"Swish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... well what I intend to do." The artist's 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 ...
— Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... an oath, cut the dying echoes of the song. She could hear the swish of a quirt falling again and again, and the sound of trampling hoofs thudding on the hard, sun-cracked ground. Startled, she sprang to her feet, and saw silhouetted against the skyline a horse and his rider ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... holding his book gripped it very tightly. He did not glance back again, but walked slowly and steadfastly, reading an ode that he could not have translated to save his life, and listening acutely for her approach. And after an interminable time, as it seemed, came a faint footfall and the swish of skirts ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... swish and a splash, the rain began. It came down in gusty torrents, and dashed in at the ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells
... came. It had rained all day, a cold October storm, and night found me, with the chill downpour unabated, down by the North River, soaked through and through, with no chance for a supper, forlorn and discouraged. I sat on the bulwark, listening to the falling rain and the swish of the dark tide, and thinking of home. How far it seemed, and how impassable the gulf now between the "castle" with its refined ways, between her in her dainty girlhood and me sitting there, numbed with the cold that was ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... yellow under the 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 ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... valve, pressure release 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 ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... in a cave amidst the rocky Mount, and when he desired victuals he would wade across the tides to the mainland and furnish himself forth with all that came in his way. The poor folk and the rich folk alike ran out of their houses and hid themselves when they heard the swish-swash of his big feet in the water; for if he saw them, he would think nothing of broiling half-a-dozen or so of them for breakfast. As it was, he seized their cattle by the score, carrying off half-a-dozen fat oxen on his back at a time, and hanging sheep and pigs to his waistbelt like bunches ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel
... know how it happened. Kid Wolf's arms were lifted. Apparently he was helpless. But suddenly there was a swish—a lightning-like gleam of light. Something hit Stover's gun arm like a ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... 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 ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... made her meet it with a look intended to be dignified, but which was also somewhat defiant, and more than one smile passed over Warwick's countenance as he watched her. The moment the boat glided with a soft swish among the rushes that fringed the shore, she sprang up the bank, and leaving a basket behind her by way of hint, hurried to the sandy knoll, where, to her great satisfaction, she found the vines heavy with berries. As Warwick joined her ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... and down the platform, passing his pile of luggage, solitary and eloquent on the barrow. Never in his life having been made to look a fool, he felt the red heat of the thing, as a man who has not blessedly become acquainted with the swish in boyhood finds his untempered blood turn to poison at a blow; he cannot healthily take a licking. But then it had been so splendid an insanity when he urged Diana to fly with him. Any one but a woman would have appreciated ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... was a flutter and a swish on the stairs. Laura Bentley and Belle Meade came gliding forward, ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... 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 ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... gone under a cloud as the afternoon shadows began to lengthen, and a light tenderer than sunlight and warmer than moonlight fell across the river. The water slipped over the stones behind them with a pleasant swish and swirl, and the mint that was crushed by the prow of their boat gave forth an ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... was just enough. But for the birch-tree it was just too much. The shallow earth by which it held gave way; and the next moment, with a clatter of loosened stones and a swish of leafy branches, it crashed majestically down into the crevice, closing one end of it with a mass of boughs and foliage, and once more frightening the imprisoned cub almost ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... shot past the most prominent branch of the tree that happened to stand directly in the way of the rising aeroplane. Andy believed that the wheels below must have actually brushed through the foliage, for he always declared that he heard a fierce "swish" as they passed. ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... in the dusty heat We lay and heard the bullets swish and sing Like scythes amid the over-ripened wheat, And we the harvest of ...
— In Flanders Fields and Other Poems - With an Essay in Character, by Sir Andrew Macphail • John McCrae
... an instant. Then she held out the note to him, and simultaneously stood up. As he took it, she went swiftly past him and out of the door. He heard the swish of her dress pass up the stairs, and then the closing of a door. But he hardly heeded it. He was reading the note she had given him. It was a short, perfectly formal offer of marriage to ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... 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 ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... feet there was a sudden swish and a swirl of restless, tumbling waters. The motion, as my carrier buried his bared legs in the waves, was such as accompanies impossible flights described in dreams, through some unknown medium. The surging waters seemed struggling to submerge ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... morning the domestic entrails of Jordan County were out of doors, piled in the sun, hanging upon the clotheslines, flapping in the wind. The swish of wet brooms could be heard in every house, mingled with the sharp voices of scolding women. The air was filled with clouds of dust, the sound of sticks in muffled strokes upon rugs and carpets ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... they 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 long ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... 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 deed was done. A cry of delight came from the beam, a shout of pride and ...
— The Day of the Dog • George Barr McCutcheon
... white waves foaming from her cut-water. She was within a quarter of a mile. My moment had arrived. I signalled full speed ahead and steered straight for her course. My timing was exact. At a hundred yards I gave the signal, and heard the clank and swish of the discharge. At the same instant I put the helm hard down and flew off at an angle. There was a terrific lurch, which came from the distant explosion. For a moment we were almost upon our side. Then, after staggering and trembling, the ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... carriage went back up the cave with a swish and rustle of wings, and the children went down the hill as quickly as they could—which was not very quickly because of Dickie's poor lame foot. The boy who had killed a Cromwell's man with his little sword ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... to put my ear against the wall. At once the sounds all became incredibly louder. It was a confusion of sound: the mechanisms of the vessel, some of which I thought I could identify, and some not; the strange swish and thump of what might have been people moving; and there ...
— Wandl the Invader • Raymond King Cummings
... like an apple. I ran on deck. The watch was all forward looking out for the island. The man at the helm was watching the luff of the sail and whistling away gently to himself, and that was the only sound excepting the swish of the sea against the bows and around ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... some kind. Mark the swish of silken skirts; unless my eyes fail me, I caught a glimpse of silken hose as she flitted into ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson
... under the spell of this marvellous night, lay on their stomachs alert for alarms. A heavy-wheeling white owl had come by with a swish, and Biagio had called aloud to Madonna in his agony. Astorre had crossed himself over and over again: this was the Angel of Death cruising abroad on the hunt for goats or goat-herds; but "No, ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... 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
... Whisk, swish, click, click, through the little crowd at Stokesley on a fine April afternoon, of jocund children just let loose from school, and mothers emerging from their meeting, collecting their progeny after the fashion of old ewes with their lambs; Susan Merrifield in a huge, carefully preserved ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... fears lest he should be thought to be afraid. My pistols I had left behind in my hurry. My sword was at my belt, but it is not always the most convenient of weapons. I lay back in my seat in the gondola, lulled by the gentle swish of the water and the steady creaking of the oar. Our way lay through a network of narrow canals with high houses towering on either side and a thin slit of star-spangled sky above us. Here and there, on the bridges which spanned the canal, there was the dim glimmer of an oil lamp, ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... It was the swish and splutter of hoofs on the road before the door. The Sacramento coach! In an instant every man was expectant, and Starbuck darted outside on the platform. Then there was the usual greeting and bustle, the hurried ingress of thirsty passengers into the saloon, and a ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... the faint swish of scything as she moved toward him, and he withdrew, taking hold of ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... whips and trophies on the wall, to the parlour, and there I awaited the coming of the Tory maid. And as I sat there, gently stroking the toe of my boot with my whip, and thinking of that night at the inn, of that soft "Thank you" on the old south road, I heard the soft swish of her skirts, and, looking up, saw Mistress Jean standing in the doorway. A beautiful picture it was, like some old portrait of Lely's, the maid standing there framed in the old oak. And I, though I had been to the balls at the Governor's house the winter before, and ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... 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. ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... Then with a swish, a line dropped out of the sky, and a little seat rested on the ground beside me. I climbed into it, and without further ado was whisked up into the swooper that floated a few ...
— The Airlords of Han • Philip Francis Nowlan
... with the pioneer. If you've ever been really dying of thirst, and have reached water again, its sounds become wonderful to you ever after that—the trickle of a creek, the wash of a wave on the shore, the drip on a tin roof, the drop over a fall, the swish of a rainstorm. It's the same with birds and trees. And trees all make different sounds—that's the shape of the leaves. It's ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the long toll-bridge, the horses stepping hesitatingly and curveting a little at the swish of the noisy water, climbed the sunny hills beyond, and dipped down to a level stretch of wood, in the heart of which they chose a picnic-ground by the side of a merry ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... infrequent windy roar of trains on the Third Avenue L, empty clapping of horses' hoofs on the asphalt ... the yowl of a sentimental tomcat ... a dull and distant grumble, vague, formless, like a long, unending roll of thunder down the horizon ... the swish and sough of waters breaking away from the flanks of the Autocratic ... and then, finally, like a tocsin, the sonorous, musical chiming of the grandfather's clock ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... 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 ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... 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
... Swish! crackle! crash!—it was an eventful moment in the career of the young fireman. There was a blinding glow, a rain of fire swayed through the locomotive cab, then, just as they cleared the bridge, the structure went down ...
— Ralph on the Engine - The Young Fireman of the Limited Mail • Allen Chapman
... heat of them almost overwhelmed her. The shrieks of the frantic throng at the main door of the theatre died away. She heard the shouted commands of the police and firemen—then the swish of water from the first pipe brought to play upon the flames. ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr
... excitedly and peer into the brake, which was a signal for him to slip away under the willows. He made no noise, and he assured himself he must be invisible. Nevertheless, he heard shouts, then the cracking of rifles, and bullets began to zip and swish through the leafy covert. The day was hot and windless, and Duane concluded that whenever he touched a willow stem, even ever so slightly, it vibrated to the top and sent a quiver among the leaves. Through this the guards had located his position. Once a bullet ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... rough, tumbled ground only, which was patched by trailing bushes and stretched away in mounds and hummocks beyond the far horizon. There was a deep silence everywhere, not painful, for where the sun shines there is no sorrow: the only sound to be heard was the swish of long grasses against his feet as he trod, and the buzz of an occasional bee that came and was ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... talented lady contributor to the ICONOCLAST once asserted that 'tis not for good women that men have done great deeds. Perchance this is true, for men who do great deeds are goaded thereto, not by the swish of crinoline, but by the immortal gods. Such acts are bred in the bone, are born in the blood and brain. It certainly is not for bad women that men soar at the sun, for every man worth the killing despises corruption in womankind. He ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... whirled at the head of the stairs, and flashed through the hall-way overhead and out on the front veranda, and he, instead of pursuing, stood stone still, rooted to the floor, his heart beating hard, his hands clinching in amaze. What stunned him was the fact that with the footfalls went the swish of dainty silken skirts. ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... stampede of hurrying feet, the solitary oath and scream, the half-hysterical laughter, and silence. Then the tumult was reawakened to the sound of high voices, talking all together, or the impatient calling of absentees in halls and corridors. Then I heard the quick swish of female skirts on the staircase, and one of the fair guests knocked impatiently at the door of the end room, still immovably fixed. At the first knock there was a sudden cessation of the hurried whisperings ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... a moment. 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 ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... Mimosa tree. The sand, pink above and chloritic yellow below, ended in a thick bed of water-rolled pebbles, not in ground-rock; nor did it show the couch of excellent clay which usually underlies the surface, and which, I have said, is extracted through pits to make sun-dried brick, swish, and other building materials. We also secured some of the blood-red earth from the eastern tail of the northern "Shigh," the manganese-stained Tau and the gravelly sand washed out of the Cascalho-gravel, the latter very promising. The result of our careless ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... the big 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 the lines. Then while the coulter ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... submarine heard at a range of about a mile on a calm night presents a curious sound which almost defies description. Its principal constituent consists of a "clankety clank! clankety clank!" at first barely distinguishable from the low swish of the water past the face of the submerged microphone, then louder when the sound has been distinguished and the human ear is on the alert. But when this sound was heard in war there was little time for ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... have any conflicting views on the subject, and she nestled down again with a deep sigh. For the next ten minutes the room was full of small sounds—the splashing of cold water in the basin, the shuffle of coarse linen, the click of fastening stays, the rhythmic swish of a hair brush. Then came two silent minutes, while Joanna knelt with closed eyes and folded hands beside her big, tumbled bed, and said the prayers that her mother had taught her eighteen years ago—word for word as she had said them ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... 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
... or two further and in the swish of the storm he heard hoofbeats again. Looking forth from the bushes he saw another line of horsemen, but now they were going in the direction of Pope's army. Dick recognized these figures. Shapeless as he might appear on his horse that ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... 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
... was To learn about not launching out too soon And so not carrying the tree away Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise To the top branches, climbing carefully With the same pains you use to fill a cup Up to the brim, and even above the brim. Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish, Kicking his way down through the air to the ground. So was I once myself a swinger of birches. And so I dream of going back to be. It's when I'm weary of considerations, And life is too much like a pathless wood Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs Broken ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... impenetrable, not even the water reflecting a gleam of light; indeed, so dense was the surrounding gloom that in the deeper shadows I could not even distinguish the figure of the girl seated beside me in the cockpit. Yet there was scarcely a break in the steady chug of the engine, or the gentle swish ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... a word among themselves, gathered their horses and struck down the valley out of Alder. The padding and swish of the sand about the feet of their mounts; the very creaking of the saddle leather seemed to alarm them, and they were continually turning and looking back. That is, Gus Reeve and Ronicky Joe manifested these signs of trouble, but Sliver Waldron, riding in the center of the ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... staggers; a loud crack as the fibres part, then with a slow heave over it goes, and, descending, twists upon the base. The vast limbs plough into the sward; the twigs are crushed; the boughs, after striking the earth, rebound and swish upwards. See that you stand clear, for the least branch will thresh you down. The flat surface of the exposed butt is blue with stains from the steel of ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... hiding my head under the bedclothes, I used to lie quaking because of the crying of the ghosts. It was a wild winter when Theobald left us, and they cried every night. It is a sound I have never grown used to, though I have heard it every winter I can remember. And also the swish of the satin as it went by my door, and the tap of high-heeled shoes. They cried more that winter than I ever heard them, except in the winter after Uncle Luke went away (but then I was little, and had the company of Maureen Kelly, my nurse); ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan
... schooner's saloon the atmosphere was peaceful by contrast with the hurly-burly outside; yet even here the steep slant of the deck, the shrill, protesting squeal of working frames and beams, the sullen thud and swish of racing seas along the vessel's skin, kept the storm ever in mind: the dizzy plunge of the bows into great gray seas, with its accompanying rise of the stern and the hollow jar and thump of the rudder-post in its port, kept the interior ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... no longer, and she slackened her pace to a walk once more. Then a great shout went up from the people on the ramparts, and they began waving their hands and handkerchiefs wildly. To them the two figures seemed to be moving so slowly and the great sea behind so terribly fast. Barbara could hear its swish, swish, near enough now, and she felt Jean's hand tremble in her own. "Run yourself," she said, dropping it. ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... at first. He was looking at Andrew, who was sweeping the path at a little distance. Swish, swish, went his broom to right and left amongst the yellow leaves, leaving a bare space ...
— Penelope and the Others - Story of Five Country Children • Amy Walton
... a little longer Karl, heralded by the swish of the gondola, would come in regularly at eight o'clock for a few hours chat over our tea. Very rarely did I vary this routine by a visit to one of the theatres. When I did, I preferred the performances at the Camploi Theatre, where Goldoni's ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... packet of cigarettes. Everything damp, cold and dark; candle-end guttering. I think suddenly of something like the Empire or the Alhambra, or anything else that's reminiscent of brightness and life, and then—swish, bang—back to the reality that the damp clay wall is only eighteen inches in front of me; that here I am—that the Boche is just on the other side of the field; and that there doesn't seem the slightest chance of leaving except ...
— Bullets & Billets • Bruce Bairnsfather
... me—robbed me of the love and respect of the one woman in the world," he said, quite without heat. "If I find him, I think I shall blot him out—like that." A bumblebee was bobbing and swaying on a head of red clover, and the sudden swish of the hunting-crop left it a little disorganized mass of black and ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... 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 ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren
... mother—who devotes his time and attention to the congenial task of hatching or feeding them. It is he who builds the nest, and sits upon the eggs, and nurses the young, and imparts moral instruction (with a snap of his jaw or a swish of his tail) to the bold, the truant, the cheeky, or the imprudent; while his unnatural spouse, well satisfied with her own part in having merely brought the helpless eggs into this world of sorrow, goes off on her own account in the giddy whirl of society, forgetful ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... that kite fell down right by the old walnut tree," said Sunny Boy to himself for the twentieth time. "I saw it go down—swish! I'll bet Grandpa didn't look under ...
— Sunny Boy in the Country • Ramy Allison White
... rhythm, which carried their feet and their bodies in tune. She stooped, she lifted the burden of sheaves, she turned her face to the dimness where he was, and went with her burden over the stubble. She hesitated, set down her sheaves, there was a swish and hiss of mingling oats, he was drawing near, and she must turn again. And there was the flaring moon laying bare her bosom again, making her drift and ebb like ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... say positively that I heard a footfall on the carpet, but I think I did, and then came an unmistakable sound; the swish of the bed ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... Paul, in the slimy pits lying 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
... kindly 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 ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... His host of children, come, Scattering their buds and dew upon These acres of my home, Some rapture in my rags awakes; I lift void eyes and scan The skies for crows, those ravening foes, Of my strange master, Man. I watch him striding lank behind His clashing team, and know Soon will the wheat swish body high ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... 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 if to show he could patronize ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... fallen tree lying across it. Edd waited a few moments. The woods was all gray and quiet. I don't know when I've felt so good. Then he called again. At once turkeys answered from all around in the trees. Next I heard a swish of wings, then a thump. Then more swishes. The turkeys were flying down from their roosts. It seemed to me in my excitement that there were a hundred of them. We could hear them pattering over the dry ground. Edd whispered: 'They're down. ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... the way!" Swish! Swish! Swish! they shot by. Livingstone had to dodge for his life. Of course, ...
— Santa Claus's Partner • Thomas Nelson Page
... Swish and soft flop her stays made on the bed. Always warm from her. Always liked to let her self out. Sitting there after till near two taking out her hairpins. Milly tucked up in beddyhouse. Happy. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... 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 the clinging animal she is ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... veered crazily; and at the some moment, Frank, who was standing where Jack had been a moment before, heard something swish past. ...
— The Boy Allies at Jutland • Robert L. Drake
... Antoinette and her cat were busied with luncheon cook-pans, that my solitude was unimperilled. I see now there is nothing for it but the tower. And I cannot build the tower; so I am to be henceforward at the mercy of anything feline or feminine that cares to swish its tail or ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... great expanse of the Pacific Ocean, sparkling in the sun as blue as the waters at Amalfi. A low surf beats along the miles and miles of white sand continually, with the impetus of far-off seas and trade-winds, as it has beaten for thousands of years, with one unending roar and swish, and occasional shocks of sound as if of distant thunder on the shore. Yonder, to the right, Point Loma stretches its sharp and rocky promontory into the ocean, purple in the sun, bearing a light-house on its highest elevation. From this signal, bending in a perfect crescent, with ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner
... clothes 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 rush ahead, to travel faster through ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... and sweet Over its shallows singing,— I hear before I awaken The Bound of the church-bells ringing, And the sound of the leaves wind-shaken, Complaining and sun-forsaken, And the oriole warbling and singing, And the swish of ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... keeping Bob," she repeated, putting the camera down. "Maybe I'd better go back into the car. How those trees do swish about! I don't believe if I shouted, I'd be heard above the noise of the wind and ...
— Betty Gordon in the Land of Oil - The Farm That Was Worth a Fortune • Alice B. Emerson
... There was a swish of skirts upon the rough platform outside, and a young woman entered with the manner of feeling perfectly at home there. She was rather tall, rather strong and capable looking, and she was bareheaded, and carried a door key suspended ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... she paused on the threshold, to glance down the hall first, and then back to Allie. Her smile was beautiful. She closed the door and locked it. Allie heard the soft swish ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... moi. If there is a trout rising well under the pendant boughs that trail in the water, if there is a brake of briars behind me, a strong wind down stream, for that trout, in that impregnable situation, I am impelled to fish. If I raise him I strike, miss him, catch up in his tree, swish the cast off into the briars, break my top, break my heart, but—that is the humour of it. The passion, or instinct, being in all senses blind, must no doubt be hereditary. It is full of sorrow and bitterness and hope deferred, and entails the mockery of friends, ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... climbing brought them out upon the semicircular platform which crowns the rock. Below them on the far side was a perpendicular black cliff, a hundred and fifty feet high, with the swirling, foam-streaked river roaring past its base. The swish of the water and the low roar as it surged over the mid-stream boulders boomed through the hot, stagnant air. Far up and far down they could see the course of the river, a quarter of a mile in breadth, and running very deep and strong, ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... and waved before us, as we rushed on through the mountains, past the beautiful place of Gelert's grave, up toward Pen-y-gwrd. And the tinkling swish of the rain on the glass sounded to me as the Welsh names had begun to sound. I wish you could hear them spoken, for the spelling gives no idea of their pronunciation, or the pleasant, muffled music of them. But all I can tell you is, that when you come into Wales ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... wayside will not be noticed, and you alone know when it is time to get the young couple home; you know, alas! when the courtship—blissful period of loitering for you—is ended and when the marriage is made, by the tighter rein, the sharper word, and the occasional swish of the whip. Ah, Dobbin, you and I—" The Professor ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... To one standing in the quarry, below the level of the ground, they had the most weird of sounds. A dull rumbling in the rear and a continual whizz and hiss high overhead. Hardly a sound of the guns firing and no sound of the shells bursting. Only that terrible grinding swish in the air above. Twenty minutes of that, and then, with a terrific roar, all our field guns opened, and we knew that our comrades in front, the 4th N.F. on the right and the 7th N.F. on the left, had 'gone over the top.' The noise in front of the field batteries ...
— Q.6.a and Other places - Recollections of 1916, 1917 and 1918 • Francis Buckley
... swish-swish of his slippers he loomed up in the ring of faint light, and suddenly appeared in the bright circle of the lamp. His extended hand aimed at my breast like a pistol; his deepset eyes seemed ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... silence. It was so quiet outside that even the birds seemed to be listening and watching; then came the swish of ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... of her young ladyhood! If only Lady Dee could have revised this book of Veblen's, how many points she could have given to him! No details had been too minute for the technique of Sylvia's great-aunt—the difference between the swish of the right kind of silk petticoats and the wrong kind; and yet her technique had been broad enough to take in a landscape. "Every girl should have a background," had been one of her maxims, and Sylvia had to have a ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... 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
... mouthed in those velvet muzzles; a hoof pawed sharply on the road; swish of long, restless tails; creaking of saddlery; and sudden bursts of all the instruments in unison when heads were tossed and shaken. Remotely the whirr of a reaping ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... ironmongery. Sometimes he would hover overhead and follow the long line till we were almost at the lip of the nullah before releasing his bombs, and this was the very refinement of torture. During the whole of the two-mile journey we sat waiting for the swish-swish of the bombs, wishing that saddles were placed on the bellies of the horses instead of on their backs. Then as we were descending into the nullah he would let fly in the hope of catching us in the ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... a swish of silken petticoats, and she disappeared in an alcove, where she sat down at a desk. Keralio looked after her with undisguised admiration and puffed his cigar in silence for a few moments. ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... thing was 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 ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair |
