"Swish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to the taciturn black boy, "Clear cut, Paddy!" The words were on my lips when a "waddy," torn from the vindictive tree and flung, high and straight into the inoffensive sky, descended flat on the red stump with a gunlike report. The swish of the waddy down-tilted the frayed brim of ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... passed, and then he too heard a footfall in the passage outside, and the swish of a ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... fellows, with stooping shoulders, in long-skirted nankeen coats, belted round the waist, with a strong, sour smell always clinging to them. And on the women's side, one could hear nothing but the patter of bare feet, the swish of petticoats. The chief valet was called Irinarh, and Alexey Sergeitch always called him in a long-drawn-out call: 'I-ri-na-a-arh!' The others he called: 'Boy! Lad! Whoever's there of the men!' Bells he could not endure: 'It's not ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... it, and push his way forward. It was better, however, when he turned into the lane. The high bank and the hedge sheltered him upon one side. The road, however, was deep in mud, and the rain fell in a steady swish. Not a soul was to be seen, but he needed to make no inquiries, for he knew whither his father had gone as certainly as ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Underwood's little chaps, baint you? A rare honest gentleman of the right sort war he—he war!" and he pulled down another boy and put me up instead, and told me all about the great fire at Stubbs's factory. You can't think what fun it was. Roar, roar, up went the flame. Swish, wish, went the water—such a bellowing—such great clouds ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... offering to take it or look at him—and, after a miserable pause, he left the study. But before he had reached the front door he heard a swish and swirl of drapery behind him, and felt her light hand on his arm. "Ah, no!" she said, clinging to him, "I can't let you go like this. I didn't mean all the things I said just now. I do believe in you, Horace—at least, I'll try hard to.... And I shall always, always love ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... All about is the swish of ghostly wings which brush her face or neck and the air is full of chattering noises like the grinding of hundreds of tiny teeth. Sometimes a soft little body plumps into her lap and if she dares to take her hands from her face long enough to disengage ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... arrival he joined Audubon and myself in a kind of loggia at the back of the house, which was our common place of rendezvous. We exchanged the usual greetings, and for some minutes nothing more was said, so pleasant was it to sit silent in the shade listening to the swish of scythes (they were cutting the grass in the meadow opposite) and to the bubbling of a little fountain in the garden on our right, while the sun grew hotter every minute on the fir-covered slopes beyond. I wanted ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson
... minutes the flow of waters ceased, and a rush of saturated steam succeeded. At the same time the fierce swish of ascending waters and of descending cascades ceased, and a clear, definite note, as of a trumpet, exceeding long and loud, was blown. No archangel could have done better. As the steam rolled skyward it was condensed, ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren
... forward, then another, and another. It was slow work, one step at a time; but at length they found that there was firm ground in this new region. They concluded that the world was only a larger calf pen, after all; but it was a wonderfully light calf pen, and its walls were certainly a long way off. Swish! up went their tails into the air and away they scampered like the wildest ...
— Lisbeth Longfrock • Hans Aanrud
... was the swish-swish of grasses about their feet and poor Bunting snatched mouthfuls as all three staggered downward. The light began to grow, and somewhere in the shadowy bowl there was the most blest sound known in the desert, the gurgle ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... Winston heard the grasses patter as they swayed beneath the bitter blasts stiff with frost, and the moan of swinging boughs in a far-off willow bluff. It was these things that guided him, for he had left the rutted trail, and here and there the swish beneath the wheels told of taller grass, while the bluff ran black athwart the horizon when that had gone. Then twigs crackled beneath them as the horses picked their way amidst the shadowy trees stunted by a ceaseless struggle with the wind, ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... That element now remains upon its reservation; among the superior advantages enjoyed by the man-about-town of today is that of the companionship, at his dinner in camera, of ladies having an honorable vocation. In the corridors of the "French restaurant" the swish of Pseudonyma's skirt is no longer heard; she has been superseded by the Princess Tap-tap (with Truckle & Cinch), by my lady Snip-snip (from the "emporium" of Boltwhack & Co.), by Miss Chink-chink, who sits at the receipt of customs in that severely un-French restaurant, the Maison Hash. That ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... stalwart young men seized the big wheels. The top-heavy load wavered an instant, then went over with a simultaneous swish and a yell. ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... daylight, I saw Maloney deliberately creep closer to the fire and heap the wood on. We gathered in to the heat, and to each other, and listened to Dr. Silence's voice as it mingled with the swish and whirr of the wind about us, and the ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... race has fallen since its fire-breathing grandsire guarded the fruits of the Hesperides. Are not "soys" and "chou meins" and other such treasures of the East laid out above? And yet the dragon dozes at its post like a sleepy dog. No flame leaps up its gullet. The swish of its tail is stilled. If it wag at all, it's but in friendship or because a gust of wind has stirred it from ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... foils with Leone Rufo, but finding no stop to the drawn 'swish' of the steel, he examined the end of his weapon with a lengthening visage, for it was buttonless. Ammiani burst into laughter at the spontaneous boyishness in the faces of the pair of ambitious lads. They both offered him one of the rapiers upon equal terms. Count Medole's example ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... was a crash of hoofs on the sod. Stella's clear voice rang out, and the swish of a ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... spin in the moonlight with every nerve a-tingle across the frozen bosom of the lake, or wander in delight along the wood roads when every tree was clad in the witching beauty of a silver thaw, or sweep across the wide stretching country in the very poetry of motion, or hear the soft swish of the tall grass as it fell in fragrant rows before the mower, or the creak of the vans as they bore its ripened sweetness towards the great barns, while bird and bee and locust joined in the harmony of the Harvest Home, until the sun sank to rest amidst cloud draperies of ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... victim prepared himself for the swing, grasped the hooks, and then, with good momentum, landed in the hammock. There was a swish, a distinct thud, and young Potter rolled out upon the deck with a gasp of amazement. Turning as quickly as he could, he looked up and saw the hammock swinging in its proper place. It was physical labor for us to keep from howling with glee at the expression ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... with whom Nero used to play, was far off in Africa, so our circus friend had to stay by himself. He curled up on the leaves, listened to the swish and patter of the rain, and ...
— Nero, the Circus Lion - His Many Adventures • Richard Barnum
... the fight sank in a kind of sob as the roar of a breaking wave sinks with an angry swish back into silence; and as there is a pause before the next wave is flung upward to break and roar, so was there a pause now. Then came the yell of fury, faction quarrel forgotten. They were all of one mind in ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... like some bird of prey that circled in the sky just above him—its shadow filling him with a continual fear, the swish of its wings making him cringe. He was never happy about it; there was no time in his life when he was not in a state of inward war. His intellect rebelled; and on the other hand, there was a part of his nature that craved this sex-experience and welcomed it—and this part, it seemed, was ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... upwards. In the farmhouses the old folk would cover up the looking-glasses lest the quicksilver should draw the electric fluid. The haymakers will tell you that sometimes when they have been standing under a hedge out of a storm a flash of lightning has gone by with a distinct sound like 'swish,' and immediately afterwards the wet ground has sent forth a vapour, or, as they ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... valve, safety valve, tires, air escaping from tires, punctured tire; escaping steam, steam, steam radiator, steam release valve. V. hiss, buzz, whiz, rustle; fizz, fizzle; wheeze, whistle, snuffle; squash; sneeze; sizzle, swish. Adj. sibilant; hissing &c v.; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... away beneath his feet, a swish of branches was about him, the soft, cool touch of leaves against his face. A moment he was flung and tangled among willows—it was a strange revelation through a chink of consciousness in that turmoil of life and death that swept ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... Suddenly there was another swish and another long flash of bluish light, and this time it was alongside the boat, and might almost have been reached with an oar. The correspondent saw an enormous fin speed like a shadow through the water, hurling the crystalline spray and ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... mother's milk, leading men into a snare through their kindliest feelings. Some dull sense of this added to utter dismay, and made them struggle and strain to get to all the outlets save that in which a fight was now going on; the swish of heavy whips, the thud of bludgeons, the groans, the growls of wounded or infuriated men, coming with terrible distinctness through the darkness to the ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell
... put in Marget, "and that's the window I pit the licht in to guide him hame in the dark winter nichts, and mony a time when the sleet played swish on the glass I wes near ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... man who owns the cattle on a thousand hills, who employs stockmen by the dozen, who sends off hundreds of fat, contented, happy, liberty-loving oxen in droves to end their days in an unknown locality amid the clatter and swish of machinery and with the fearful scents of blood and decaying offal defiling the air, has few opportunities of studying the nicer qualities of his possessions. He may be full of bullock lore and able to recite sensational and entertaining stories illustrative of the ways of the big mobs ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... the echo, on Murray Brush's lips, and quite to drollery, of that sympathetic curiosity of Mrs. Drack's which Mr. Pitman had, as they said, voiced. Well, there had played before her the vision of a ledge of safety in face of a rising tide; but this deepened quickly to a sense more forlorn, the cold swish of waters already up to her waist and that would soon be up to her chin. It came really but from the air of her friend, from the perfect benevolence and high unconsciousness with which he kept his posture—as ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... Boat whistles, bridge bells, electric alarm tinglings and the swish of water like the sound of wood tapping wood. Lights that have different colors. The yellow of electric signs. Around one of them that hoists its message in the air runs a green border. The electric ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... were sailing in a regular sloop, and that, too, going "with lee rail awash"; for instead of the soft crooning sound the runners made usually, there was a slash and a swish of ripples cloven apart; and instead of the little fountains of ice-dust which rise from the heels of the sharp shoes when the boat is skimming the frozen surface, there rose ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... spoke, though as yet I could not see the bird, I heard its cry of "Honk, honk" and the swish of its strong wings. ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... crumpled shoes are now standing firmly in wool-lined rubber boots topped by brown corduroy trousers, upon the winter slat walk that leads to the tool house, while their owners, touched by the swish of the Whirlpool that has recently drawn this peaceful town into its eddies, are busy trying to turn their patrol wagon, that for a year has led a most conservative existence as a hay wain and a stage-coach dragged by a curiously ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... agriculturists, and very poor. Their cottages are rather cabins; not a tiled roof is in the country, but the slates have taken some beauty with time, having dips and dimples, and grass upon their edges. The walls are all thickly whitewashed, which is a pleasure to see. How willingly would one swish the harmless whitewash over more than half the colour—over all the chocolate and all the blue—with which the buildings of the world are stained! You could not wish for a better, simpler, or fresher harmony than whitewash makes with the slight sunshine and the bright grey ...
— The Colour of Life • Alice Meynell
... vision that has set the seal of despair on this fine and handsome visage. He is shown, not as a sea monster, but as some rabid, evasive, impatient thing, dashing from point to point—as from policy to policy—with the angry swish that tells the unspoken anger failure everywhere compels. For the victories do not bring surrender, nor does frightfulness inspire terror. The merchant ships still put to sea—and the U boats pay ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... years or so over again, the bull-roarer would be found spread about very much where it is to-day? "Bull-roarer" is just one of our local names for what survives now-a-days as a toy in many an old-fashioned corner of the British Isles, where it is also known as boomer, buzzer, whizzer, swish, and so on. Without going farther afield we can get a hint of the two main functions which it seems to have fulfilled amongst ruder peoples. In Scotland it is, on the one hand, sometimes used to "ca' the cattle hame." A herd-boy has been seen to swing a bull-roarer of his own making, ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... in frightfully dangerous fashion. We dare not glance at Dandy Jack, but we feel that he is in his element; and that, consequently, we are in deadly peril. Then the chorus of yells grows louder and fiercer, the swish of the whips more constant and furious. There is a tremendous rattle, a series of awful bumps that seem to dislocate every bone in my body, a feeling that the coach is somersaulting, I appear to be flying through space among the stars, ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... that he stopped short and suddenly wheeled round as he caught the swish of a dress on the stairs. He looked up into Avery's face as she came swiftly down, and the blood rose in a deep, dark wave to his forehead. He made no attempt to cover or excuse his passionate outburst, which it was perfectly obvious she must ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... she stopped short, for, in astonishment at what she had already heard, and in her instant effort to hear no more of what was so evidently not intended for her, Miss Travers hurried from the parlor, the swish of her skirts telling loudly of her presence there. She went again to her room. What could it mean? Why was her proud, imperious Kate holding secret interviews with this coarse and vulgar woman? What concern was it of hers that Clancy should be "worse" about Mr. Hayne? It could ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... stifled exclamation. Ned was too horror-struck to answer; above the clicking of the oars in the rowlocks he fancied he could hear the swish of the savage sharks rushing through the water at their living prey. He was not sorry when George again rested on his ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... canoes at this place when I anchored in the port, farther down the reach, on the first trip through the strait. I think it was on the second day, while I was busily employed about decks, that I heard the swish of something through the air close by my ear, and heard a "zip"-like sound in the water, but saw nothing. Presently, however, I suspected that it was an arrow of some sort, for just then one passing ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... in, for the swish of silken skirt was heard down the long passage. "Il est mort,—mort" he whispered, mustering up what little French he knew and then cursing himself ...
— Waring's Peril • Charles King
... Swish swirling this pen in my haste, And, deaf to thy pitiful pleading, Just jab ...
— The Re-echo Club • Carolyn Wells
... didn't stand them, she stood for them, with the other foot. You see, Doro, sometimes the much despised slang is—the real thing," and with a tantalizing swish of her skirts, and a most frivolous toss of her head Tavia called "Ta-ta!" and dashed across the fields with the lunch box under ...
— Dorothy Dale • Margaret Penrose
... detail!" my contemporaries will moan, "Overloaded with uninteresting details!" But that's because they haven't got the details—and it's the details that go.) Then Harry skipped back to his horse, jumped on, gathered up the bridle reins, and used his spurs. There was a swish and a clang, a scrunch and a clock-clock and rattle of wheels, and a surprised human sound; then a bump and a shout—for there was no underground drainage, and the gutters belonged to the Stone Age. There was a swift clocking and rattle, more shouts, another bump, and a yell. And so on ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... I can tell you that a blow from a swan's wing will break a man's leg, and a peck from a swan's bill would knock out both your eyes. Hie! Swish!" ...
— Littlebourne Lock • F. Bayford Harrison
... we met the opposite number vessel to ours. She had an escort of three warships, so that for a flash there were seven destroyers on the breast of that water. But it was not for long. A swish, and they were nearer England and we nearer France, they getting some of our smoke and we some of theirs. Steamers go into the French port stern first, and soon I found myself treading French soil. Our Scotch labourers were hurried ...
— Some Naval Yarns • Mordaunt Hall
... of the engine as it pushed the connecting blocks together and then those waiting so anxiously could hear the jar of connecting valves as the brake hose were snapped. Confident as Alan was, it gave him a sinking feeling. Then, as the swish of tests sounded and the gnome-like figures of the depot men crawled from under the car, the Major looked again at his ...
— The Air Ship Boys • H.L. Sayler
... 'Swish-h-h' went the clumsy slug past Roland's ear. He grasped his revolver; and the resolution of the moment was to stand at bay and fight the churls. But the reflection not occupying the hundredth part of a second showed him that ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... the swish of whips and the camels, having changed from an ambling pace into a full gallop, began to speed like the whirlwind, throwing up with their feet the sand and gravel ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... pack starts out on the trail, the bells of the leaders jingling, the rattle and crunch of buckles and saddle-leather, the click of the horses' feet against the rocks, the swish as they ford a singing stream. The wind is in the trees and birds are chirping. Then comes the long, hard day, the forest, the first sight of snow-covered peaks, the final ...
— Tenting To-night - A Chronicle of Sport and Adventure in Glacier Park and the - Cascade Mountains • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... low, blunt, muffled rumbling, like distant thunder, was followed by another series of shocks, which, though not nearly so severe as the first, made the cliffs and domes tremble like jelly, and the big pines and oaks thrill and swish and wave their branches with startling effect. Then the talkers were suddenly hushed, and the solemnity on their faces was sublime. One in particular of these winter neighbors, a somewhat speculative thinker with whom I had often conversed, was a firm believer ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir
... the dead winter silence, that was broken only by the hoots of a flitting owl hungry for the food that it could not find, and the swish of the feet of a galloping fox as it looped past them through the snow. Presently they came to an open place ringed in by forest, so wet that only marsh-trees would grow there. To their right lay a little ice-covered mere, with sere, brown reeds standing here and there upon its face, ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... As they waited and listened to the whining of the wind, the swish of the rain and the angry muttering of the thunder, and saw the vivid lightning, it was no wonder they did not want to decide hurriedly to go out in that out burst of the elements. But it was also trying on the nerves to stay in the stalled auto, exposed as it was by ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... The swish and murmur of night, the rustle of a steady sea breeze, the composite rumble of the city far below, tuned with the song in Eleanor's blood as she stood waiting by the front gate. She looked down on the pattern ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... of the right flank of the 7th I saw some men gathered behind a ruined house at a place we called Enfiladed crossroads and went over to see who they were. The moment I stepped out of my trench a German machine gunner got after me and I could hear the "swish swish" of the bullets a few feet in front of me. I realized that death was very near, so I stepped short and let him get his range a little ahead of me. His gun followed me for a hundred yards. I found Captain Victor Currie there trying to get the wounded away ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... honking of the motor-car, and a great swish where it grazed a wet bush near the house. Somebody lowered the gas in the hall, and Mrs. Paget's voice said regretfully, "I wish we had had a fire in the parlor—just one of the times!—but there's no help for ...
— Mother • Kathleen Norris
... in hand, and the rhythmic swish-swash of the river told that the tide was rising. The dried-up gullies and canals became silver-streaked with the incoming spray, and it needed only a windmill to make the scene as Dutch as a Van Der Neer. Piloti was moody. Something worried him, but as I was not in a very receptive condition, I ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... was home, and whatever else it lacked, it had a front window, with shutters, and a balcony with an iron railing, and when tucked up in their beds at night, in the tiny dark alcove, the children could hear the soft swish of the ...
— Chico: the Story of a Homing Pigeon • Lucy M. Blanchard
... patiently at his wrist-irons. One he had slipped off at the cost of a row of broken and bleeding knuckles, but, do what he would, he could not free the other, and his ankles were securely fastened. From hour to hour he heard the swish of the water, and knew that the barque must be driving with all set in front of the trade wind. In that case they must be nearly back again to Jamaica by now. What plan could Sharkey have in his head, and what ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... door behind him, the woman at that moment uppermost in his thoughts came down the dusky silence from the further end of the hall. She turned her inscrutable eyes upon him in passing, and flitted noiselessly and with languid grace up the stairway, the faint swish of her gown vanishing with her. He hesitated a moment, overpowered by conflicting emotion; then he sprang recklessly ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... critter. Couldn't neither on 'em understan' it. The boy c'u'd see the eyes o' the panther 'n the dark. Shone like tew live coals eggszac'ly. The panther 'd never sot 'n a tree when he was hungry, 'n see a boy below him. Sumthin' tol' him t' jump. Tail went swish in the leaves like thet. His whiskers quivered, his tongue come out. C'u'd think o' nuthin' but his big empty belly. The boy was scairt. He up with his gun quick es a flash. Aimed at his eyes 'n let 'er flicker. Blew a lot o' smoke 'n bird shot 'n paper waddin' ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... vigor assaulted Julius Caesar upon the flank, and his tail not whisking as well as usual, because of the incumbrance, he missed the enemy at the first swish and moved uneasily forward for several feet. As it chanced, this movement left the other string of firecrackers fairly in the lap of Cocoanut. The boys were ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... faint rustling within the house: the swish of draperies on the stairs, a delicious whispering when light feet descend, tapping, to hearts that beat an answer, the telegraphic message, "We come! We come! We are near! We are near!" Lige Willetts stared at Harkless. He had never thought the latter good-looking until he saw him ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... there, while the snow drifted down continually. The illusion that the days of primeval man had come back was strong upon him again. They had become, in effect, cave-dwellers once more, and their chief object was to kill. He listened to the light swish of the snow, and thought of the blue heights into which he had often ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler
... that the shuffle-shuffle of a footstep can be heard in the distance, the tinkle of a tin pail swinging musically to and fro, the swish of an alder switch cropping the heads of the roadside weeds. All at once a voice breaks the stillness. Is it a child's, a woman's, or a man's? ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... sounded the ineffable swish of silken petticoats along the corridor and the clinking of high heels on the tiles. La Senorita Marquesa d'Aumerle had obtained permission to visit His Most Serene Highness. The sentinel of the evening before was again on duty, and his ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... reach the dock and get a boat. She might risk being scalped, but a boat at any cost she would have, and one was sent her—as to the fearless and determined all their desires are sent. She heard the thump of oars in rowlocks, bringing the relief guard, and with a swish, out of the void of the lake a keel ...
— Marianson - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... to the stream. The subdued light in the pass made the distances elusive and turned the shadows into subtle mysteries of purpling greys. The air was full of the scent from the thickly growing vegetation, but, save for the rippling swish of the water trickling across the track, the silence ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... the silence was at an end. He heard the breathing of his comrades, the timbers creaked, the wind whistled, and the waves swish-swashed against the ship. Then he knew that he was still among the living, and on top ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... clutch, the men dashed into the water with paeans and shouts and the broken pitchers of fallen Jericho. The violet phosphorescence lighted them on their way, and tracked with luminous curve and star every move of the enemy. The gashed water at every stroke of club or swish of tail or fin bled in blue and red fire, as if the very sea was wounded. The enemy's line of battle was broken and scattered, but not until more than one of the assailants had looked point-blank into the angry eyes of a shark and beaten it off with actual blows. It was the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... Monarch, like a bird with a broken wing. In a few minutes there came a sudden jar that told the ship had struck the ice. Then, with a swish and rustle the silk bag, emptied of gas fell on the roof of the cabins. The Monarch had come down between two big hummocks of ice, and rested almost in a ...
— Through the Air to the North Pole - or The Wonderful Cruise of the Electric Monarch • Roy Rockwood
... his lips we had shot around the projecting rock, where the road had been cut from the mountain-side. We were near our journey's end then, for at the foot of the embankment that sheered down at our left we heard the swish of a mountain-stream. The horse went down. There was a cry from Tip—a sound of splintering wood—something seemed to strike me a brutal blow. Then I lay back, careless, fearless, ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... and life together. With a start of energy she sat upright, shifting her body until her feet touched the floor over the side of the bed. She knew what she must do—now, now, before it was too late. She must go out into this cool damp, out, away, to feel the wet swish of the grass around her feet and the fresh moisture on her forehead. Mechanically she struggled into her clothes, groping in the dark of the closet for a hat. She must go from this house where the thing hovered that pressed upon her bosom, or else made itself into stray, ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... and still they continued to follow the rocky shore amid silence, broken only by the swish of the paddle, for neither Forbes ...
— The River of Darkness - Under Africa • William Murray Graydon
... who dictated certain schemes of colour, certain harmonious arrangements of black; and the most distressing symptom of all is that Mr. Brabazon could not hold an exhibition of some very nice tints of rose and blue without inspiring Mr. Steer to go and swish water-colour about in the same manner. Mr. Steer has the defect of his qualities; his perceptions are naive: and just as he must have thought seven years ago that all modern landscape-painters must be more or less like Monet, he must have thought last summer ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... shrieks, a swish of skirts down the garden path, and reinforcements in the shape of three more young ladies emerged from the gate and fell upon the rebellious mail-carrier. They climbed into the shaking old buckboard and Maggie seized the reins and turned old ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... about haying—I mean for those not engaged in it. One likes to hear the whetting of the scythes on a fresh morning and the response of the noisy bobolink, who always sits upon the fence and superintends the cutting of the dew-laden grass. There is a sort of music in the "swish" and a rhythm in the swing of the scythes in concert. The boy has not much time to attend to it, for it is lively business "spreading" after half a dozen men who have only to walk along and lay the grass low, while the boy has the whole hay-field on his hands. He has little time ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the steamboat pier, Gadabout ran close in and cast anchor. She may well have been proud of the quite perceptible waves that she sent rolling to the shore and of the quite audible swish that ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... up. He could hear the swish of the waters, white at her foot; he could see the wet sail, the bucketing bows, the fore-deck awash. She would pass bang beneath his feet. He could see no man at the helm—only the jumping bowsprit, the thrashing foot, and that huge ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... hit in the groin. When he returned we had some cruelly broken cases in, and that nulla saw a deal of pain, and grew stale with the smell of blood. A fair number of bullets flew over, and there was the occasional swish of a machine-gun. Mules were killed far back in the second line, and men hit. But the nulla was safe. The misguided Turk shelled and machine-gunned the empty ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson
... alertness. We joined Argo in the pit. He was perturbed, and cursing. We dropped, gliding down, for there was no need of picking a landing with the emergency heliocopter batteries—glided down to the calm surface. For a moment we lay there, rocking—a dark blob on the water. I heard a sudden sharp swish. An under-surface freight vessel, plowing from Venezuelan ports to the West Indian Islands, came suddenly to the surface. Its headlight flashed on, but missed us. It sped past. I could see the sleek black outline of its wet back, and the lines of foam as it sheered ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... is reality. He is yet about three hundred yards distant. I might not have heard him, even with the aid of the cleft, but tonight Areskoui has given uncommon power to my ear, perhaps to aid us, and I know he is walking among thick bushes. I can hear the branches swish as they fly back into place, after his body has passed. Ah, a small stick popped as it broke under ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... skill and endurance of those matchless crews of Indians. Sir George Simpson was a hard master, and pushed them to their very utmost. No dallying along the road was allowed when he was on board. He would put his hand over the side of the canoe into the water, and if with a swish the water did not fly up perpendicularly before him he would reprove in language that could not ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young
... under the Neva. Touman, between the two guards who held him, and who sometimes received blows on the rebound that were not intended for them, never uttered a complaint. Outside the invectives of Koupriane there was heard only the swish of the cords and the cries of Rouletabille, who continued to protest that it was abominable, and called the Chief of Police a savage. Finally the savage stopped. Gouts of blood had ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... come!" she whispered, "hide." Dan could hear the swish of her garments as she rapidly glided across the room to the old cabinet, then he turned and crouched low behind the writing desk that she had chosen for his place of concealment. He knelt there motionless, a cocked pistol clenched in his right hand. His breath seemed to have stopped, but ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... forward, and look out there," cried Dan, who was in command; and Billy stood ready, while we could hear the swish of the waves against the cutter's bows, and every man instinctively put his hand on his ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... the open with the sunshine pouring down and a big lazy white cloud tangled in tree-tops. So he flung himself on the moss, hands under his head, and lay there, Prince beside him, looking up, up into the far blue, listening to the swish and rustle of the wind talking secrets to the leaves, and all the tiny mysterious noises that make up the silence of a wood ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... so, and the three stared at him. Then with a swish of leaves in the wind and a spatter of rain in their faces, the candle blew out. The girls screamed and sprang up. The hound backed into his corner and barked furiously. Whatever it was, it had crossed the threshold and was in the room ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... him. Tressan stood with his back to the open door. His ears, strained to listen, had caught the swish of a woman's gown. He cleared his throat, and ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... quickly to the stake on which the lantern hung. The wind was rushing through the tree-tops with increased fervor; the air was cool and wet with the signs of rain; a swirl of dust flew up into her face; the swish of leaves sounded like the splashing of water in the air. Holding her heart for minutes, she at last regained some of the lost composure. A hysterical laugh fell from her lips. "What a goose! It was an owl and I've heard hundreds of them up here. Still, they do sound different outside of ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... and roared at them, an unexpected and fearful challenge. A moment of paralyzed terror was followed by a wild rush, the bracken breaking under their flying feet. After they had passed from his sight he could hear the swish and crashing of their frantic flight. Two boys, so frightened, would not take long to reach home and gasp out ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... red ox with a pointed stick, the two beasts settled their massive shoulders to the collar, and with a soft greasy swish and a crackle of half-burnt stubble the moldboard rolled aside the loam. I too felt that this was a great occasion. At last I was working my own land; with the plowshare I was opening the gate of an unknown future; and my fingers tingled as I jerked ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... was fulfilling the duties of a runner for our unit;—he also told me to have a lookout for the cook while there and make some inquiries about him. I saluted and left. The first place I went to in the wagon lines was the cookhouse and as I got there I thought I noticed the swish of someone quickly disappearing round the corner and the cockney-cook there informed me that Scotty had spent the previous evening with them and had ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... No, me lad, don't go near him! He was the divil's own, the very worsht that ever followed the swish of a petticoat. No, no; if ye go to his grave it'll bring ye bad luck for a year. It's Tom Moore ye want—Tom was the bye. Arrah! now, and it's meself phat'll go ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... beginning to congratulate himself on the important capture he had made, and with his hand on his captive's collar, and his revolver to his ear, was moving towards the center of the street, when a whistling "swish" was heard, the dull thud of a slung shot on the detective's head followed, and, every muscle relaxed, he sank a senseless man in the ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... ceaseless patter and swish of the gloomy rain—the gusty sighs of the wind through the shade-trees' naked branches—louder still the rolling of heavy wheels over the rough streets; and all these were torn and rent by the shrieks of men ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... of laughter, fresh as the breath of night, rang out from the path, followed by light hasty footsteps and the swish of a dress rustling through the grass like an adder. Abbe Mouret, standing at the window, saw something golden glide through the pine trees like a moonbeam. The breeze, wafted in from the open country, was now laden with that penetrating perfume of verdure, that scent of wildflowers, which Albine ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... plain fare with the eager appetite of youth and health. From far down the gulch the muffled roar of the stamps rose and fell on the light airs that drifted up and down. Through it all was the soft swish of the falling spray, the sharp blip! blip! as points of light, gathered from dripping boughs, grew to sparkling gems, then, losing their hold, fell into little pools at the foot of the cliff. High above ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... playing, nor grouse scratching among the new-fallen leaves. Their alternate rustlings and silences are unmistakable. It was not a bear shaking down the ripe beechnuts—not heavy enough for that, yet too heavy for the feet of any prowler of the woods to make on his stealthy hunting. Pr-r-r-r-ush, swish! thump! Something struck the stem of a bush heavily and brought down a rustling shower of leaves; then out from under the low branches rolled something that I had never seen before,—a heavy, grayish ball, ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... up and out, shouting and chasing, the lord of the morning. Poplars swayed and tossed with a roaring swish; dead leaves sprang aloft, and whirled into space; and all the clear-swept heaven seemed to thrill with ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... at the rest of us, who worked cheerily and with no arriere pensee. At the end of the first week the picture hat was tucked away in the bandbox; the frou-frou of the sateen petticoat and the daring swish of the golf skirt were packed up, like the remains of a bubble that had reflected the world in its brilliant sides one moment and the next lay a little heap of soap-suds. She had gone behind in her work steadily at the factory; she was not making more than sixty cents a day. She left ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... Venus de Milo beaten on Points and Style, and when the Way the Skirt sets isn't so Poor, and she is Coy and introduces the Startled Fawn way of backing up without getting any farther away, and when she comes on with short Steps, and he gets the remote Swish of the Real Silk, to say nothing of the Faint Aroma of New-Mown Hay, and her Hesitating Manner seems to ask, "Have I or have I not met a Friend?"—in a Case of that kind, the Victim is just the same as ...
— More Fables • George Ade
... and, instead, laid his arms on the folded rack and his head on his arms. He did not stir again, and a long silence followed. The only sound that was to be heard came from Wotan, who, sitting on his haunches on a corner of the table, washed the white fur of his belly with an audible swish. ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... unpleasant as well as somewhat risky, for he had to turn back the old fur cap from his tingling ears; and he shivered at every variation of the stinging blast. There was nothing to be heard except the soft swish of the snow as it swirled among the stones and the hollow rumble of the river pouring down a rapid beneath a rent bridge ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... watching with wonder and envy as Marcia made her bargain with the kindly merchant, and selected her chintz. What a delicious swish the scissors made as they went through the width of cloth, and how delightfully the paper crackled as the bundle was being wrapped! Mary Ann did not know whether Kate or Marcia ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... sounded about me like the swish of the sea, startling me for a second, but instantly I saw what had caused it. The Dagombas had let loose a flight of poisoned ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... could reply, before he could take a step, there was a swish of woman's garments, and before the father's astonished eyes there stood his daughter by the side of her lover. Her form was drawn to its full height, her bosom was heaving, her eyes were flashing. Taking her lover's hand, she cried: ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... if doing some work done many times before, he slit it open and took four ingots, which he put in his pockets. He covered up the exposed box again and step by step came out of the gully. The bushes closed after him with a swish. ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... together. The hotels being all full, we took up our quarters in a small boarding-house, standing in dense groves of orange trees, where each shiver of the night breeze sent the branches of the orange trees swish-swishing, and wafted great breaths of the delicious fragrance of orange blossom into our rooms. I was in bed, when the Guardsman, who had never been in the tropics before, rushed terror-stricken into my room. "I have drunk nothing whatever," he faltered, "but ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... moss on the cypress boughs. All the world of the Salkahatchie was wrapped in siesta. The white clouds drifting on palest turquoise were the only moving things except the water flowing beneath, and its soft swish against the gunnels of the floating wharf made ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... he watched till the kopje was blotted from his sight, and the demons of the storm came shrieking back. Then suddenly there came a crash that shook the world and made the senses reel. He heard the rush and swish of water, water torrential that fell in a streaming mass, and as his understanding came staggering back he knew that the first, most menacing danger was past. The cloud ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... was about to ascend the steps of the companionway, he heard the swish of skirts and then a sharp scream. In an instant he was half way up, his arms extended. Lord Huntingford's daughter plunged into them, and he literally carried her to the foot. She was pale and trembling and he was flushed. He had looked up in time to see her falling ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... face was set and stern. His eyes gleamed with righteous anger. Then he began calmly rolling up his sleeves. He went forward to the prisoner. "I am going to give you a taste of this," he declared, swinging his stick through the air. It hit Phil's captive with a swish, once, twice, three times. Mr. Brown was just warming up to ...
— Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... door pushed open, and a swish of fresh air sweeps in, men along with it; as they enter, giving utterance ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... dress," said Esther, "or you—oh, it really is too bad!" she exclaimed abruptly as a soft swish along the corridor and the click of a latch told her that she had been again forestalled, and Angela was now in possession of the bathroom. "I ought to go first, because I am the eldest, and Poppy last because she ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... darkness. Henry's heart began to beat high. Nature, as it so often did, was coming to their help. The droning song of the scalp dance had ceased and with it the voices of the warriors talking. No sound came from the river, save the soft swish of the flowing waters, and now and then a gurgle and a splash, when some huge catfish raised part of his body above the surface, and then let it fall ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... almost simultaneously outside, and the dining-room was plunged into pitchy darkness. Steel instantly caught up a chair. He was no coward, but he was a novelist with a novelist's imagination. As he stood there the sweetest, most musical laugh in the world broke on his ear. He caught the swish of silken drapery and the subtle scent that suggested the fragrance of a woman's hair. It was vague, ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... the chamber back and forth, and there was silence save for the soft swish of his slippers along ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... policeman in sight when you look for one; so Miss Frisbie stamped her foot again and snorted in Peter's face. "Goodbye, Comrade Gudge!" The emphasis she put upon that word "comrade" would have frozen the fieriest Red soul; and she turned with a swish of her skirts and strode off, and Peter stood looking mournfully at her little French heels going crunch, crunch, crunch on the gravel path. When the heels were clean gone out of sight, Peter sought out the nearest bench and sat down and buried his face in his hands, a picture of ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... responsible Power, whoever that may be. "What is it all," we say, "but a trouble of ants in the gleam of a million million of suns?" We feel like insects whom the foot of a heedless giant may at any moment crush. We dream of the swish of a comet's tail wiping out organic life on the planet, and we see, as a matter of fact, great natural convulsions, such as the earthquake of Lisbon or the eruption of Mont Pelee, treating human communities ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... was a mighty creak of the ladder, the swish of a heavy body through the air, an interrupted growl, and then a ripping thud. Swallow's chubby body shot squarely through the opening, accompanied by a trusty though somewhat sadly stretched vest, and ...
— The Day of the Dog • George Barr McCutcheon
... The swish-swish of her feet in the grass, the rustle of her skirts, became prominent sounds. She missed the company of her watch; she wound it up and got it to ticking; anything to ward off the solitude. The thought of camping out she did not like to entertain; but thoughts ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... word 'Germany,' a train of vague thoughts dragged across his brain. The pompous middle-class vulgarity of the building of Berlin; the wide and restful beauty of Munich; the taste of beer; innumerable quiet, glittering cafes; the Ring; the swish of evening air in the face, as one skis down past the pines; a certain angle of the eyes in the face; long nights of drinking, and singing, and laughter; the admirable beauty of German wives and mothers; certain friends; some tunes; the quiet ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke
... in the fervent hope that every good sentence would be spoiled by a summons from one of the four rods of which I was in command. For one hour my pencil wrought without a pause, and delightful it was under the sunshine to indite to the steady strokes of two pair of oars, the rhythmic swish of the water, now tranquilly flowing, and easy for ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... clinging to her until she seemed scarcely dressed, her wet hair streaming and her wide, staring eyes looking straight ahead. After the lightning flashes, when the world was darkest, he could hear the stumbling tread of her feet and the panting of her breath, and now and then the swish of brush as it struck across her face and breast. The rain had washed away the scent of his master's feet but he knew they were following Jolly Roger, and that the girl was running to overtake him. In him was the desire to ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... way out. See, Dave! See!" cried Joel, twisting his legs around the branch on which he sat, almost at the very tip of the apple tree, and he swung both arms exultingly. There was a crack, a swish, and something came tumbling through the air, and before David could utter a sound, there lay Joel on the ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... at the time, what was ailing me, but I had a feeling of some impending and deadly illness. My nerves were all awry, and, from the astounding tricks they played me, my senses seemed to have run riot. Strange sounds disturbed me. At times I heard the swish-swish of grass being shoved aside, and once the patter of feet across a patch ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... not told us, go to Christ and say, 'Grant that we may sit, the one on Thy right hand and the other on Thy left, in Thy kingdom.' That was what he wished and hoped for, and what he got was years of service, and a taste of persecution, and finally the swish of the headsman's sword. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren |
