"Gruff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... girl dead than married to him. But she's wilful, Kilday; when she was just a baby she'd sit with her little pink toes curled up for an hour to keep me from putting on her shoes when she wanted to go barefoot! She's a fighter," he added, with a gruff chuckle that ended in a sigh, "but ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... and smiled again, and rose up to take the cup from this fair bearer, and at that moment there was a sort of scuffle, unseemly enough, at the lower end of the hall near the door, and gruff voices seemed to be hushed as Ina glanced up with the cup yet ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... kind to the poor, and never refused to go out at night. It was funny to see him arrive on a cold day, enveloped in so many cloaks and woollen comforters that it took him some time to get out of his wraps. He had a gruff voice, and heavy black overhanging eyebrows which frightened people at first, but they soon found out what a kind heart there was beneath such a rough exterior, and the children loved him. He had always a box of liquorice lozenges in his waistcoat pocket which he distributed ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... impressions of the inhabitants of the Western world. Mr. Buel was usually present during these conferences, and his conduct under the circumstances was not admirable. He was silent and moody, and almost gruff on some occasions. Perhaps Hodden's persistent ignoring of him, and the elder man's air of conscious superiority, irritated Buel; but if he had had the advantage of mixing much in the society of his native land he would have become ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... the crowded Bridge, suddenly he felt himself seized roughly by the shoulders, and he heard a gruff voice exclaiming: 'There you are! I have found ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... months of letters like that: a lot of words, evasion of coming to the point about anything; just conventional letters. Benda was the last man to write a conventional letter. Yet, it was Benda writing them: gruff little expressions of his, clear ways of looking at even the veriest trifles, little allusion to our common past: these things could neither have been written by anyone else, nor written under compulsion from without. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... quite simply that they had not had a very good morning, for three hours' work had only produced some forty bodies. I looked at these relics of the new order; they were of both sexes and belonged to every condition of life, from the gruff, horny-handed worker to the delicately-nurtured young girl. A miscellaneous assortment of the goods, among other things, ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... A gruff-looking fellow eyed me all over as much as to say, "Not you anyhow." But he answered, "Yes. Go below and ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... pitch dark and the air was hot and close. Not a sound came to his throbbing cars. With characteristic irrepressibility he began to swear softly, but articulately. Proof that his profanity was mild—one might say genteel—came in an instant. A gruff voice, startlingly near ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... Round. They were living at Gad's Hill, and it was the novelist's practice to rehearse in a grove at the bottom of a big field behind the house. Nobody knew of this practice until one day the younger Charles heard sounds of violent threatening in a gruff, manly voice, and shrill calls of appeal rising in answer, and thinking that murder was being done, he unfastened a great household mastiff and raced along the field to find the tragedy of Sykes ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... "Didn't I always tell you, boys, that though Cap'n Aaron Sproul might be a little gruff and a bit short, sea-capt'in fashion, he was all ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... between the eyes to Bertie Adams. His adored Miss Warren going away and no clear prospect of her return—her farewell almost like the last words on a death-bed.... He bowed his head over his folded arms on his office desk, and gave way to gruff sobs and the brimming over of tear and nose glands which is the grotesque accompaniment ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... A gruff, muffled sound was the only response. In a few moments, however, Dorry heard Don's window-blinds fly open with spirit, and she knew that her sisterly efforts to rouse him had not ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... Dad (returning to his gruff manner). Well, young fellow, I'm glad to hear you've learned a little sense, at least! How've you been making out? Not ...
— The Pot Boiler • Upton Sinclair
... felt that even he did not wholly grasp the difficulties of the situation. He supported her indeed, but he did not realize precisely where lay the strain. And it was the same with Dr. Jim. He had accepted her engagement without demur after a gruff enquiry as to whether she loved the fellow. But he had not asked for any details, and had made no reference to her former engagement. She supposed that he found out all he wanted to know on this subject from Nick; and she was grateful ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... look at the matter practically, as business-men," said Soule at last, affecting a gruff, hearty tone, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... heard the footsteps of Mr. Mott descending the stairs. The door opened an inch, and a gruff voice demanded to know whether he was going to stay there all night. Receiving a cheerful reply in the affirmative, Mr. Mott secured the front door with considerable violence, and went off to bed ...
— Deep Waters, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... closely about her face. For eighteen hours she had been a keenly attentive, wide-eyed, and partly frightened bit of humanity in this onrush of "the horde." She had heard a voice behind her speak of it as "the horde"—a deep, thick, gruff voice which she knew without looking had filtered its way through a beard. She agreed with the voice. It was the Horde—that horde which has always beaten the trails ahead for civilization and made of its own ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... don't know music! Wherefore Keep on casting pearls To a—poet? All I care for Is—to tell him a girl's "Love" comes aptly in when gruff ...
— Practice Book • Leland Powers
... the first posada which I attempted to enter I was told that we could not be accommodated, and particularly our horses, as the stable was full of water. At the second (there were but two), I was answered from the window by a gruff voice nearly in the words of Scripture: 'Trouble me not, the gate is already locked, and my servants are also with me in bed; I cannot arise to let you in.' Indeed we had no particular desire to enter, as ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... behind them were also grimly silent. They knew that whatever they might say would be twisted into a word of sympathy for the condemned man or a protest against the government. So no one spoke; even the officers gave their orders in gruff whispers, and the men in the crowd did not mix together, but looked suspiciously at ...
— Cuba in War Time • Richard Harding Davis
... do myself." This was gross exaggeration, yet was the infant Harry a conspicuously forward child, with the "makings of a man" in him visible to all. His hearty whoas and gee-ups carried as far as the overseer's gruff voice; and the picture of the jolly boy, with his rosy, joyous face, and his fair curls blowing in the wind, was one to kindle the admiration of all who saw it. The phrase continually on the lips of his adopted family and connections was: 'Won't his father be surprised ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... want, one Mr. Frank Fairlegh?" Here I took the liberty of interrupting the speaker, whom I had long since recognised as Coleman—though what could have brought him to Cambridge I was at a loss to conceive—by coming behind him, and saying, in a gruff voice, "I am sorry you keep such low company, ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... slept on. His brother drew a blanket over him, knowing that he could not afford to catch cold, and breathed the cooler air himself, with thankfulness. Conway came back again, and was scarcely less gruff than before, although ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... boy and the place he comes to fill in the hearts of the gruff farmer folk to whose care he ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... would have died; men imbued with a feebler determination would have fainted. As it was, the transport was crowded with men whose feet had failed them, and many must have fallen behind, to be killed or made prisoner. The majority "stuck it" manfully, and faced every fresh effort with a cool, gruff determination that was wonderful. This spirit saved the Allies from the first frenzied blow of Germany, in just the same way that it had saved England from ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... old rector was still gruff and still proffered snubs which were gratefully received, for Mark was genuinely anxious not to be misled by the atmosphere of praise and affection ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... others. Jesus is glad to see and point to even imperfect sparks of goodness in a justly condemned class. No doubt, publicans in their own homes, with wife and children round them, let their hearts out, and could be tender and gentle, however gruff and harsh in public. When Jesus says 'even the publicans,' He is not speaking in contempt, but in recognition of the love that did find some soil to grow on, even in that rocky ground. But is not the bringing in of the 'reward' as a motive a woful downcome? and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... the gruff old smoker, "how I like ye. A fortune, scraped up in forty years in Ingy, ain't to be thrown away in a minute. But what a house this is to live in!"; the uncomfortable old relative went on, throwing a contemptuous glance round the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... queer little quirk to his mouth the gruff Senior Surgeon jerked his glance back from the open window where with the gleam of a slim torn-boyish ankle the frisky young Spring went scurrying ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... Lances of Lynwood!" shouted John Ingram, and the cry was taken up by many a gruff honest voice, till the hall rang again, and the opposing shout of "a Clarenham, a Clarenham!" was raised by the retainers of the Baron. Eustace, at the same moment, raised his nephew in his arms, ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... were when I was waiting for you, Doctor Craig, to take me to a dinner or the opera. My notebook lived with me as if it had been a treasure I couldn't have out of my sight. It was just that. I never was so proud of anything I learned at college as I was when the gruff man who had my special training in charge told me I would make a stenographer. Not all of them did, he said. Some never could get hold of it, or acquire any speed or accuracy. Just give me a year, and I'll put down your thoughts ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... a matter of fact, never afterward could Nikky recall thinking at all. He moved away quietly, hidden by the shadows of the colonnade. Behind him, on the steps, the two men were talking. Peter Niburg's nasal voice had taken on a whining note. Short, gruff syllables replied. Absorbed in themselves and their business, they neither heard nor saw the figure that slipped through the colonnade, and dropped, a bloodcurdling drop, from the high end of it to ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... pal a signal, would you?" he said, in a gruff whisper. "Come now, keep quiet if you don't want to be choked. You can't save 'im, so ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... hateful, ill-tempered, surly, churlish, disagreeable, ill-conditioned, morose, unamiable, crabbed, dogged, ill-humored, sour, unlovely, cruel, gruff, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... smooth little creature, and the rough man who seems to be carved out of hard-grained wood - between the delicate hand expectantly held out, and the immense thumb and finger that can hardly feel the rigging of thread they mend - between the small voice and the gruff growl - and yet there is a natural propriety in the companionship: always to be noted in confidence between a child and a person who has any merit of reality and genuineness: which ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... they began drilling. It was under the lawn, in front of the church. Gorju, in a blue smock-frock, with a neckcloth around his loins, went through the movements in an automatic fashion. When he gave the orders, his voice was gruff. ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... norther before their eyes. We stopped at the house of the "Marine Monster," Don Leonardo Mata, before crossing the bar, took up our shells, and had the felicity of making his acquaintance. He is a colossal old man, almost gigantic in height, and a Falstaff in breadth—gruff in his manners, yet with a certain clumsy good-nature about him. He performs the office of pilot with so much exclusiveness, charging such high prices, governing the men with so iron a sway, and arranging everything so entirely according to his own fancy, that he is a complete sovereign ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... but a passenger. He was a huge man in a bearskin coat and felt boots. He was wrapped up so heavily, and his fur cap was pulled down so far over his ears and face, that Nan could not see what he really looked like. In a great, gruff voice ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... rather fat, like the rest of his not elegant person; and a complexion rather pale. She thought he had quite a careless, if not a slightly rakish look; but I believe a man, even in that light, would have seen in him something manly and far from unattractive. He had a rather gruff but not unmusical voice, with what some might have thought a thread of pathos in it. He always reminded certain of his friends of the portrait of Jean Paul in the Paris edition of his works. He was hardly above the middle height, and, I am sorry to say, ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... they did not know, but they were awakened by rough hands shaking them and the sound of gruff voices. Hal opened his eyes. Daylight streamed in through ...
— The Boy Allies in Great Peril • Clair W. Hayes
... in a voice that sounded gruff, "I can't tell who she is—I never asked. It did not seem ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... even for a moment, but his nerves were too sound for that. He was recalled to outer things by feeling a hand laid gently on his leg, and immediately afterwards he heard a man's voice, in a quietly gruff tone that scarcely rose or fell, reciting a whole litany of the most appalling blasphemies that ever fell from human lips. For an instant, in his suffering, Zorzi fancied that he had died and was in the clutches ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... who came to Raynham Castle this autumn was one trusted friend of Sir Oswald, a gruff old soldier, Captain Copplestone, a man who had never won advancement in the service; but who was known to have nobly earned the promotion which had never ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... When I came up - very shy - to make my salute, she asked me how old I was. 'Seventeen,' was the answer. 'That means next birthday,' she grunted. 'Come and give me a kiss, my dear.' I, a man! - a man whose voice was (sometimes) as gruff as hers! - a man who was beginning to shave for a moustache! Oh! ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... find words to reply, the car came to a sudden stop, the door was flung open and a gruff voice growled out a question in Spanish which Cojuelo answered ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... activity to be expected of younger men, two of the guards at once lowered themselves into the pit dug beneath the boards which did duty as a flooring to this hovel, and, disappearing from sight in the tunnel excavated from the bottom of it, were presently heard giving expression to gruff commands, while the sound of scuffling followed. Then they reappeared, dragging a couple of dishevelled and exceedingly dirty prisoners with them. Others of the guards then stepped forward, and in a trice the wretched men who had been detected ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... desolation, with its distant roar of waters. Oh, wonderful! wonderful! so lonely and so solemn, with the sad grey clouds above, and no sound save a lost lamb bleating upon the mountain side, as though its little heart were breaking. Then there comes some lean and withered old ewe, with deep gruff voice and unlovely aspect, trotting back from the seductive pasture; now she examines this gully, and now that, and now she stands listening with uplifted head, that she may hear the distant wailing and obey it. Aha! they see, and rush towards each other. Alas! ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... were frustrated; for, when I approached, with as Christian an expression as my principles would allow, and asked the question—"Shall I try to make you more comfortable, sir?" all I got for my pains was a gruff— ...
— Hospital Sketches • Louisa May Alcott
... leisure to ponder over the difficulties confronting our expedition, some few of the crew now began to 'speak it foully,' and even to emit gruff proposals to return homewards. But to these waverers old Bill at once administered the sternest rebuke; and, as they at last held their peace, he averred with a gay smile (for he dearly loved the presence of danger, and ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... her mind, a special connection with Albert. In their expeditions the Prince had always trusted him more than anyone; the gruff, kind, hairy Scotsman was, she felt, in some mysterious way, a legacy from the dead. She came to believe at last—or so it appeared—that the spirit of Albert was nearer when Brown was near. Often, when seeking inspiration over some complicated question of political or domestic ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... moment a shadow fell upon the grass, and a deep, gruff voice was heard, saying, "Star, ahoy!" The child started up, and turned to meet the newcomer with a joyous smile. "Why, Bob!" she cried, seizing one of his hands in both of hers, and dancing round and round him. "Where did you come ...
— Captain January • Laura E. Richards
... such an interlude in all her pretty, romantic little dreams about kindred feelings and a hundred other delightful ideas, that flutter like singing birds through the fairy land of first love. Such an interlude! to be called on by gruff human voices to give up all the cherished secrets that she had trembled to whisper even to herself. She felt as if love itself had been defiled by the coarse, rough hands that had been meddling with it; so to her sister's soothing address Susan made no answer, ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... noise you make, little one. You seem to be in a great hurry to get out of the gilded cage," he exclaimed, not seeing the Italian who stood in the shade. When, however, she stepped forward, he altered his tone, which became as courteous as his gruff nature would allow. "Pardon, lady," he said, "I was not aware of your presence. What is it ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... was what the servants describe as "a man who keeps himself to himself," gruff, harsh, straight and clever. He hated all his girls and no one would have supposed, had they seen us together, that he liked me; but, after I had observed him blocking the light in the doorway of the room when I was speaking, I knew that I should ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... Boys were eager to talk with the redmen, but silence rested over the camp. Zeke was particularly gruff in his manner and apparently ignored the presence ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and Simon's Mine • Ross Kay
... to gain the big chance that he believes would open the door to success fails to secure his opportunity because he is disconcerted by a gruff reception that he misconstrues as personal to him. He wrongly interprets natural self-defense as a ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... importunately offered a small object to the sightseers and was as regularly repulsed. Without waiting for the professor, who stood at attention while Frauelein Linda sketched, this beggar or pedlar approached and prayed to be allowed to show a rare and veritable object of antiquity. A gruff refusal had already been given when she pleaded that they hear the peasant talk, and inspect his treasure. "Who knows, Herr Professor, but it might be Lombard?" "Wohlan," he replied, and sullenly took the proffered spearhead. It was of iron, patined rather than rusted, ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... where they fell. Then King Eirik went through Viken, and subdued it, and remained far into summer. Gudrod and Trygve fled to the Uplands. Eirik was a stout handsome man, strong, and very manly,—a great and fortunate man of war; but bad-minded, gruff, unfriendly, and silent. Gunhild, his wife, was the most beautiful of women,—clever, with much knowledge, and lively; but a very false person, and very cruel in disposition. The children of King Eirik and Gunhild were, Gamle, the oldest; ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... his kindly blue eyes glittered malevolently as they rested upon the face of Courtney Thane, who had taken his place at table a few minutes earlier. The fat little man was strangely preoccupied. He was even gruff in his response to Mr. Pollock's bland inquiry as to the state ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... good turn, except it was turning the bridge around and Connie Bennett said that was a good turn. He's the troop cut-up. Anyway, old Captain Savage took me up to North Bridgeboro with him and first I was kind of scared of him, because he had a big red face and he was awful gruff. But wait till you hear about the fun we had with him when we landed and took a ...
— Roy Blakeley's Adventures in Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... time this happens," said a gruff and suspicious voice, "I shall be exceedingly angry. Who is it this time, disturbing people on such ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... in his chest and gruff, about as a horse might be expected to speak if he had a voice. "You going, m'm? I just come up to ask if you'd ride in ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... Black, when Professor of Chemistry in Edinburgh University, had a gruff old man as his porter, a James Alston. James was one of the old school of chemistry, and held by phlogiston, but for no better reason than the endless trouble the new-fangled discoveries brought upon him in the way ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... France, and giving him the control of affairs. A sudden flight back to Stirling only saved him from seizure at Doune; and a few months later, as James hunted at Ruthven, he found the hand of the Master of Glamis on his bridle-rein. "Better bairns greet than bearded men," was the gruff answer to his tears, as his favourite fled into exile and the boy-king saw himself again a tool in ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... to be quite at home among us, I used to fancy that Priscilla played more pranks, and perpetrated more mischief, than any other girl in the Community. For example, I once heard Silas Foster, in a very gruff voice, threatening to rivet three horseshoes round Priscilla's neck and chain her to a post, because she, with some other young people, had clambered upon a load of hay, and caused it to slide off the cart. How she made her peace I never knew; but very soon afterwards I saw old Silas, with ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... practice, the offer was quite worth his acceptance. Moreover, he had the enthusiasm of a practical chemist, and would willingly have starved to see his invention carried out, so he received the appointment with the gruff gratitude that best suited Harold; and he and his brother were to have rooms in the late "Dragon's Head," so soon as it should have been rebuilt on improved principles, with a workman's hall below, and a great ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... door wide and made a sign for me to enter. He seemed in two minds whether to let Suliman come in with me or not, but finally admitted him with a gruff admonition to keep still in one place ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... together with a Coaita and a Caiarara monkey (Cebus albifrons). Both these lively members of the monkey order seemed rather to court attention, but the Mycetes slunk away when anyone approached it. When it first arrived, it occasionally made a gruff subdued howling noise early in the morning. The deep volume of sound in the voice of the howling monkeys, as is well known, is produced by a drum-shaped expansion of the larynx. It was curious to watch the animal while venting its hollow cavernous roar, and observe how small was the muscular ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... very gruff, "you shall walk again around Athens with a bold, brave face, though not to-morrow, I fear. Polus trusts his heart and not his head in voting 'guilty,' so I trust it ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... close to our ears that we started. The words appeared addressed to us; they were, in a way, since they were intended for the street, as a street, and for the benefit of the groups that filled it. The voice was gruff yet mellow; despite its gruffness it had the ring of a latent kindliness in its deep tones. The man who owned it was seated on a level with our elbows, at a cobbler's bench. We stopped to let the crowd push on beyond us. The man had only lifted his head from his work, but involuntarily ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... the road to make sure the cross Mr. Tang was not in sight, and they were glad when they did not see him. For, even though they knew their father had paid for Toby, still they felt that, in some way, the gruff man might come and take ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue and Their Shetland Pony • Laura Lee Hope
... A gruff bark startled them. A round, black, whiskered head suddenly thrust up out of the water close to the port gunwale. Filippo cried out in alarm, but Percy ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... immediately made his way to the bridge. He touched his hat to the gruff old officer, and begged his pardon for obtruding himself upon him, but he was in ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... formidable in appearance, wearing gold spectacles, and helping himself freely to the contents of a snuff-box, but he was one of the most kind-hearted of men. Children were great favourites with him, and his affection was returned with interest as soon as the shyness consequent on his somewhat gruff manner was overcome. He used to enjoy drawing us out, and would laugh heartily at our somewhat old-fashioned remarks and observations, at which we used to grow very indignant, for we were decidedly touchy when our dignity was at stake. He had nicknamed me Charlotte ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... pavement. As to the convicts, they went their way with the coach, and I knew at what point they would be spirited off to the river. In my fancy, I saw the boat with its convict crew waiting for them at the slime-washed stairs,—again heard the gruff "Give way, you!" like and order to dogs,—again saw the wicked Noah's Ark lying out on ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... beautiful that she would be very hard to please if she could not be happy. And after about an hour's talk Beauty began to think that the Beast was not nearly so terrible as she had supposed at first. Then he got up to leave her, and said in his gruff voice: ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... Patsy, "he will not care to injure us, I am sure. We all treated him very nicely, and I just made him talk and be sociable, whether he wanted to or not. That ought to count for something in our favor. But my opinion is that he's just a gruff old nobleman who lives in the hills and ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... him by the bright red flannel shirt he always wore, and besides, he was lame; some one told us he had had a bad fall once, on board ship. Kate and I had always wished we could find a chance to talk with him. He looked up at us pleasantly, and when we nodded and smiled, he said "Good day" in a gruff, hearty voice, and went on with his ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... gruff and shrill, sounded raggedly together. The dog-rose hedge cut off the sight of the little face. Then the pink head bobbed up again. He was standing up and waving the ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... snow over which I had been walking in the glare of the sun, I blundered up the steps, inquiring without much tact for the rider who had preceded me, and was no little alarmed at receiving a rude and gruff reception. I continued in suspense for some time, until my man found an opportunity to inform me that there were suspicious persons present, thus accounting for his unexpected manner. The explanation was made at a combination meal, serving for both dinner ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... work, day by day; Each lad must have his own small way, If it is but to loaf and loll, Or else, not to come in at all, Or not to care for what is done If so be it can yield no fun, Or else, to be as coarse and rough, As rash and rude, and grum and gruff, As though it were some bear that spoke, Whom all the ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 8, May 21, 1870 • Various
... be afraid," he remarked—a sort of gruff upbraiding, as if her evident trepidation impugned his justice in reprisal. "Come, you can guide me. Show me just where they came in, and just ...
— The Raid Of The Guerilla - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... read it over twice very carefully and glanced over the page at the sheep, as if taking stock and wondering why Kate's dollie was not there. Then he took the sheep and the letter and went over to the Captain's door. A gruff "Come in!" answered his knock. The Captain was pulling off his overcoat. He had just come ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... passed off very well. Herbert was a trifle gruff and silent; but it was plain that Allison's stories amused him, for now and then a half-smile crept into his stolid countenance. Julia Cloud was so glad that she could have cried. She hated scenes, and she dreaded being at outs with her relatives. So she ate her chicken ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... I'll post you everything to-night, so that you may have it all under your eye"—Casey, with the off-hand patronage of the man who would not for the world have his benevolence mistaken for servility,—and Wilkins with as gruff a nod and as limp a shake of the hand as possible. It might perhaps have been read in the manner of the last two, that although this young man had just made a most remarkable impression, and was clearly destined to go far, they were determined not to yield themselves to him a moment before ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... worked his way on board a ship, as a sailor boy, to San Francisco, and finally arrived at the diggings where his uncle was engaged in mining. In those early days of California mine digging the miners were generally a very rough class of men. So it happened that soon after Ned's arrival a great gruff "digger" offered to treat Ned to a drink of liquor, and became very angry because he refused to ...
— Fun And Frolic • Various
... a half-hour before lunch-time when Mr. Comer again called for Mitchell, greeting him with the gruff inquiry: ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... her. Had he made good his escape, or had he been retaken and confined somewhere else in the town? She had asked the man Watson as the cavalcade had started again, and his gruff reply was that the fool would be left dead in the ditch by the roadside. She did not believe Martin was dead; in fact, Martin puzzled her. He could not have had a hand in her betrayal, yet, at the very moment when courage was most needed, he had been a coward. Probably ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... the captain and officers were civil enough, that is, in a gruff sort of way, so I decided to speak to the former. I must mention that I spoke the Gilbert and Savage Island dialects, and so heard the natives talk. However, I said nothing of that to the German. I merely said to him that he was running a great risk in knocking the men about, and ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... inspection, they looked rather too dingy and close, and of questionable neatness. So we went to the Royal Hotel, where we probably fared just as badly at much more expense, and where there was a particularly gruff and crabbed old waiter, who, I suppose, thought himself free to display his surliness because we arrived at the hotel on foot. For my part, I love to see John Bull show himself. I must go again and again and again to Chester, for I suppose there is ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... to be but the beginning of a long business whereof the details may be left untold. On the very next day indeed I was summoned to the house of Sir Robert Aleys which was near to the palace and abbey of Westminster. Here I found the gruff old knight grown greyer and having, as it seemed to me, a hunted air, and with him the lord Deleroy and two foxy lawyers of whom I did not like the look. Indeed, for the first, I suspected that I was being ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard
... Jamie had not half finished his figuring. The cashier went, and the teller, each with a "good-night," to which Jamie hardly responded. The messenger went, first asking, "Can I help you with the safe?" to which Jamie gave a gruff "I am not ready." The day-watchman went, and the night-watchman came, each with his greeting. Jamie nodded. "You are late to-day." "I had to be." Last of all, Harley Bowdoin came in (one suspects, at his ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... which she had surveyed so ruefully when Bower brought them to her on the previous evening after interviewing the village shoemaker, were by no means so cumbrous in use as her unaccustomed eyes had deemed them. Even the phlegmatic guide was stirred to gruff appreciation when he saw her vault on to a large flat boulder in order to examine an iron cross ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... you last in London," said Phineas, with a voice that was gruff, and a manner that was abrupt, "I certainly did not think that we ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... doctor. "I suppose she was—hum! stay close by her!" this was to Grace. "You have a touch, I see. Probably you have been kind to her,—poor, forlorn, miserable little creature as ever I saw in my life!" The last words were hurried out as if they were one, in a gruff, not to ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards
... One became the hero of the hour. With all its stubbornness, Eric's pride could not but be gratified. He began to show signs of relenting. Gradually he ceased to avert his face. One day, he even worked himself up to making a gruff inquiry into ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... good sense, she asked the man standin' on the platform if he would help her off, for she had been tryin' to git off for the last five stations. So she had to take a car back, but the conductor wuz humbly and gruff and she got along all right, ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... and scarce awake, Out in the trench with three hours' watch to take, I blunder through the splashing mirk; and then Hear the gruff muttering voices of the men Crouching in cabins candle-chinked with light. Hark! There's the big bombardment on our right Rumbling and bumping; and the dark's a glare Of flickering horror in the sectors where ...
— Counter-Attack and Other Poems • Siegfried Sassoon
... my connection with her yet awhile. He has too summary a method of proceeding in these matters. However, I'll read my recantation instantly. My conversion is something sudden, indeed—but I can assure him it is very sincere. So, so—here he comes. He looks plaguy gruff. ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... bench behind a deal table, of which there were three or four in the kitchen; presently a bulky man, in a green coat, of the Newmarket cut, and without a hat, entered, and observing me, came up, and in rather a gruff tone cried, ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... long-lived, such as rheumatism, which may keep a man comfortably in aches and pains forty years. My dear old friend, however, taking them one by one, went through the lot and told me of the ghosts. The forefathers I knew are all gone—the stout man, the lame man, the paralysed man, the gruff old stick: not one left. There is not one left of the old farmers, not a single one. The fathers, too, of our own generation have been dropping away. The strong young man who used to fill us with such astonishment at the feats he would achieve ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... in his great gruff voice. And when the Middle Bear looked at his, he saw that the spoon was standing in it too. They were wooden spoons; if they had been silver ones, the naughty old woman would have put them in ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... gruff, grim, direct, far-seeing, kindly, shrewd—he had known Emma McChesney for what she was worth. Once, when she had been disclosing to him a clever business scheme which might be turned into good advertising material, old Buck had slapped his knee ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... "Evenin', parson," was the gruff reply. "Thought I'd make a little call on you and the missus," and he thumped his stick heavily upon ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... the spot, and presenting myself at the door, asked the tall figure, which proved to be a woman, if I might take shelter under her roof for the night. Her voice was gruff, and her attire negligently thrown about her. She answered in the affirmative. I walked in, took a wooden stool, and quietly seated myself by the fire. The next object that attracted my notice ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... talking. He had not thought of any one's punishing him for neglecting her. But if Dyckman had enlisted in her cause—well, Cheever was afraid of hardly anything in the world except boredom and the appearance of fear. He answered Zada with a gruff: ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... same voice, in a softer and more kindly tone than at first, when, I confess, it sounded rather gruff and peremptory. "Come ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... Begone, you, sir! Here, shepherd, call your dog. Shepherd. Be not affrighted, madame. Poor Pierrot Will do no harm. I know his voice is gruff, But then, his heart is good. Traveler. Well, call him, then. I do not like his looks. He's growling now. Shepherd. Madame had better drop that stick. Pierrot, He is as good a Christian as myself And does not like a stick. Traveler. Such a fierce look! And such great teeth! ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... one accord agreed that Dobrnja should ride out against the stranger. So Dobrnja mounted his war-horse and galloped forth to meet Zidovin, calling to him in a deep, gruff voice: ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various |
