United States or Croatia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Before they had gone two hundred yards, out from the very crest of the bluff there leaped half a dozen quick puffs of smoke; half a dozen little spirts of dust and sand flew up from the prairie near the three horsemen farthest to the front, two of whose steeds were seen to veer and shy violently, and then six sharp, spiteful, half-muffled reports were borne on the still air.
That afternoon Charlie Manton rode alone, and when he returned, hungry as a young wolf, to be told that his sister had retired with a sick headache, he drew his own conclusions, nodding sagely over his solitary dinner. Later, as he passed her door on the way to his room, he placed his ear at the keyhole and listened a long time to her half-muffled sobs.
There was a noise of hurrying footsteps and murmuring voices, that sort of half-muffled confusion in a household which bodes something wrong, and all at once Prince Sovrani threw open the door of the Cardinal's apartments without ceremony, crying out as he entered, "Where is Angela?" The Cardinal rose out of his chair, startled and alarmed. "Angela?" he echoed, "She is not here!" "Not here!"
"How did you happen to see the man?" he asked, as if he had perceived no significance in her previous answer. "'Kase I didn't happen ter be blind," her half-muffled voice replied. Her arm was thrown over the back of the chair, and her face was hidden on her elbow. The coroner interposed quickly: "Where were you goin', an' what did you see?" She sobbed aloud for a moment.
The sheep-bell, in its half-muffled strokes, as of a small hammer tapping on an iron or copper plate, is, one would imagine, a sound well within the starling's range, easily imitated, therefore specially attractive to him. But to pass to another subject what does the shepherd himself think or feel about it; and why does he have bells on his sheep? He thinks a great deal of his bells.
"Then I hope " began the other, stopping suddenly, with half-opened mouth, to listen, for just then there came to their ears a half-muffled sound that might be the scream of a red-headed woodpecker up on some rotten treetop, or anything else for that matter. Will and Bluff uttered exclamations indicating that they recognized the cry. Even Frank looked serious, while Jerry was plainly excited.
Her face, half-muffled in the brown fur of her cloak, flushed to a wonderful rose of happiness, the great eyes glowed, and Catherine reached out her hands toward Francois with a glad cry. His heart was hot wax as he fell before her upon his knees. "O heart's dearest, heart's dearest!" he sobbed; "forgive me that I doubted you!" And then for an instant, the balance hung level.
The latter failed completely to note the strained intensity of the face that was upturned before him and went on grumbling as he leaned over to fumble in the box beneath the seat. And the tirade continued in an unbroken, half-muffled stream until he straightened laboriously again, the boy's usual weekly packet of papers and catalogues in one hand.
A half-muffled noise of light wheels interrupted him. Boldwood turned back into the road. It was the mail-cart a crazy, two-wheeled vehicle, hardly heavy enough to resist a puff of wind. The driver held out a letter. Boldwood seized it and opened it, ex- pecting another anonymous one so greatly are people's ideas of probability a mere sense that precedent will repeat itself.
Among the plane-trees they separated, bundling into carriages and driving off, without saying good-night, or saying it only in a half-muffled way. It was so late that there was no time for normal conversation between their arrival at the hotel and their retirement to bed. But Hirst wandered into Hewet's room with a collar in his hand.
Word Of The Day