastoral • Margaret Pollock Sherwood
... be on the alert. Newton woke up: it was not yet daylight, and all was hushed. He turned round, intending to get up immediately; yet, yielding to the impulse of wearied nature, he again slumbered. Once he thought that he heard a footstep, roused himself, and listened; but all was quiet and still, except the light wave rippling on the sand. Again he was roused by a sort of grating noise; he listened, and all was quiet. A third time he was roused by a sound like the ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the wonder of the morning that when she turned, startled a little by a muffled footstep, she should see Roger with his hands outstretched in pleading and all his soul in ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed
... very much startled while I sat in my muse to hear a footstep coming. A steady, regular footstep; no light trip of children; and the hands were in the field, and this was not a step like any of them. My first thought was, the overseer's come to spy me out. The next minute I saw through the trees and ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... a slow and noiseless footstep Comes that messenger divine, Takes the vacant chair beside me, Lays her ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... Boy who now his words can freely sound, And with a steadier footstep prints the ground, Places in playfellows his chief delight, Quarrels, shakes hands, and cares not wrong or right: Sway'd by each fav'rite bauble's short-liv'd pow'r, In smiles, in tears, all humours ev'ry hour. Imberbus juvenis, tandem custode remoto, Gaudet equis ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace
... waiting above half an hour, but I confess that that half hour was not pleasantly spent. I feared that his temper would be tried in dressing, and that he would not be able to eat his breakfast in a happy state of mind. So that when I heard his heavy footstep advancing along the passage my heart did misgive me, and I felt ...
— The Relics of General Chasse • Anthony Trollope
... went sadly away, and Bunning, suddenly remembering that it was about his supper-time, prepared to retreat into the room which he and his wife shared, at the end of the stone hall. But as he entered the gates, a quick firm footstep sounded behind him, and he turned to see a smart, alert-looking young man approaching. Bunning recognized him as a stranger whom he had seen once or twice before, at intervals, in company with Wallingford. For the second time ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... until the last footstep had died away in the distance. Then he went up to his room and stared out of the window. Thunder! Why couldn't Tim stick to his patrol and play fair, and not spoil all ...
— Don Strong, Patrol Leader • William Heyliger
... insistent to my door, Calling my name; Nor voice nor footstep have I heard before, Yet clear the calling sounds and o'er and o'er— It seems the sunlight burns along the floor With ...
— Fires of Driftwood • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... or living Tell! Such virtue had that patriot breathed, So to the soil his soul bequeathed, That wheresoe'er his arrows flew Heroes in his own likeness grew, And warriors sprang from every sod Which his awakening footstep trod. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... for it was she, laughed; so absorbed had he been, he had not heard her light footstep on the ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... he had found between the leaves of his Virgil. Not there, surely! No woman would have clung against that steep, rough parapet to gather an idle blossom. And yet the master looked round everywhere, and even up the side of that rock, to see if there were no signs of a woman's footstep. He peered about curiously, as if his eye might fall on some of those fragments of dress which women leave after them, whenever they run against each other or against anything else,—in crowded ballrooms, in the ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... all this was brought to an end. At about mid-day Lord Chetwynde returned. Hilda heard his footstep and his voice. A great joy darted through her, and her first impulse was to fling herself upon him, and weep tears of happiness upon his breast. But that was a thing which was denied her—a privilege which might never be hers. After the first wild impulse and the first rush ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... open till he heard her footstep just outside. She came in without a word, not even looking at him. And he, too, said not a word till he had closed the door, and made sure of her. Then they turned to each other. Her breast was heaving a little, under her thin frock, but she was calmer than he, with that wonderful ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... never ceasing the low cry. After a time, I tried in the dark both to get out, and to go back, but I could do neither until some streaks of day strayed in and showed me where to lay my hands. During the whole interval, whenever I went to the bottom of the staircase, I heard her footstep, saw her light pass above, and heard her ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... clear again, and we rambled in the woods until the sun was nearly down, and so were late about supper. We were just taking our seats at the table when we heard a footstep on the front porch. Instantly the same thought came into ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton
... and it was with a pleasant sense of comfort that I changed stockings, and warmed myself at the ruddy grate, while the storm seemed to increase without. After waiting about an hour for tea, I heard the lassie's heavy footstep on the stairs; a knock—the door opens—now for the tray and the steaming tea-pot, and happy vision of bread, oatcake and Scotch scones! Alas! what a falling-off was there from this delicious expectation! ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... to her throat. There was some one in the room. The soft and surreptitious footstep of a person making his way cautiously to the door was unmistakable. Netty tried to speak—to ask who was there. But her voice failed. She had read of such a failure in books, but it had never been her lot to try to speak and to find herself dumb ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... boy. You perceive I have banished those ignoble fears of proctors. I no longer shiver when I hear a footstep on ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... dawn is showing, And the barn-yard cock is crowing, And the horned moon pales away From a dream of him awaking, Every sound my heart is making Seems a footstep of his taking; Then I hush the thought, and say, 'Nay, nay, he's away!' Ah! my heart, my heart is breaking For the dear ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... bulwark, built in sterile places, on the summits of mountains, through the abyss of ravines—bear witness to the gigantic iron will, and the unlimited power, of the ancient kings. Neither time, nor earthquake, nor man, transitory man, nor the footstep of thousands of years, have entirely destroyed, entirely trodden down, the remains of immemorial antiquity. These places awake in me solemn and sacred thoughts. I wandered over the traces of Peter the Great; I pictured him the founder, the reformer, of a young state—building it on these ruins ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... Every footstep of Laura's lover has been anxiously traced and recorded. The house in which he lodged is shown in Venice. The inhabitants of Arezzo, in order to decide the ancient controversy between their city and the neighbouring Ancisa, where Petrarch was carried when seven months old, and remained until his ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... vestige, relic, remains; scar, cicatrix; footstep, footmark^, footprint; pug; track mark, wake, trail, scent, piste^. monument, hatchment^, slab, tablet, trophy, achievement; obelisk, pillar, column, monolith; memorial; memento &c (memory) 505; testimonial, medal; commemoration &c ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... tears had time to fall, there was a heavy footstep behind her and Mary Jane whirled around to see—the kindly face of Tom the ...
— Mary Jane's City Home • Clara Ingram Judson
... within the orchard, while waiting here for your return," said the taller officer; "it was like the footstep of a man treading cautiously over rotten leaves and branches. How do you account ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... Gay Lady came home. We had not expected her until evening, and when we heard a light footstep approaching through the hall as we sat at breakfast, we looked at one another in dumb astonishment and disbelief. But the next instant she stood smiling at ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... my life is parted, My footstep from the moss which drew Its fairy circle round: anew The garden ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... that it were so! But hear me on, and restrain your rage! There I lay for twenty hours, and not a soul cared for my misery. No human footstep treads this solitary wild, for 'tis commonly believed that the ghosts of my ancestors drag clanking chains through these ruins, and chant their funeral dirge at the hour of midnight. At last I heard the door ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... back at the sound of the first footstep, and seemed to hesitate, with a look of uneasiness upon her face. Instantly Claire spoke the thought that had been in her mind when she rang the bell: "Madame, your house will soon be surrounded by strangers. Secure such valuables as are at hand and come with me across to my home. There you ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... thoughts crossed her mind, in a sort of mental soliloquy, a stone rolled from a path above her, and fell over the rock on which the seat was placed. A footstep was then heard, and the girl's heart beat quick with apprehension. Still she conceived it safest to remain perfectly quiet. She scarce breathed in her anxiety to be motionless. Then it occurred to her, that some one beside herself ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... virtue. Not that those times could excite in Tacitus any real personal fear, for they were past, and he could now think what he pleased, and speak what he thought (Hist. i. 1). Still he shudders at the recollection of those cruelties; and he treads with trembling footstep, as it were, even the path lately obstructed by them. He looks about him to see whether, even now, he may safely utter his voice, and he timidly asks pardon for venturing to break the ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... mountain the sound of a hammer is as rich as a symphony. It is like the little word of a great man, great in its great relations. When the spirit is waked and the man within the man is listening to it, the sound of a hoof on a lonely road in the great woods is the footstep of cities to him coming through the trees, and the low, chocking sound of a cartwheel in the still and radiant valley throngs his being like an opera. All sights and echoes and thoughts and feelings revel in it. It is music for ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... concerned with a single theme—the never-dying man. There are two complete versions of Septimius, of about equal length, and many passages in the two are identical. There is a short sketch on somewhat different lines, called (by the editor) The Bloody Footstep; and there is still another, and a much more elaborate attempt to embody the idea in the volume which I have entitled Doctor Grimshawe's Secret. All these, in short, are studies of one subject, and they were all unsatisfactory to the author. The true vein of which he had been in search was ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... draught of life. As I passed along the broad aisle of the village street, arched by the venerable trees of an older generation, I seemed to be in dreamland; no sound broke the repose of midday, no footstep echoed far or near; the cattle stood motionless in the fields beneath the sheltering branches. I turned into the dusty country road, and saw the vision of the great encircling hills, remote, shadowless, and dreamlike, against the white August sky. I sauntered slowly ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... at last he heard a footstep outside; he wondered if it was the much-desired breakfast, or a summons before Arabi's tribunal. The steps came nearer, and a key was placed in the lock of his door. A moment later a warder entered with some bread ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... woman in russet departed; and the damsel, treading so softly that her footstep made not the slightest noise, moved about the room in silent thought, now turning to gaze on the wounded squire, now looking from the casement. Walter, now fully awake, began to experience a strong feeling of curiosity; and turning his head directed ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar
... express to you what were my feelings on treading the shore which had once been animated by the bustle of departure, and whose sands had been printed by the last footstep of Columbus. The solemn and sublime nature of the event that had followed, together with the fate and fortunes of those concerned in it, filled the mind with vague yet melancholy ideas. It was like viewing the ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... myself, and Benton, who was now quite well again for the time. I was standing by the dining-room window, arranging some ferns in a hanging basket, and Benton was amusing himself with toys the boarders were always giving him. I heard a footstep, and turned my head slightly to see who it was. Mr. Seabrook stood in the door, regarding us with a ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... sea-edge, and in them grew beautiful palms and other trees, with fruitful shrubs and flowers. Here, when they had roamed a while, Miriam and Nehushta sat down upon the fallen column of some old temple and rested. Suddenly they heard a footstep, and Miriam looked up to see before her a Roman officer, clad in a cloak that showed signs of sea-travel, and, guiding him, ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... Very confused footsteps, you will please to observe—purposely confused, I should say. Ah, poor soul, she understands the detective virtues of sand as well as I do! But hasn't she been in rather too great a hurry to tread out the marks thoroughly? I think she has. Here's one footstep going FROM Cobb's Hole; and here is another going back to it. Isn't that the toe of her shoe pointing straight to the water's edge? And don't I see two heel-marks further down the beach, close at the water's edge also? I don't want to ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... "Your footstep awakened me, Harry, and if there is a message, I am here to receive it. But I ask you in the name of mercy to be quick. I was never before so much overpowered that I could not hold up my head ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... shown into the drawing-room—a large double chamber beautifully furnished and possessing an elegantly painted ceiling—while the butler went in search of his mistress. A few moments later I heard a light footstep outside, a hand was placed upon the handle of the door, and before I could have counted ten, Phyllis—my Phyllis!—was in the room and in my arms! Over the next five minutes, gentle reader, we will draw a curtain with your kind permission. If you have ever met your sweetheart after an absence of ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... stairs; but when he had guests he considered it his duty to toil up after them, in patent shoes and dining costume, and sit amongst them until music or card games were on the way, when he would retire as unobtrusively as his size and heavy footstep permitted. It was the custom to pretend not to see or hear him go, and it would have annoyed him exceedingly had anyone ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... which she feared. She was now blind. Relating this, it may seem though we were about to picture a scene of grief and desolation: but not so. A misfortune that steals on year by year, slowly, inevitably, often comes with so light a footstep that we scarcely hear it. In this manner had come Mrs. Rothesay's blindness. Her sight faded so gradually, that its deprivation caused no despondency; and the more helpless she grew, the closer she was clasped by those supporting arms of filial love, which softened ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... a; the collar is elongated upwards in a cuplike form, c, the better to hold the oil, and keep it from flying; d is the wharf, which has attached to it the sleeve, m, and which is situated loosely in the space between the spindle and the footstep, e. Above the wharf the spindle is hexagonal in shape, and to this part is attached the friction plate, a. Between the latter and the upper surface of the wharf a cloth or felt washer is inserted, to act as a brake. The footstep, e, is filled with oil, in which run ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... slowly turn'd and slowly clomb The last hard footstep of that iron crag; Thence mark'd the black hull moving yet, and cried, "He passes to be King among the dead, And after healing of his grievous wound He comes again; but—if he come no more— O me, be yon dark Queens in yon black boat, Who shriek'd and wail'd, the three whereat ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... whole party were gathered in the keeping-room and in the door-way; Elizabeth and Mrs. Landholm with their respective books and work, the others, children and all, rather on the expecting order and not doing much of any thing; when a quick springy footstep came round the house corner. Not Winthrop's, they all knew; his step was slower and more firm; and Winthrop's features were very little like the round good-humoured handsome face which presented itself ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... was thus displaying her finery for the benefit of her paralytic father, she heard the loud bang of the cottage door. Someone had entered, someone with a heavy footstep which resounded through the thin partition between the ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... in the house, or its cries were not attended to, it would be quiet after a little while; but the moment it heard a footstep would begin again, harder than ever. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... befell; The tale was old in the time of my father, To whom it was told by my mother's mother. My brother hears—'tis well— Nor may he doubt my speech; The red man's mind receives a tale As snow the print of a mocassin; But, when he hath it once, It abides like a footstep chisell'd in rock, The hard and flinty rock. The pale man writes his tales Upon a loose and fluttering leaf, Then gives it to the winds that sweep Over the ocean of the mind; The red man his on the evergreen ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... lawyer left him, and then turned back into the house. He found the cabinet open. In the turmoil of emotion he had forgotten to close it. He returned to it, and shuffled with the papers to put them back in their place. At that moment the door opened, and a heavy footstep fell on the floor. Hugh glanced up startled. It was Paul. His face was plowed deep with lines of pain. But the cloud of sorrow that it wore was not so black as the cloud of anger when he saw what his brother was ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... pushed back, and John's footstep upon the floor. He opened the door, and stood looking at her with strange, ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... the British heart were lost The terrors of the charging host; For not an eye the storm that viewed Changed its proud glance of fortitude, Nor was one forward footstep stayed, As dropped the dying and the dead. Fast as their ranks the thunders tear, Fast they renewed each serried square; And on the wounded and the slain Closed their diminished files again, Till from their line scarce spears'-lengths three, Emerging ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott
... bled for my country—I helped whip the British and Indians. I have slept on the field of battle, with no other covering than the canopy of heaven. I have walked over frozen ground, till every footstep ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... "variety is the spice of life," so she said, Laura had just followed some ice cream with a sour pickle, when a footstep neared the door and a stern voice commanded ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... began, were full of sorrow; the beasts of the fields crouched and moaned in their desolation; the great trees, that had put on their robes of green at Balder's command, sighed as the wind wailed through them; and the sweet flowers, that waited for Balder's footstep and sprang up in all the fields to greet him, hung their frail blossoms and wept bitterly for the love and the warmth and the light that had gone out. Throughout the whole earth there was nothing but weeping, and the sound of it was like the wailing of those storms in autumn that weep for ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... look and have the clear proof that it was some one else. He stood leaning on a plank he had taken hold of, listening to sounds which his imagination interpreted for him so pleasantly that the keen strong face became suffused with a timid tenderness. The light footstep moved about the kitchen, followed by the sound of the sweeping brush, hardly making so much noise as the lightest breeze that chases the autumn leaves along the dusty path; and Adam's imagination saw a dimpled face, with dark bright eyes and roguish smiles looking ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... to ply his brushes. He worked for some time smoothly and rapidly, with an agreeable sense of the absence of obstacles. It seemed almost an interruption when, in the silent air, he heard a distant bell in the town strike noon. Shortly after this, there was another interruption. The sound of a soft footstep caused him to look up; whereupon he saw a young woman standing there and bending her eyes upon the graceful artist. A second glance assured him that she was that nice girl whom he had seen going into the other inn with her mother, and suggested that she had just ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... candle, lit it, and clearing away a part of the shavings stood it up on the floor. He then brought a prized, battered, and coverless volume from a hidden recess in the rafters, and lying down with the buffalo robe over him, and his cap in his hand ready to extinguish the light at the first footstep of a trespasser, gave himself up—as he had given himself up, I fear, many other times—to the enchantment of ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... rustle of curtains, a heavy footstep, and Lempriere of Rozel staggered into the room. De la Foret ran to help him, and throwing an arm around him, almost carried him towards the couch. Lempriere, however, slipped from De la Foret's grasp to his knees on ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... act independently for themselves. These attempts belong to history, and it is in that relation that they become philosophically so impressive. Generations through an infinite series are contemplated by us as silently awaiting the turning of a sentinel round a corner, or the casual echo of a footstep. Dynasties have trepidated on the chances of a sudden cry from an infant carried in a basket; and the safety of empires has been suspended, like the descent of an avalanche, upon the moment earlier or the moment later ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... cool, though she was undisturbed, though her body rested in absolute repose, Judith did not sleep for a long time. She lay and listened to the quietness. There was mystery in it. The footstep of a belated passer-by in the street woke strange echoes; a voice heard in the distance in a riotous shout suggested weird things. And as she lay and listened, it was as if she were not only listening but waiting for something. She did ...
— In the Closed Room • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... is a prodigiously high mountain called the Peak of Adam, as some have conceived that our first parents lived there, and that the print of a foot, still to be seen on a rock on its summit, is his. The natives call this Amala Saripadi, or the mountain of the footstep. Some springs running down this mountain form a pool at the bottom, in which pilgrims wash themselves, believing that it purifies them from sin. The rock or stone on the top resembles a tomb-stone, and the print of the foot seems not artificial, but as ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... girls dashed back over the sands and into the dark tunnel, and hurried as fast as they could up the underground passage, expecting every moment to hear a footstep behind them and a voice demanding to know what they were doing trespassing upon the premises. At the top of the tunnel a horrible surprise awaited them. The door through which they had entered was shut and bolted. At first they could hardly believe their ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... anxious face that quickened his already feverish pulse, a look that, remained in his heart long after he closed his eyes. Sometimes he felt her hand on his forehead, and did not open his eyes for fear she world take it away. He watched for her coming to his chamber; he could distinguish her light footstep from all others. If this is what is meant by women practicing medicine, thought Philip to himself, ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 5. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... of his footstep on the gravel Sophia snatched the book from Tristram and looked desperately round. It was too late. Her father was glaring down upon them both, with his hands behind him and his ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... profoundly dark. The darkness of the night was a darkness that could be felt, for the merciless blizzard of the northern latitudes was raging at its full height. The snow-fog had risen and all sign of trail or footstep was swept from the icy carpet. It was a cruel night, and surely one fit for ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... they made were enough to cause a person to die of laughter. Not one of them had ever gained the top of the mountain; and when they saw Florina there, they all burst into angry outcries, "How has this woman got up the hill? If she descends upon our mirror her first footstep will crack it ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... heard a stealthy footstep approaching, and next moment a low voice spoke which I recognized as that ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... journey, his horses were so much jaded in traversing a steep mountain, that he was induced to turn them loose to graze during the night. The place was lonely; the path was rugged; there was not the sign of an Indian in the neighborhood; not a blade of grass that had been turned by a footstep. But who can calculate on security in the midst of the Indian country, where the foe lurks in silence and secrecy, and seems to come and go on the wings of the wind? The horses had scarce been turned loose, ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... yellow gleam on the bluish sheen of the flagstones. Passing by, one heard a deep murmur of voices inside—nothing more. How quiet everything was at the end of the quays on the last night on which I went out for a service cruise as a guest of the Marseilles pilots! Not a footstep, except my own, not a sigh, not a whispering echo of the usual revelry going on in the narrow, unspeakable lanes of the Old Town reached my ear—and suddenly, with a terrific jingling rattle of iron and glass, the omnibus ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... grows in profusion. The antidote survives the bane. Soon the coarser plantain, the "white man's footstep," shall take its place. ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... back the evening, and become prodigal of sweetness;—within some rustic temple, clustered with woodbine, where the robin or the tiny wren hath formed a nest of matchless skill and neat propriety, and trembles not at the approaching footstep, while the soft breath of heaven plays with those blossoms of the sun—the painted butterflies—that fold their wings and fain would sleep till morning. There let her come, and with her bring more blessed children of ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... at the sky, a footstep approached and some one stood over him. He turned his eyes painfully to look and beheld the dark, bearded visage of George Dunkin, the bo's'n, who scowled angrily and kicked him in the ribs with a heavy toe. "Get up, ye young lubber!" roared the man and swore fiercely ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... Blushing and trembling, she saw the sweet twilight stealing over the endless forests, and now the star—the bright star of her hope, came creeping, like a timid fawn, into the purple heavens. She heard a footstep, she turned—"To-ke-ah," trembled on her lips. But it was not To-ke-ah. It was Os-ko-ne-an-tah, her father, decked in all his finest splendor, to give away the bride. To-ke-ah she knew had departed in the afternoon upon a neighboring trail for a brighter eagle plume ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... thickly covered from five to six inches deep, with an impalpable dust, so fine that the lightest footstep, or breath of air, sent it in clouds above our heads. So dense was it, that it completely enveloped our whole party, making it impossible for us to distinguish one another, at a distance even of three ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... before the telephone renewed its irritating clamor, like a fretful child which yelled whenever it heard his footstep. He responded to its fretfulness in very much the same mood, seizing hold of the receiver as though he ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... time to be an Indian. Within this span of life Pretty Voice Eagle has run with swift feet the warpath, and held with strong hand the battle spear. Bearing well his weight of years and his heavier burden of struggle, he moves erect and with lithe footstep. He became stormy and vociferous as he told his story of broken treaties, how the Indian had been wronged by the white man, and how his life had been scarred by the storms of life. Then the calm of old age came over him and ...
— The Vanishing Race • Dr. Joseph Kossuth Dixon
... adjoining, which was shared during the summer between his own family and that of Professor Felton, was the gift of his father-in-law, Mr. Cary. So carefully were his wishes considered that the microscope table stood on a flat rock sunk in the earth and detached from the floor, in order that no footstep or accidental jarring of door or window in other parts of the building might disturb him ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... were interrupted by finding his wife at his side. She had entered so quietly that he had not heard her footstep, and he gave a gentle start when he felt ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... wanderer I descried on the summit of Mount Washington, into a lover and deliverer, whose 'allegiance and fast fealty' had bound him to my trail. But, alas! there is no leisure in this material age for fancy-weaving; and all our way was as bare of tradition or fable as if no human footstep had impressed it, till we came to a brawling stream near Davis's, crossing the way, which we were told was called 'Nancy's Brook.' We heard various renderings of the origin of the name, but all ended in one source—man's ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... and youth, and how pluckily Christopher had always made the best of things, and had never confessed—even to her—what a dreary lot was his. Then he came downstairs; and as she heard his familiar footstep crossing the hall her heart beat faster than ever, and there was a mist before her eyes; but when he entered the room and shook hands, first with Miss Farringdon and then with her, she was quite surprised to see that he looked very much as he always looked, ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... heard a footstep behind her, and, starting quickly, turned to find his lordship's mysterious visitor standing facing her with a look of severe inquiry ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... to-night. I was really a-dreadin' to set here by myself," and for some minutes nobody spoke and the needles clicked faster than ever. Suddenly there was a strange sound outside the door, and they stared at each other in terror and held their breath, but nobody stirred. This was no familiar footstep; presently they heard a strange little cry, and still they feared to look, or to know what was waiting outside. Then Mrs. Thacher took a candle in her hand, and, still hesitating, asked once, "Who is there?" and, hearing no answer, slowly opened ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... the horizon when I heard a soft footstep on the raft behind me, and a light hand was laid upon my shoulder. "Forgive ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... she could not imagine what had become of him. All sorts of horrible fancies passed through her mind, and she dreaded she knew not what. At last they heard a footstep inside the house, and ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... in silence and alone for two heavy hours. She heard bell after bell rung, which summoned the monks to their prayers or to their meals. And many a passing footstep made her cheeks flush and her pulse quicken, as she said to herself, "Now, I shall hear about my son;" and she repeated over to herself all the questions that she would ask and the messages she would send, in case the stranger really knew her Hans; when ...
— The Young Emigrants; Madelaine Tube; The Boy and the Book; and - Crystal Palace • Susan Anne Livingston Ridley Sedgwick
... as the old man, taking a step or two down the room as far as the end of the table, stood there facing the door. Then there fell on my ears a voice and the ring of a footstep in the courtyard without. Next moment, the door swung open and ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... with the keenest relief that, half an hour later, Anthony heard her footstep again in the red-tiled hall outside. The servants were gone upstairs by now, and the house was quiet. She came in, and sat by him again and took ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... was a footstep light and rapid, coming along the gravel-walk. It was on the stoop—in the room—and before her stood a young man, elegant, nay almost superb in his type of manliness, and endowed with that indescribable air of fashion which ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... passing into the forepart of the ship. With every moment his impatience grew. He looked at his watch sometimes half a dozen times in ten minutes, changed his position continually, started violently whenever he heard an unexpected footstep behind him. Finally he broke a promise he had made to himself. He bought newspapers, took them into a sheltered corner, and tore them open. Column by column he searched them through feverishly, running his ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... did not remark a footstep, sounding harsh with gravel grinding the wood of the verandah, or a grim face at the ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... the room overhead: Susanna's death chamber. Marian gave a great start, and understood what Eliza meant by having "the life put across in her." She listened, painfully conscious of the beats of her heart. The noise came again: a footstep, or a chair pushed back, or—she was not certain what. Could Mrs. Myers be watching at the bedside? It was not unlikely. Could Susanna be recovering—finding herself laid out for dead, and making a struggle ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... ground there was at other times indistinct under brambles and withered fern. The squire left the window for his arm-chair by the fire; but if presently, as often happens when frost quickly follows a snow-storm, the sun shone out and a beam fell on the wall, he would get up and look out. Every footstep in the snow contained a shadow cast by the side, and the dazzling white above and the dark within produced a blue tint. Yonder by the limes the rabbits ventured out for a stray bunch of grass not quite covered by the drift, tired, no doubt, of the bitter bark ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... old lady, who was stone-blind, but easily knew Vesta's footstep. "William thought you would not go to evening service on account of Mr. Milburn's illness, so I came around to sit till church was over, when he will take me home. But what is that I hear in ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... by Lyddy's kind hands, hearing her sweet voice and her soft footstep, saw her as God sees, knowing the best; forgiving the worst, like God, and forgetting it, still more like God, ...
— A Village Stradivarius • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... knew he was being followed, and they would naturally suppose that this stop for signalling was part of a pre-arranged plan. He now dropped to the ground, picked up his can and took two or three quick steps. Then he stopped abruptly and was sure that he heard a footstep behind him. He grinned to himself, and just then the hoot of an owl sounded. ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Trail • George Durston
... shone the harbour and the streets of Messina, and many a gleaming point along the island coast, strand-touching or high above, signalled the homes of men. Calm, warm, and clear, this first night at Reggio; I could not turn away from the siren-voice of the waves; hearing scarce a footstep but my own, I paced hither and thither by the sea-wall, ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing
... a footstep and a soft voice at his elbow. The passerby accosted him smiling, and he recognized ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... the storm, and the rain had ceased; the sky was clear and full of stars; the moon, on its decline, shone with a mild lustre, and threw a melancholy light over that deserted, silent house, whose threshold for so many years no human footstep had crossed. ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... which Paulus had given him, but it was long since empty, and neither Paulus nor Hermas had come back. He listened anxiously to the sounds in the distance, and fancied at first that he heard the Alexandrian's footstep, and then that he heard loud words and suppressed groans coming from his cave. Stephanus tried to call out, but he himself could hardly hear the feeble sound, which, with his wounded breast and parched mouth, he succeeded in uttering. Then he fain would have prayed, but ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... every trifling noise Scatters my spirits, and announces to me The footstep of some messenger of evil. And you can tell me, sister, what the event is? Will he agree to do the Emperor's pleasure, And send the horse-regiments to the Cardinal? Tell me, has he dismiss'd Von Questenberg With ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... reposed on the cuff of the jacket. At this moment a low knock was heard at the street-door. The worthy pair saw the girl shrink back, with a kind of tremulous movement; presently there came the sound of a footstep below, the creak of a hinge on the ground-floor, ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the cultured, the thoughtful class; but they were wise men as well in the sense in which we use wisdom to-day. That is, they looked beyond earthly conditions and saw Divinity where the casual glance does not see it. How many a seamed, rugged face, how many a burden-bent back, how many a faltering footstep, how many a knotted, calloused hand is perhaps more nearly in the image of God than the fairer face, the ...
— A Little Book for Christmas • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... tremulously convulsed—are these proper to one going to a bridal, and that her own? Where is her anticipated joy? It is not in that despairing vacancy of face—not in that feeble, faltering, almost fainting footstep—not, certainly, in any thing that we behold about the maiden, unless we seek it in the rich and flaming jewels with which she is decorated and almost laden down; and these no more declare for her emotions than the roses which encircle the neck of the white lamb, as it is led to ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... in vain, that some of their comrades would return, and listened eagerly to every sound in the forest; but no call, or footstep, met their ears. They had no means of lighting a fire, the first having been lit by the mate who—being a smoker—had had a small tin box of matches in his pocket. This had fitted closely, and kept out ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty
... sadly in the temple, absorbed in painful meditation, and pondering how he might best relieve himself of his sacred functions, he was startled by the now unwonted sound of a footstep, and, looking up, espied an ancient woman. Her appearance was rather venerable than prepossessing. He recognised her as one of the inferior ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... knocks the third time, and the last His summons now they hear, Within, a footstep, hurrying fast, Is heard approaching near. The bolt is drawn, the clanking chain Falls to the floor of stone; And Gilbert to his heart will strain His ...
— Poems • (AKA Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte) Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
... their morning meal with keener appetites than they had known for some months past. Everything in the cell presented its usual appearance, and the twain were hastily finishing their meal when the tramp of feet was heard in the passage. No quiet, stealthy footstep this time, but a clatter of several approaching men which there was no mistaking. Roger and Harry looked at one another, dismay written all over their countenances. What was to happen now? Had the hour for their execution been advanced again, and ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... of anxious waiting, a welcome footstep was heard and the happy children ran to open the door. Their father came in, shaking the snow from his rough coat. He looked very ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy
... bowers. Within this room, how many a time I've listened to a story, And heard grandfather sing his rhyme 'Bout Continental glory! And oft I'd shoulder his old staff, And march as proud as any, Till the old gentleman would laugh, And bless me with a penny. Hark! 't is a footstep that I hear; A stranger is approaching; I must away-were I found here I should be thought encroaching. One last, last look-my old, old home! One memory more of childhood! I'll not forget, where'er I roam, This homestead ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... to me, mother! why linger away From thy poor little blind boy, the long weary day! I mark every footstep, I list to each tone, And wonder my mother should leave me alone! There are voices of sorrow, and voices of glee, But there's no one to joy or to sorrow with me; For each hath of pleasure and trouble his share, And none for the poor little blind ...
— The Anti-Slavery Harp • Various
... the company commander himself, watching every footstep in order not to step on any loose stone that might ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock
... well aware. To have been ignorant of it would have argued him blind and imbecile. But he showed no resentment. With eyes grave and untroubled, he steadily regarded his escort; but not by the hastening of a footstep or the acceleration of a gesture did he admit that by his audience he was either distressed or embarrassed. That was the situation on the morning when the Treaty of London was to be signed ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... elaborately embroidered ottoman. She wore a dress of rich black brocade, made very full in the skirt, and sleeves after an earlier fashion, and her beautiful snow-white hair was piled over a high cushion and ornamented by a cap of fine thread lace. In her face, which she turned at the first footstep with a pitiable, blind look, there were the faint traces of a proud, though almost extinguished, beauty—traces which were visible in the impetuous flash of her sightless eyes, in the noble arch of her brows, and in the transparent quality of her now ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... race by the Mohammedans were confined within the borders of Arabia. The Prophet was content with enforcing uniformity of worship within the sacred peninsula which gave him birth. The holy cities of Medina and Mecca were not to be profaned by the unclean footstep of the unbeliever. His immediate successors rose from stern fanatics to ambitious conquerors. Whoever would submit to the dominion of the caliph might easily evade the recognition of the Prophet's title. The Jews had reason to rejoice ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... letter over again, to make sure that all the principal expressions were indistinct, and that the composition generally, except the postscript, resembled a Delphic oracle, when there was a hasty footstep, and a tap at her door, ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... by the split shutter until past midnight. Then she laid down on the bed, and Gretchen watched, and one listened while the other slept, by turns, during the night. But no footstep was heard. The midsummer sun blazed over the pines in the early morning; birds sang gayly in the dewy air, and Gretchen prepared the morning meal as usual, then made her way to ...
— The Log School-House on the Columbia • Hezekiah Butterworth
... through the hall, and he kept whispering to me, "This is just like—it's just like burglary. Girls are reckless. We'd better look out. Do you hear a footstep upstairs? I hear a bell ringing. I bet he's calling up the ...
— Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... was made mainly in silence. "Oh, the splendid stillness!" the woman kept saying in her heart. "Oh, the splendid moonlight, the marvellous radiance!" Everywhere a heavenly serenity—not a footstep, not a bell, not a cry, not a cracking tree—nothing but vivid light, white snow dappled and lined with shadows, and trees etched against a starlit sky. Unutterable splendor of light and sheen and shadow. Wide wastes of snow so white the stumps stood like columns of charcoal. A night of Nature's ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... round the large, blazing fire, tell ghost stories with such thrilling earnestness that often the ghastly phantoms seemed to merge almost into reality, and they found themselves starting at a falling cinder or the sound of a footstep in the passage outside. On those occasions the window-blind was usually drawn up to the top, that the pale, glimmering moonlight might stream in; and as the soft silvery beams stole silently into the room and laid their tremulous light on the young forms and awestruck faces, the flames ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... that led to the square when she heard a quick footstep behind her, and was presently overtaken by ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... adore the relics of a saint whose life and doctrine are unknown to them; and the religion of thousands of Buddhists lies more in veneration of the Holy Tooth or some such object, or the vessel that contains it, or the Holy Bowl, or the fossil footstep, or the Holy Tree which Buddha planted, than in the thorough knowledge and faithful practice of his high teaching. Petrarch's house in Arqua; Tasso's supposed prison in Ferrara; Shakespeare's house in Stratford, with his chair; Goethe's house in Weimar, ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer
... in London, where she brought a breath of the wild; not because she dressed in Indian costume, but because its atmosphere was round her. The feeling of the wild looked out of her eyes, stirred in her gesture, moved in her footstep. I am glad to have known this rare creature who had the courage to be glad of her origin, without defiance, but with an unchanging, if unspoken, insistence. Her native land and the Empire should be glad of her for what she was and for what she ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... of storms afeard, she shared my life's distress, A singing Miriam, alway, in God's poor wilderness; The wretched at her footstep smiled, the frivolous were still; A bright path marked her pilgrimage, from ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... attracted our attention. It was a child singing a merry, lightsome air; there was no other sound. We had traversed London from Hyde Park even to where we now were in the Minories, and had met no person, heard no voice nor footstep. The singing was interrupted by laughing and talking; never was merry ditty so sadly timed, never laughter more akin to tears. The door of the house from which these sounds proceeded was open, the upper ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... solitude, if not from some still dearer motive. He had not waited long, ere he heard a heavy foot over his head, and a man entered the summer-house. He was yet debating whether to abandon all hopes of seeing Mildred, when his acute ear caught her light and well-known footstep, as she ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... in the streets of people speeding away to get shelter before the storm broke; the wonderful corner for echoes resounded with the echoes of footsteps coming and going, yet not a footstep was there. ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... though, not to tremble at the sound of a footstep at the door, and that's exactly what we sit here doing day after day. The joy of the hoped-for client is driven away by the fear of the collector." He was silent for a moment, and then he said: "I don't feel that there's any advantage in being ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... suddenly she heard the fall of a footstep on the soft turf behind her, and, turning, looked into the face of a man whose eyes were ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper
... fire. As the warmth increased, she opened the rear door of the house to dispel the musty atmosphere. The March wind blew strong and clear through the lonely rooms, stirring the dust before it and swaying the cobwebs. Suddenly, Miss Evelina heard a footstep outside and instinctively drew ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... plaintive voice, "if we only can learn where he is. Hush, there is a footstep! Ah, it is not my poor fellow's ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... Mrs. Brewster's light footstep sounded in the hall. She wore an all-enveloping gingham apron. "How did you like your surprise, father?" She came over to him and kissed the top of his head. "I'm getting dinner so that Gussie can go ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... of a footstep on the grass, and her eyes seized on a shadow that grew from dusky uncertainty to a small, bent shape. She waited, suffocated with heartbeats, then made a ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... the darkness and thought of the snakes that might bite him, and the dreadful things that might attack him, and the dead that might arise out of their graves if he slept out in the field all night. But more than an hour passed and no footstep approached. ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... of my mouth when I heard a stealthy footstep approaching. I promptly put the big nugget down and sat on it, and uncommonly hard it was. As I did so I saw a lean dark face poked over the edge of the claim and a pair of beady eyes searching us out. I knew the face, it belonged to a ...
— A Tale of Three Lions • H. Rider Haggard
... but in vain, that some of their comrades would return, and listened eagerly to every sound in the forest; but no call, or footstep, met their ears. They had no means of lighting a fire, the first having been lit by the mate who—being a smoker—had had a small tin box of matches in his pocket. This had fitted closely, ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty
... wore on, she began to glance anxiously towards the door, straining her ears for a familiar footstep in the outer shop. As has been said, the Count sometimes looked in on Wednesdays, when his calculations had convinced him that his friends, not having arrived by one train, could not be expected for several hours. ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... lad sat up wide awake. He knew that he had heard something. That something was a stealthy footstep. The night was graying by this time, so that objects might be made out dimly. Tad stood up, swinging his rifle into position for quick use. For some moments he heard nothing further, then out of the bushes crept a ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Grand Canyon - The Mystery of Bright Angel Gulch • Frank Gee Patchin
... with regret for company. Mrs. Todd had hardly spoken all day except in the briefest and most disapproving way; it was as if we were on the edge of a quarrel. It seemed impossible to take my departure with anything like composure. At last I heard a footstep, and looked up to find that Mrs. Todd was standing at ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett
... of producing an English romance, fragments of which remain to us in "The Ancestral Footstep," and the incomplete work known as "Doctor Grimshawe's Secret," he replaced these by another design, of which "Septimius Felton" represents the partial execution. But that elaborate study yielded, in its turn, to "The Dolliver ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... that neglected corner, the hand of affection had been busy in decorating the hired house. Most of the graves were surrounded with a slight wooden paling, to secure them from the passing footstep; there was hardly one so deserted as not to be marked with its little wooden cross, and decorated with a garland of flowers; and here and there I could perceive a solitary mourner, clothed in black, stooping to ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... leeches. All are small, but some are beautifully marked with stripes of bright yellow. They probably attach themselves to deer or other animals which frequent the forest paths, and have thus acquired the singular habit of stretching themselves out at the sound of a footstep or of rustling foliage. Early in the afternoon we reached the foot of the mountain, and encamped by the side of a fine stream, whose rocky banks were overgrown with ferns. Our oldest Malay had been accustomed ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... silence of a few moments duration, and Henry had turned towards Mr. Marchdale to say something, when the cautious tread of a footstep was heard in the garden, immediately beneath ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... man's form, so drearily promising of physical power, he heard a light footstep at the outer door, which he had left unbarred. On turning he caught the look of relief that passed over Mrs. Preston's face at the sight of the man lying quietly in his bed. What a state of fear she ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... they waited for his return: the time of his absence appeared insupportably long, and they formed new fears and new conjectures every instant. Every time they heard a footstep upon the stairs, they ran out to see who it was: sometimes it was the landlady—sometimes the lodgers or their visitors—at last came the person they longed to see; but the moment they beheld him, all their fears ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... his eagle eyes, his light footstep, his merry laugh and speaking glance made him envied of men and adored of women. He joyed to linger in banquet bower, but often in the midst of wildest glee, a shadow and an expression of pain flitted across ...
— The Prose Marmion - A Tale of the Scottish Border • Sara D. Jenkins
... of Christ, the church, are also designated as his footstep followers; and as such they are called to suffer with him that they might also reign with him. "For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his footsteps." ...
— The Harp of God • J. F. Rutherford
... we heard his footstep, and the door opened. Mr. Widemann was a very handsome young man, of thirty or thirty-two, with black whiskers entirely surrounding his manly and expressive face; his morning dress showed a certain rural ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... mouth of the crater for about five hours. Evening was approaching. My drawings were finished, and I prepared to leave. My descent from the summit of the crater edge was comparatively rapid, though every footstep went down some fifteen inches through the volcanic ashes. I descended by the eastern side, and was soon at the base of the great cone. I made my way by tortuous walking round the erupted masses of lava, and also by portions ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... fell into a slumber, he beheld in his dreams the shadowy phantoms of the necromantic tower, or the injured Florinda, pale and dishevelled, imprecating the vengeance of Heaven upon his head. In the mid-watches of the night, when all was silent except the footstep of the sentinel, pacing before his tent, the king rose from his couch, and walking forth looked thoughtfully upon the martial scene before him. The pale crescent of the moon hung over the Moorish camp, and ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... into one of the side rooms, and then he paused and pushed himself against the wall. He was sure now that he heard a soft footstep. The darkness was so intense that it could be felt like a mist. He waited but he did not hear it again, and then he began to make his way around the wall, stepping as lightly as ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler
... difficulty about that. Now, let us put on our disguises at once, and be off. Sometimes the turnkeys take it into their heads to look in during the night, and we had to keep one on watch while we were at work, and take to our beds when we heard a footstep approaching. ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... by, and poor Dick was wondering what the end of the adventure would be when he heard a footstep overhead and then came the ...
— The Rover Boys on the Ocean • Arthur M. Winfield (Edward Stratemeyer)
... noticed the look, and glanced below to see what it was that had so interested him, and then back at him again. He was still watching the approaching cavalcade intently, and smiling to himself. Miss Langham drew in her breath and raised her head and shoulders quickly, like a deer that hears a footstep in the forest, and when Hope presently stepped out upon the porch, she turned quickly toward her, and regarded her steadily, as though she were a stranger to her, and as though she were trying to see her with the eyes ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... creek at the head of the island by means of a skiff, and, ascending the high grounds on the shore of the mainland, proceeded in a northwesterly direction, through a tract of country excessively wild and desolate, where no trace of a human footstep was to be seen. Legrand led the way with decision; pausing only for an instant, here and there, to consult what appeared to be certain landmarks of his own ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... duplicated the group that stood there, the rich coloring of the draperies, two vases of Malachite and Sevres, the gifts of emperors, and the carpet, where masses of blossoms seemed starting into fresh bloom, wherever a footstep trod ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... Pierces the pitchy veil; no ruddy blaze, From dwellings lighted by the cheerful hearth, Tinges the flowering summits of the grass. No sound of life is heard, no village hum, Nor measured tramp of footstep in the path, Nor rush of wing, while, on the breast of Earth, I lie and listen to her mighty voice: A voice of many tones—sent up from streams That wander through the gloom, from woods unseen, Swayed by the sweeping of the ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant
... a run. The day was too warm for rapid movement, and she soon stopped and listened. There were the usual woodland sounds; leaves rustling, grasshoppers chirping, and birds singing; but not a human voice or footstep. She began to think that the god-like figure was only the Hermes of Praxiteles, suggested to her by Goethe's classical Sabbat, and changed by a day-dream into the semblance of a living reality. The groom must have been one of those incongruities characteristic of dreams—probably ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... Express, when a lady followed by a gentleman ran up the steps of the Boston House, and presently entered the dreary parlor, transforming it, as she did so, to a cheerful abiding-place, by the magic of youth, beauty, and grace. Miselle devoured her with her eyes, as did Crusoe the human footstep on his desert island. An answering glance, a suppressed smile on either side, and an understanding was established, an alliance completed, a tie ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... she thought she heard his footstep. She started up, her heart beating violently. But the footsteps did not stop at her door, they passed by; it was probably some one going home late from the tavern. Alas! nobody came to her house, and a nameless longing arose in her to creep on her hands and ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... opening wide those watchful gray eyes an instant, then closing them quickly. It is a footstep approaching. ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... now are nigh, That all the valley through have fill'd our eyes With day-dreams of the distant Paradise, Their sun-surrounded summits can descry— We mount them now upon Hope's bounding wing, That makes each short swift footstep long to spring Suddenly ...
— Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... not in sight yet to Marjorie's vision, and she stood leaning over the gate looking at the windows with their white shades dropped and already feeling that the little, new home was solitary. She did not turn until a footstep paused behind her; she was so lost in dreams of Linnet and Morris that she had not noticed the brisk, hurried tread. The white rose had fallen from her hair and the one at her throat had lost several petals; in her hand was a bunch of ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin
... which no interruption was heard. By this time Joyce became uneasy, a state of things having arrived for which no provision had been made in his instructions. He was about to leave his command under the charge of Jamie, and descend himself to reconnoitre, when a footstep was heard coming up the path. Nothing but the deep attention, and breathless stillness of the men could have rendered the sound of a tread so nearly noiseless, audible; but heard it was, at a moment when every sense was wrought up to its greatest powers. ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... the stolen flock And leaving desolate the rifled hut Of the defenceless. Solitary ones Hide from their robberies, for forth they go Into the wilderness, their prey to hunt Like ravening beasts. There are, who watch to slay, Rising before the dawn, or wrapp'd in night Roaming with stealthy footstep, as a thief, To smite their victims, while the wounded groan Struck by their fatal shaft. There are, who do Such deeds of utter darkness as detest The gaze of day. Muffling their face, they dig Their way to habitations where they leave Shame ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... quiet that the stillness became oppressive. Meanwhile the young girl sat in her bower of luxury, softly humming a favorite air, and very happy in thoughts of her approaching marriage. While deep in her smiling reverie, a stealthy footstep distinctly sounded ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... sat down and was about to say something, when, instead of seating himself, Emerson walked away to the window and stood there softly whistling and looking out as if there were no one in the room. Edward's eyes had followed Emerson's every footstep, when the boy was aroused by hearing a suppressed sob, and as he looked around he saw that it came from Miss Emerson. Slowly she walked out of the room. The boy looked at Miss Alcott, and she put her finger to her mouth, indicating ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... one was in the house, or its cries were not attended to, it would be quiet after a little while; but the moment it heard a footstep would begin again, harder than ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... far as ever from the end! Nought in the distance but the evening, nought To point my footstep further! At the thought A great black bird, Apollyon's bosom-friend, 160 Sailed past, nor beat his wide wing dragon-penned That brushed my cap—perchance the guide ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... you what were my feelings on treading the shore which had once been animated by the bustle of departure, and whose sands had been printed by the last footstep of Columbus. The solemn and sublime nature of the event that had followed, together with the fate and fortunes of those concerned in it, filled the mind with vague yet melancholy ideas. It was like viewing the silent ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... dozen rabbits hopping about on the grassy lawn leading down to the tennis court, and sitting nervously for a few moments, and glancing anxiously this way, that way, and every way in expectancy of a disturbing footstep. And as I looked out upon the beautiful scene of autumn-tinted trees and grassy mounds, with just a last rose of summer here and there, I could almost distinguish those little Arabs from the by-streets ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... the frequent plantations which it visits to plunder limit its reproduction near the sea, and make it exceedingly wary and keen of eye, if not of smell. Even when roosting by night, it is readily frightened by a footstep; and the crash caused by the mighty bound from branch to branch makes the traveller think ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... unwitnessed cave,—so Genius searches through wood and waste, untiringly and eagerly, every sense awake, every nerve strained to speed and strength, for the scattered and flying images of matter, that it seizes at last with its mighty talons, and bears away with it into solitudes no footstep can invade. Go, seek the world without; it is for art the inexhaustible pasture-ground and harvest to the ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... the way, and with muffled, stealthy footstep conducted them across dark halls and along intricate passages, up long and winding staircases—all bare and cold; through vast gloomy rooms, the walls and floors of which were of black oak, the former richly carved, and in places hung ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... open; lights on the table—logs burning bright on the hearth. Cautiously Losely looked through the aperture. Darrell was not there; the place was solitary; but the opposite door was open also. Losely's fine ear caught the sound of a slight movement of a footstep in the room just below, to which that opposite door admitted. In an instant the robber glided within the chamber—closed and locked the door by which he had entered, retaining the key about his person. The next stride brought him to the hearth. Beside it hung the bell-rope common in old-fashioned ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... freedom from interference that this would not have disturbed me in the least were it not for a sudden presentiment that on this first night of the second stage of our labours something would happen. All at once I heard a sound outside, a splashing footstep as of a man stepping in a puddle. I was wide awake in an instant, but never thought of shouting 'Is that you, Davies?' for I knew in a flash that it was not he. It was the slip of a stealthy man. Presently I heard another footstep—the pad of a boot on the sand—this time close to my ear, ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... stag, and disappeared. Lydia concluded that he had been disturbed while bathing in the canal, and had taken flight with his wardrobe under his arm. She laughed at the idea, turned to her manuscript again, and wrote on. Suddenly there was a rustle and a swift footstep without. Then the latch was violently jerked up, and Cashel Byron rushed in as far as the threshold, where he stood, stupefied at the presence of Lydia, and the change in the appearance ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... on, the tranquillity grows more profound. The villas opposite stand asleep in the sunshine; the sound of a single footstep is heard on the pavement; and anon you hear the feeble, cracked voice of old Willie, the water-cress man, distinctly articulating the cry of 'Water-cresses; fine brown water-cresses; royal Albert water-cresses; the best in London—everybody say so.' The water-cresses are welcomed on the terrace ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 - Volume 18, New Series, July 31, 1852 • Various
... instant, my Lord—" Then he dropped his voice; and I saw what he was at. I slipped back as quick as I could; drew out the sliver of wood from beneath the other door, and sat down. Then I heard his footstep outside. ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... anything that could in any way be contorted into Papist practices, Letty crossed herself. As she did so, a noise in the passage outside augmented her terror. She strained her ears painfully, and the sound developed into a footstep, soft, light, and surreptitious. It came gently towards the door; it paused outside, and Letty intuitively felt that it was listening. Her suspense was now so intolerable, that it was almost with a feeling of relief that she beheld the door slowly—very slowly—begin to open. A little wider—a little ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... out with her, now that I have begun," he said to himself as he rose and went to the door, at which a footstep had paused. Whoever it was, no one came in; and, shutting the door, he came ...
— Shenac's Work at Home • Margaret Murray Robertson
... the skirt, and sleeves after an earlier fashion, and her beautiful snow-white hair was piled over a high cushion and ornamented by a cap of fine thread lace. In her face, which she turned at the first footstep with a pitiable, blind look, there were the faint traces of a proud, though almost extinguished, beauty—traces which were visible in the impetuous flash of her sightless eyes, in the noble arch of her brows, and in the transparent ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... man's step on the bank above her, there was a rustling sound among the green bushes. She had never heard of modesty, but she cowered down among the boulders, and the heavy footstep passed by. She hid among the fern while her clothes were drying, put them on tidily, and went back with her filled water-bucket to the hotel. How could she know what injury the kind peremptory voice, bidding her be foul no longer, had done her! But thenceforwards a new cruelty, a fresh peril, ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... patchwork stars, the work of Elspie's diligent hand through many a long year, and on which her own baby-fingers had been first taught to sew—but with a large white sheet. She stood, scarce knowing whether to fly or not, until she heard a footstep on the stairs. One minute, and it would be too late. With a resolute hand she lifted the sheet, and saw the white fixed countenance, not ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... considered good form in Roscoe to admit a stranger too eagerly—for a decent interval to elapse. Thanks to aunt Mary's coaching, Annie did not knock again, but stood in pretty decision with her eyes straight before her. A leisurely footstep sounded within; the latch lifted with dignity, the door opened a crack at first, then more widely; and, outlined against a blacker background, stood the tall, stern, forbidding figure of Miss ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... storm was outside, the sheltered waters of the bay were almost calm, so that Gascoyne had no difficulty in swimming off to the Foam without making any noise. As he drew near, a footstep on the deck apprised him that there was at least a watch left. A few seconds later a man leaned over the low bulwarks of the vessel on the side ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... over the hills, Her garments with morning sweet, The dance of a thousand rills Making music before her feet? Her presence freshens the air; Sunshine steals light from her face; The leaden footstep of Care Leaps to the tune of her pace, Fairness of all that is fair, Grace at the heart of all grace, 10 Sweetener of hut and of hall, Bringer of life out of naught, Freedom, oh, fairest of all The daughters ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... heels, cocking his head to listen. It was no footstep outside the compartment slide. It was not that kind of sound at all. And it was faint—so faint indeed that perhaps the noises of the storm since they had left port had quite smothered ...
— Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns - Sinking the German U-Boats • Halsey Davidson
... seen the ghost-lady. I thought I heard her footstep last night in the hall and a rustling at my door. I opened it, half expecting to find a rose upon the threshold. I ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... this world of sickness and sorrow, of labor and poverty, and enter immediately into another life. Young persons who have lost dear friends wish to go and join them, for life looks dreary without love, and the days seem very long when they are not broken by the sound of that well-known footstep on the walk, and the words of love in that well-known voice which they can never hear on earth again. 'I cannot stay on earth alone,' they cry; 'I shall grow wicked in my wild grief. Let me go ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... With a footstep as soft and gentle as the voice, the speaker tripped away. She soon returned, with the direction that the wounded person was to be carried, carefully, upstairs to Mr. Giles's room; and that Brittles ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... took out his pipe and sat down in the window-seat to fill it. He was interrupted by the sound of an unmistakable footstep; and the response of his whole being justified to admiration Lilamani's assurance that his hidden trouble implied no lightest reflection on herself. Lilamani and irritation simply could not co-exist within him; and he was on his feet when she opened ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... footsteps had she heard? With a chill feeling of fear she shut the door and turned again to her game. But for once the charm of the cards failed her. Where was Jasper, and why did he not return? Silence held oppressive empire; her fears plucked at her like ghostly hands. The lamp and the footstep—what did they mean? Had ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... right-hand gallery a door opened. A light footstep sounded on the winding stairs. The critical moment was upon me; she was coming. I threw away ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... lawn, looking very elegant in her cream-coloured Indian silk gown, very listless, very tired of her lovely surroundings. Neither lake nor mountain possessed any charm for her. She had had too much of them. Mary roamed about with a swifter footstep, looking at the roses, plucking off a dead leaf, or a cankered bud here and there. Presently she tore across the lawn to the shrubbery which screened the lawn and flower gardens from the winding carriage drive sunk many feet below, and ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... entered the garden, the little boy heard his footstep, for the door was always open; ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... was quite cool. She turned to greet her mother with entire self-possession. But her ears were strained, because overhead she heard a heavy footstep. ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... hour a footstep was heard descending some stairs, then bolts were undone, and two Egyptians with swords and pistols in their girdles entered. They brought with them some bread and a jar ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... never known a place with such echoes. They shook from a footstep like nuts rattling out of a bag; a mouse behind the skirting led a whole camp-following of them; to ask a question was, as in that other House, to awaken the derisive shouts of an Opposition. Yet, in the intervals of silence, there fell a deadliness ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... A heavy footstep sounded in the passage, and Hilliard, to whose emotions was now added a sense of ludicrous indignity, heard talk between Patty ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... hidden forever. The gold which has lain for centuries unsuspected in the ground, reveals itself one day on the surface. Sand turns traitor, and betrays the footstep that has passed over it; water gives back to the tell-tale surface the body that has been drowned. Fire itself leaves the confession, in ashes, of the substance consumed in it. Hate breaks its prison-secrecy in the thoughts, through the doorway of the eyes; and ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... He will stand in a state of anxiety, and steal a glance around, in order to see the Being he feels is looking upon him, and every breeze that murmurs will be a voice to chide him, and every leaf that whistles will seem a footstep, and never will he be able to break the restraint; for wherever he goes and whatever he does, he will feel that his actions are watched by one who will punish the ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur
... two girls walked over to East Dereham, purchased the necessary garment, washed it in the pool near the house that may still be seen, and watched and watched. Suddenly when the clock struck twelve they heard, or thought they heard, a footstep on the path, the wind howled, and the elder sister sprang to the door, locked and bolted it, and then fell in convulsions on the floor. The superstition, which Borrow seems to have told his mother had a Danish origin, is common enough in Ireland and in Celtic lands. It could scarcely ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... that distributes unto all creatures the fruits (in the form of joys and griefs) of their acts. Thou art thyself those fruits which thou distributest. Thou art the most ancient (having existed from a time when there was no other existent thing). Thou art competent to cover with a single footstep of thine all the three worlds. Thou art Vamana (the dwarf) who deceived the Asura chief Vali (and depriving him of his sovereignty restored it unto Indra). Thou art the Yogin crowned with success (like ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... fall below it. At his hotel, alone, by night, or in the course of the few late strolls he was finding time to take through dusky labyrinthine alleys and empty campi, overhung with mouldering palaces, where he paused in disgust at his want of ease and where the sound of a rare footstep on the enclosed pavement was like that of a retarded dancer in a banquet-hall deserted—during these interludes he entertained cold views, even to the point, at moments, on the principle that the shortest follies are the best, of thinking of immediate departure ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... grandfather were not—not—dying, I'd take it right home and burn it all up!" were the first words the author of "The Purple Slipper" gave utterance to, after the last echo of the last footstep had died off ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... embalmed and sainted dead! Dear as the blood ye gave; No impious footstep here shall tread The herbage of your grave; Nor shall your glory be forgot While Fame her record keeps, Or Honor points the hallowed spot Where ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... of the cabin without another word and drew the door behind him. I sat still for some seconds listening to the sound of his departing footstep. ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... excepted, which were rocky, as were some islands in the bay. We found here no fresh water, except by digging. There were various trees, and among these the tree producing dragon's-blood. We saw no fruit-trees, nor so much as the track of any animal, except one footstep of a beast, which seemed the size of a large mastiff. There were a few land-birds, but none bigger than a black-bird, and scarcely any sea-fowl; neither did the sea afford any fish, except tortoises and manatees,[201] both of which are in ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... and waited, but no footstep came near the house. The next night, overpowered by fatigue, he lay down in bed in his clothes, with the door locked, the key on the table, and the candle burning. His slumber was not disturbed. The third night, the fourth, the fifth, the ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... hour past our people had been on the alert, on account of a feud between them and the Ghawarineh Arabs. On coming up to the print of a human footstep, this was carefully examined as to its size, direction of the tread, etc. The circumstances were not, however, exactly parallel to the occurrence in Robinson Crusoe, ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... in the sense in which we use wisdom to-day. That is, they looked beyond earthly conditions and saw Divinity where the casual glance does not see it. How many a seamed, rugged face, how many a burden-bent back, how many a faltering footstep, how many a knotted, calloused hand is perhaps more nearly in the image of God than the fairer face, the straighter ...
— A Little Book for Christmas • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... not yet coherent, and instinct prompted her to get the blood out of her head if she could. A vague sense of danger possessed her, but she was not capable of defining it. Suddenly she stopped and held her breath. She had become aware of a recurring footstep on the sidewalk. Her window abutted some thirty feet away. She craned her head forward, listening so intently that the blood pounded in her ears. She expected to hear the gate open, the footsteps to grow softer on the ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... men thought, rose fresh from sweet repose; But both, alas! from restless labours rose: For in Saul's breast Envy, the toilsome sin, Had all that night active and tyrannous been: She expelled all forms of kindness, virtue, grace, Of the past day no footstep left, or trace; The new-blown sparks of his old rage appear, Nor could his love dwell longer with his fear. So near a storm wise David would not stay, Nor trust the glittering of a faithless day: He saw the sun call in his beams apace, And angry clouds march up into their place: The ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... Butterfly," thought Valmai, "I am beginning to know them all; and there is Cardo Wynne!" and with a spirit of mischief gleaming in her eyes and dimpling her face, she approached him quietly, her light footstep making no ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... the fireside there are peace and comfort, Wives and children, with fair, thoughtful faces, Waiting, watching For a well-known footstep in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... slow and noiseless footstep Comes that messenger divine, Takes the vacant chair beside me, Lays ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... beautiful young woman, with a red and white complexion, glittering white teeth, and clear soft eyes; and her footstep was light in the dance, but her mind was lighter still. She had a little child, not at all pretty; so he was put out to be nursed by a laborer's wife, and his mother went to the count's castle. She sat in splendid rooms, richly ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... time he tossed the paper aside and began walking up and down his room, anxious for Nestor's return, anxious for a breath of mountain air—for the freedom of the high places, for the sniff of a camp-fire. It was then that he heard a footstep at his door. ...
— Boy Scouts in Mexico; or On Guard with Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson
... fall, Where he who conquered, he who fell, Was deemed a dead or living Tell! Such virtue had that patriot breathed, So to the soil his soul bequeathed, That wheresoe'er his arrows flew Heroes in his own likeness grew, And warriors sprang from every sod Which his awakening footstep trod. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... approaching the ground floor, for sounds were audible below them: a footstep, and then the clink of metal, as if some one ...
— Three Margarets • Laura E. Richards
... clean fish and stuff sausages at Pete Patterson's market store; or—or—there were other things he could do that a fellow like him must do when he is "down and out." And while he still stared from the window, the grim, dogged look settling heavier upon his young face, Dan caught a footstep behind him, and turned to face ...
— Killykinick • Mary T. Waggaman
... when he rose in the morning and when he went to bed. He told her of night duty, and drew a picture of the blank deserted streets which thrilled and frightened her ... the tense darkness, and how through the silence the sound of a footstep was magnified a thousandfold, ringing down the desolate pathways away and away to the smallest shrill distinctness, and she saw also the alleys and lane-ways hooded in blackness, and the one or two human fragments who drifted aimless and frantic along the lonely streets, ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... nothing loth, for both were wounded, obeyed the summons, and staggering back from each other stood leaning upon their swords and panting desperately, while Billington dexterously stepping backward behind an elder bush made his way forest-ward with a stealthy footstep, and a shrewd use of cover, suggestive of his ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... caravans laden with merchandise find their way across the mountains between India and the countries of Central Asia. Every time there is a stir in a clump of bushes, every time a board creaks in the floor, every time a footstep is heard under the window, the goose flesh rises on John Bull's back, and he imagines that the Great White Bear is smelling around the back door of his empire in India. Peshawur is the jumping-off place of the Northwest, the limit of British ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... not jealous. The thought never entered my head. But I dropped my fish and whipped round to the doorway in time to catch him as he turned to go, having heard my footstep belike. ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... my soul turned toward her, but something stronger than my soul constrained me. It seemed to me that I longed for her with such longing as might have killed a live man, or might have made a dead one live again. This emotion added much to my suffering, but nothing to my power to turn one footstep toward her or to lift my helpless face in her direction. It was not permitted to ...
— The Gates Between • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... home he gloomily passed to the inside, with suspended breath and with a slow footstep. He went up to his door, opened it, and so ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... clank of echoing steel was heard As off the rider bounded; And slowly on the winding stair A heavy footstep sounded. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... If the morning had been glorious the evening was full of penance. Long before night our feet were sore from slipping and sliding into those wretched mule tracks. One cannot take one's eyes from the trail for a moment, every footstep must be watched, and even ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... without a movement, without a thought, for a time the duration of which she did not know; perhaps half an hour. The noise of a footstep came to her, the door was opened. He came in. She saw that he was wet with rain and mud, and burning ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... standard high, His falchion flashes in the fray; He madly shouts his battle-cry, And glories in a well-fought day. But Famine's at the city gate, And Rapine prowls without the walls; The city round lies desolate, While Havoc's blighting footstep falls. By ruined hearths, by homes defiled, In scenes that nature's visage mar, We feel the storm of passions wild, And pluck the bitter fruit ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... fancy please In building floral bowers. Within this room, how many a time I've listened to a story, And heard grandfather sing his rhyme 'Bout Continental glory! And oft I'd shoulder his old staff, And march as proud as any, Till the old gentleman would laugh, And bless me with a penny. Hark! 't is a footstep that I hear; A stranger is approaching; I must away-were I found here I should be thought encroaching. One last, last look-my old, old home! One memory more of childhood! I'll not forget, where'er I roam, This homestead ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... in the course of the dinner, remark the indignant fire flashing from her intelligent eye, when the rude speech of some untaught boor assailed a sense finely-wrought to appreciate the proper boundaries to the always adventurous footstep of unbridled licentiousness. The youth felt assured, from these occasional glimpses, that her education had been derived from a different influence, and that her spirit deeply felt and deplored the humiliation of ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... the compromise between knitting and nodding, which, when there was no company, she always carried on in the dining-room till tea-time. Maggie was stooping to caress the tiny silken pet, and comforting him for his mistress's absence, when the sound of a footstep on the gravel made her look up, and she saw Mr. Stephen Guest walking up the garden, as if he had come straight from the river. It was very unusual to see him so soon after dinner! He often complained that their ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... self-appointed guide of Antonio beckoned for the latter to come on, when he led the way from the water side. The fisherman obeyed; for little did it matter to one poor and heart-stricken as he, whither he was conducted. Jacopo took the first entrance into the court of the Doge's palace. His footstep was leisurely, and to the passing multitude they appeared like any others of the thousands who were abroad to breathe the soft air of the night, or to enter into the pleasures ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... swear I heard a footstep in the room, and with it the frou-frou of trailing skirts; my breath stopped and my teeth grated against each other as I heard the soft footfalls and the feminine rustle pass along the room towards the fireplace. ...
— Black Spirits and White - A Book of Ghost Stories • Ralph Adams Cram
... chapter,—through the next wonderful prayer; her face grew solemnly transparent, as of an angel; for her soul was lifted from earth by the words, and walked with Christ far above all things, over that starry pavement where each footstep is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... why linger away From thy poor little blind boy, the long weary day! I mark every footstep, I list to each tone, And wonder my mother should leave me alone! There are voices of sorrow, and voices of glee, But there's no one to joy or to sorrow with me; For each hath of pleasure and trouble his share, And none for the poor ...
— The Liberty Minstrel • George W. Clark
... the Valley of Silence, Down the dim, voiceless valley alone! And I hear not the fall of a footstep Around me—save God's and my own! And the hush of my heart is as holy As hovers where ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... having given exit to all the animals in South Africa, and also to the first progenitors of the whole Bechuana race. Their footsteps attest the truth of this belief. I was profane enough to be sceptical, because the large footstep of the first man Matsieng was directed as if going into instead of out of this famous pot-hole. Other huge pot-holes are met with all over the country, and at heights on the slopes of the mountains far above the ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... pressure of time, formed in the ages of feudalism one of the most dreaded and formidable fortresses in all France. From its machicolated parapets and mounted battlements Barons, Counts, and even Kings had been defied, yet never had its spacious halls resounded to the footstep of the invader. ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... Christmas eve was here, nay, it was come and gone for midnight had sounded and it was now Christmas morning. Still, this night must be for her as all those other nights when she had lain awake hour after hour listening in silent anguish for the footstep that did not come. She had hoped much from that promise of his to Father Xavier and to her, and her disappointment ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... the chagrin of seeing that she was lost in contemplation of that figure. She sat down in silence, and I seated myself beside her and took her hand without her noticing it. Forgotten for a portrait! At that moment we heard in the silence a woman's footstep and the faint rustling of a dress. We saw the youthful Marianina enter the boudoir, even more resplendent by reason of her grace and her fresh costume; she was walking slowly and leading with motherly care, ...
— Sarrasine • Honore de Balzac
... Suddenly she heard a footstep, and turning round quickly, she saw coming towards her, in the moonlight, the figure of Admiral Bartram. Transfixed with terror, she watched him coming nearer and nearer. He did not seem to see her, and as he ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... a certain complacency, but was all the time much more engaged in listening to the well-remembered click at the front door,—the shutting it to again with household care, and the sound of the familiar bounding footstep on the stair. At last they came. Cynthia entered first, bright and blooming, fresh colour in her cheeks and lips, fresh brilliance in her eyes. She looked startled at the sight of a stranger, and for an instant she stopped short at the door, as if ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... turned and entered the house. The study- door was open, so he went straight in. Philip, who was sitting and staring in an abstracted way at the empty fireplace with a light behind him, turned quickly round as he heard the footstep. ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... continent of shot-rubbish the eye ever saw. Confusion piled on confusion to your utmost horizon's edge; obscure in lurid twilight as of the shadow of death; trackless, without index, without finger-post, or mark of any human foregoer; where your human footstep, if you are still human, echoes bodeful through the gaunt solitude, peopled only by somnambulant pedants, dilettants, and doleful creatures, by phantasms, errors, inconceivabilities, by nightmares, pasteboard norroys, griffins, wiverns, and chimeras dire! There, all vanquished, overwhelmed under ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... untoward circumstances. They lived in constant fear of the mob which had so abused and terrified them. Families seated at the fireside started at every breath of wind, and trembled at the sound of every approaching footstep. The father left his family in fear, lest on his return from his daily labor, he should find his wife and children butchered, and his ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... remembrance as much of the lecture as I could, so that it might be fresh in his mind. He left me in good spirits, and promised to see me again at night a sober man. But O, what an anxious day was it for me! I dreaded, and yet longed for evening to come, and my heart beat as I heard his footstep at the door. But he had kept his word—he had not tasted a drop of spirit during the day. He had seen, too, the minister and several members of the Temperance Society. In consequence of the meeting on the last evening, many new names were added to the temperance list, and they ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... heart fluttered; I wished—I hardly knew what I did wish; but I feared I was about to act improperly, as I had no other idea but that it was you, Alonzo, who was approaching. The carriage stopped near the door of the mansion; a footstep ascended the stairs. Judge of my surprise and agitation, when my father entered the chamber! A maid and two men servants followed him. He directed me to make immediate preparations for leaving the mansion—which command, with the assistance of ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... not knocked. One o'clock struck; he had paced the street, but had never gone out of sight of the curate's door. It was nearly two, and Mailing was not far from the High Street end of the thoroughfare when he heard a door bang. He turned sharply. A heavy uncertain footstep rang on the pavement. Out of the darkness emerged a tall figure with bowed head. As it moved slowly forward once or twice it swayed, and a wavering arm shot out as if seeking for some support. Malling stood where he was till he saw the broad ghastliness ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens
... o'er his startled soul — When to the door he heard a footstep come, And then a voice — the Mother of the nuns Had entered — and in calmest tone began: "Forgive, kind sir, my stay; our Matin song Had not yet ended when you came; our rule Forbids our leaving choir; this my excuse." ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)
... into the bright daylight. Up the alley we tore, out into the street, across it and down another, then through a perfect maze of by-lanes. Tom led and I followed behind, panting and clutching my bursting pockets lest the coin should tumble out. Still we tore on, although not a footstep followed us, nor had we seen a soul since Tom struck my assailant down. Spent and breathless at last we emerged upon the Strand, and here Tom ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... was raised to her mouth for the eighth or ninth time that a footstep sounded on the flagged floor of the scullery behind her back, and a man's voice and laugh startled her into vivid attention. In both was a note which immediately recalled her companion of the night before,—the cheery, warm-hearted pseudo-chieftain ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... quick footstep on the snow-crust—a fluttering sound near the window; and then the keen eyes of the woman saw a hand softly brushing away the frost traceries on the window, and a human face looking through. Zillah arose with an eager look, and opened ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... on too low; but vain his cries, The husband's diligence would not suffice, For, spite of ev'ry effort, much was done, And John completely his career had run, If Peter had not pulled the rector's gown, Who hastily replied, thou ninny, clown; Did I not tell thee silence to observe, And not a footstep from thy station swerve? The whole is spoiled, insufferable elf! And for it thou hast ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... The heavy footstep came a pace nearer, and then paused; when, looking round, I beheld an old negro, with a withered monkey-like face, clad in the ordinary conventional costume of an African labourer in the West Indies. His dress consisted of a loose pair of trousers and shirt of blue cotton check; ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... to the south; she listened intently. There was a sound,—a distant, prolonged note, bell-toned, pervading the woods, shaking the air in smooth vibrations. It was repeated. The doe had no doubt now. She shook like the sensitive mimosa when a footstep approaches. It was the baying of a hound! It was far off,—at the foot of the mountain. Time enough to fly; time enough to put miles between her and the hound, before he should come upon her fresh trail; ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... noncommittal. What he might have added was interrupted by a light footstep in the hall and the voice of some one who stopped ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... leaped to her throat. There was some one in the room. The soft and surreptitious footstep of a person making his way cautiously to the door was unmistakable. Netty tried to speak—to ask who was there. But her voice failed. She had read of such a failure in books, but it had never been her lot to try to speak and to ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
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