"Stertorous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with a vivid recollection of the pistol which had been thrust into the fugitive's breast, the boy was creeping forward and listening, till, as he came nearer, he became aware of a deep stertorous breathing, almost a snore, and, closing up, he bent over, to lay one hand on the hidden pistol, so as to be well on his defence, while with the other he ...
— The New Forest Spy • George Manville Fenn
... and re-arranging his bed against his door, and tumbling down upon it, like a man utterly overcome by fatigue and drowsiness; after which all was silent, until the stertorous breathing of the bailiff assured them of the depth of his sleep. After that, not a sound was heard in the house. Lyon looked at his watch. It was but nine o'clock, though the whole house was at rest. In these ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... again touched that little spring in the protruding under-ledge of his desk, and out upon the trenchant stillness, broken only by the rapid, stertorous breathing of the manacled man, burst the strident tones of that same man's voice, just as they had sounded ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... notwithstanding that the gas, having partially diffused upwards to the level of the opening, now began to filter through to my side. I waited a minute or two listening to the breathing of the two murderers as it grew moment by moment more stertorous and irregular, and then, having filled up the stove, went down to the first floor and sat awhile by the open window to breathe the relatively ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... A soft stertorous breathing interrupted him. Tom, chin on chest, was asleep. Polly, with a significant look, caught her uncle's eye. Then her father, after an uneasy ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... severe literary difficulties that his eyes were prominent and fixed, and his breathing was stertorous, when, to the great relief of Mrs Boffin, who observed these symptoms with alarm, the ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... amazement, to see her leaning a little forward, her hands still tightly clasped in her lap, and her eyes fixed upon the distant horizon where the red spark of Lakalatcha's stertorous breathing flamed and died away. Her breast rose and fell, as if timed to the throbbing of that ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... had a tendency to grow red and stertorous after luncheon, had been judiciously prevailed upon by Carry Fisher to withdraw to her hotel for an hour's repose; and Selden and his companion were thus left to a stroll propitious to confidences. The stroll ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... paddles, Dick set to work to light a fire, break up the deer, and prepare the guinea fowl for cooking; and still the injured man slept on, his breathing ever growing more laboured and stertorous, until at length the difficulty with which he drew his breath awakened him and, with a groan, he strove to raise himself. In an instant Stukely was by his side and, slipping an arm beneath his shoulders, he raised ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... for a few moments longer, then Ralph's stertorous breathing told of sleep. Victor was not long in following his example. Nick sat smoking thoughtfully for some time; presently he rose and put out the lamp and stoked up the fire. Then he, too, rolled over in his blankets, and, thinking of the beautiful ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... been different. Slowly his head drooped forward. He was dreaming pleasantly already, although, as yet, he was not quite asleep. Now he no longer attempted to keep his eyes open. Further his head drooped forward. The three men were still as mice. Then suddenly he rolled over on one side, and his stertorous breathing indicated a ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... with a grunt, and started to deal. Half-way through the operation the sound of rather stertorous breathing began to proceed from beneath the table. Mr. Bennett glanced agitatedly down, and curled ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... to narrate the deathbed dispositions and lament the trifling assets of her husband. Then she declared she heard 'the master' calling her, rose to her feet, made but one lurch of it into the still-life rockery, and with her head upon the lobster, fell into stertorous slumbers. ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... bathed her face, and felt better. The dull oppression which comes of a bad night was leaving her. She leaned out of the window, revelling in the fresh air, then crossed the passage and entered her own apartment. Stertorous breathing greeted her, and she perceived that Gerald Foster had also passed the night in a chair. He was sprawling by the window with his legs stretched out and his head resting on one of the arms, an ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... he was silent save for stertorous breathing. Vaguely cogitating over his promise I lay, toes and face up, staring at the bright stars; perplexed more and more over the immediate events of the future, warmly conscious of her astonishing proximity in this very train, prickled by the hope that she would continue with us, ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... by shouts from the neighboring tables, by mechanical love-making to the waitress, by stertorous grunts as the coffee filled him with dizziness and indigestion. He was apologetic and doubtful, and it was Paul, with his thin ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... satisfaction first of all! If you in a line or two could express at the right point something of that sort, it were well; yet on the whole, if not, then is almost no matter. Let the whole stand then as the commencement of slumber and stertorous breathing! ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... kitchen or in the servants' rooms, which were close at hand. We tried all the rooms as we went along, and in the dining room, dimly lit by rays of light through the shutters, found four servant women lying on the floor. There was no need to think them dead, for their stertorous breathing and the acrid smell of laudanum in the room left no doubt ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... a short, podgy leg and contemplated the bare instep and the grass slipper hanging by the toes. "You can't make him drunk?" he would add, after a pause of stertorous breathing. ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... had gone all on a sudden as cool as Dick, and nothing but his stertorous breathing hinted of the rage which filled him. 'That's it, is it? Then, if you're finished, hear me. I ain't got the gift o' the gab as free as you, but I can mek plain my meanin', p'raps. I'd rather see her a-layin' ...
— Julia And Her Romeo: A Chronicle Of Castle Barfield - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... be heard now save cautious footfalls, the opening and closing of doors, followed by the stertorous breathing of the dying woman and the tick-tock ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... to throw her belongings in viciously. From without came the crunch of Billy Penticost's boots as he crossed the little yard and the clink of a pail set down; then the rhythmic sound of pumping, so like the stertorous breathing of some vast creature, rose on the morning air. A sudden loathing of country sights and sounds gripped Blanche, and, tearing off her faded frock, she began to dress herself in the one smart travelling gown she ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... just within the threshold. Through a door slightly ajar came the sound of stertorous breathing, intermittent in its volume, now barely audible, again rising to a labored harshness. He listened, a look of dismayed concern gathering on his face. He had heard men in the last stages of exhaustion from wounds and disease breathe in ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... and terrible stertorous breathing on the one hand, and the promise of relief on the other, overpowered Mrs. Dodd's reluctance. She sent Julia out of the room on a pretext, and then consented with tears to David's being bled. ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... Lanning halted them. A laborer had been pinched during the night between loads of piling projecting over the ends of flat cars and they told the doctor his chest was hurt. A soiled neckcloth covered his face but his stertorous breathing could be heard, and Gertrude Brock begged the doctor to go to the camp with the injured man and see whether something could not be done to relieve him until the company surgeon arrived. The doctor, with O'Brien, turned back. Gertrude, depressed by the incident, followed Louise ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... still house. Ellen Mary only spoke when speech was absolutely required, and then her words were the fewest possible, and were spoken in a whisper. The child made no sound of any kind. Even Mrs. Reade tried to subdue her stertorous breathing, to move with less ponderous quakings. The neighbours ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... buckles of his shoes. His bunch of new gold seals was dimmed by the same insidious dampness; his shirt-frill and muslin neckcloth were limp as seaweed. It was plain that he had been there a long time. Anne shook him, but he did not awake, his breathing being slow and stertorous. ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... momentarily aroused. Coma is a deep, abnormal sleep, from which the patient can not be aroused, or is aroused only with difficulty, a state of profound insensibility, perhaps with full pulse and deep, stertorous breathing, and is due to brain-oppression. Syncope or swooning is a sudden loss of sensation and of power of motion, with suspension of pulse and of respiration, and is due to failure of heart-action, as from sudden ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... a sleeping animal in her. She felt as though its stertorous breaths were fanning across her cheeks and she lay there parched ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... proceeded from a gentle cheerfulness through a wild and songful hilarity, broken by interludes in which either described to the other with eloquent enthusiasm the charms of the lass who loved him best, to a tearful melancholy, from which they were rapt away into a sodden and stertorous slumber. ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... men safely strode Along the open road, A sinister and stertorous machine Exhales its acrid breath And deals impartial death To all the dwellers on ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 5th, 1914 • Various
... need not be detailed here. It was indeed pathetic to see his strenuous and repeated efforts to assure me that he remembered all the parts of the telegraphic apparatus, and his smile of saddened self-depreciation when he hesitated over some detail. At last he sank into a torpor with the usual stertorous breathing, flushed face and gradually chilled extremities. His last words were scrawled almost illegibly by his failing hand—"Remember, watch, wait, ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... out his hand for his glass, and, with a dull sigh, dropped on the table, in the instantaneous slumber of intoxication. Oaksmith soon fell back in his chair, breathing heavily. Kerplonne followed. And the heavy, stertorous breathing of Filomel told that she slumbered also; but still her chair retained its rocking motion, and still the bottle of souls balanced itself on the edge ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... which we enter with a beating heart, the preface was infinitely more alarming than the succeeding matter. There was no one in the bar-parlour when I entered save a sailor, who was sleeping a drunken, stertorous sleep in a corner. From the private parlour beyond, when I entered, a man came out, a burly seafaring man, who asked me shortly, but not uncivilly, what I wanted. I called for a jug of ale. He brought it to me without a word, together with a hunch of bread, set them before me, and left me ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... family. The darkness was so great that Jim could almost feel it. No lights were visible except in the village at the foot of the hill, and these were distant and feeble, through an open window—left open that the asthmatic keeper of the establishment might be supplied with breath—he heard a stertorous snore. On the other side matters were not so silent. There were groans, and yells, and gabble from the reeking and sleepless patients, who had been penned up for the long and terrible night. Concluding that every thing was as safe for his operations ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... help of the water-jugs, and the bath which stood ready in his room, he succeeded at last in putting out the fire, and then turned his attention to Mistress Croale. Her breathing had grown so stertorous that he was alarmed, and getting more water, bathed her head, and laid a wet handkerchief on it, after which he sat down and watched her. It would have made a strange picture: the middle of the night, the fire-blasted bed, the ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... on the street floor of the rabbit warren had gone out of business. Failed probably, poor thing. Tootles had once said that the only people she ever saw in the shop were pressing creditors. A colored woman of bulbous proportions and stertorous breathing was giving a catlick to the dirty stairway. A smell of garlic and onions met Martin on his way to the rooms of Tootles' friend, and on the first landing he drew back to let two men pass down who looked ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... distressed and upset, though there was nothing like the scene on the previous occasion, and, doubtless, few diners besides Venner and Gurdon knew that anything out of the common was taking place there. But they were watching everything carefully; they noted Fenwick's anxious face, they could hear his stertorous breathing. Though he had dined so freely he called for brandy now, a large glass of which he drank without any addition whatever. Then his agitation became less uncontrollable and a little natural color crept into his cheeks. Without glancing at it he ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... K. quietly, "if I had no sense of humor, I should go upstairs to-night, turn on the gas, and make a stertorous entrance into eternity. By the way, that's something ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... There was a slithering sound in the distance that sounded like a mountain in motion, and with it a stertorous grunting that all but drowned out the Zid's cries. Something nudged the cottage with a force that all but knocked ...
— Traders Risk • Roger Dee
... no place for you, my dear," said Miss Mary; and he went willingly, hearing a stertorous breathing in the bed ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... patriot army. I had heard that he was a Tory and so I wished to know him. I found him a rugged, jovial, long-haired man of middle age, with a ready ringing laugh. His jokes were spoken in a low tone and followed by quick, stertorous breathing and roars and gestures of appreciation. His cheerful spirit had no doubt been a help to him ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... house-physician passed silently up the ward between the rows of silent blue-quilted beds, while the nurse came silently to meet them with her lamp. Lefevre turned aside a moment to look at a man whose breathing was laboured and stertorous. The shaded light was turned upon him: an opiate had been given him to induce sleep; it had performed its function, but, as if resenting its bondage, it was impishly twitching the man's muscles and catching him by the throat, so that he choked and started. ...
— Master of His Fate • J. Mclaren Cobban
... to comfort Mrs. Martha and to offer her services in the sick-room. Tom was in one of his stubbornest paroxysms when she entered, but at the touch of her hand he became quiet, and a little later fell into a deep sleep, the first since the Saturday night of coma and stertorous breathings. ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... ottoman, leaning back, and if not in physical slumber, at least in that inertia of the mind which denotes failing physical faculties and marks a slumber more complete than that of shut eyes and stertorous breathing. Apparently he was very old, for his hair was thin and nearly white, as it showed from beneath the colored silk handkerchief thrown loosely over the back of his head; his skin had that shrivelled and wrinkled appearance, denoting that the ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... Doc Taylor returned to the Hat Ranch and found the condition of his patient unchanged. He was still unconscious and his loud, stertorous breathing, coupled with the ghastly exhaust of air through the hole on his breast, testified to the seriousness of his condition. Throughout the night Donna sat by the bedside watching him, while the doctor remained in the kitchen ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... master completely dressed, lying close to the parlor door, with blood streaming from his nose and mouth. There were heavy contusions on the forehead and face, caused probably by his having plunged blindly forward down the stairs. Something in the stertorous breathing suggested apoplexy, but the doctors soon decided against that. It might have been vertigo, or he might simply have tripped at the top and come diving head-foremost all the way down, but his clothing was not in such disorder as that would cause, ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... she rebelled at her fate. There were hours, even yet, when she lay alone in her bed hearing her father's regular stertorous breathing till a great wave of longing to live swept upon her, and she was forced to turn her face to her pillow to stifle her mingled coughing ...
— The Spirit of Sweetwater • Hamlin Garland
... Craig nodded and replaced his pipe between his teeth. The noise became multisonous. With the clangor of the pounding wheels came the stertorous gasping of the engines, the creak and clatter of protesting metal. The uproar filled ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour |
