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More "Rattle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... up on deck now, for the sailors had ceased rushing about adjusting the canvas, though there was still plenty of noise. There was the rattle and bang of blocks, the whipping about of ends of ropes, the slap, now and then, of the storm jib, as it was whipped back and forth. Now and then a heavy sea would fall on deck ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Sea - or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real • Laura Lee Hope
... now. A great crane at the bow swung around, and a submarine mine hung poised in the air. Then, with a rattle of chains not audible at the distance, the mine was slowly lowered ...
— The Submarine Boys for the Flag - Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam • Victor G. Durham
... time the Germans attempted to carry the railway embankment with the bayonet, but the Belgians met them with blasts of lead which shrivelled the grey columns as leaves are shrivelled by an autumn wind. By mid-afternoon the Belgians and Germans were in places barely a hundred yards apart, and the rattle of musketry sounded like a boy drawing a stick along the palings of a picket-fence. During the height of the battle a Zeppelin slowly circled over the field like a great vulture awaiting a feast. So heavy was the fighting that the embankment of a branch railway from which ...
— Fighting in Flanders • E. Alexander Powell
... lookers-on, that by some legerdemain contrivance the rider of the hobby-horse had a couple of daggers stuck in his cheeks, while from his steed's bridle hung a silver ladle, which he held now and then to the crowd, and in which, when he did so, a few coins were sure to rattle. After the hobby-horse came the May-pole, not the tall pole so called and which was already planted in the green, but a stout staff elevated some six feet above the head of the bearer, with a coronal of flowers atop, and four long garlands hanging down, each held by a morris-dancer. Then came the ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... he, opening his mouth from ear to ear, while his fat face lighted up with an expression of delight, like a baby with a new rattle. ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic
... by a sensation of dying, she tried to rise; but she could not. She wanted to cry; but her voice ended in a rattle in her throat. ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... silenced it sternly. Conscience was to rule him for the rest of his life and it could jolly well let him alone this day. With some difficulty he climbed on to the driver's seat, took the reins, said "Gee-up" to the melancholy mule, and the whole equipage with a jolt and faint rattle ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... up the wide, lonely desert wastes. She could see the caravans of camels coming citywards, could watch the sunbeams falling upon the white walls, domes, and flat roofs of the ancient town. She watched the cargo boats coming out with their loads, and the familiar rattle of the steam crane and the shouts of the men were in her ears. The deck was alive with curious forms of Arabs come to display their wares. A turbaned man in one of the boats below was eagerly offering a splendid-looking, ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... soon as they arrived, he quietly set on fire the wood on the back of the Tanuki. The Tanuki, who was busy with something else, observed nothing, and only called out to ask what was the meaning of the crackling that he heard. 'It is just the rattle of the stones which are rolling down the side of the mountain,' the hare said; and the Tanuki was content, and made no further remarks, never noticing that the noise really sprang from the burning boughs on his back, until his fur was in flames, and it was almost too late to put it out. ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... and white, often as deep as to my waist, in which I floundered aimlessly. The very mountain was invisible from here. The rain came and went; now in sunlit April showers, now with the proper tramp and rattle of the tropics. All this while I met no sight or sound of man, except the voice which was now silent, and a damned pig-fence that headed me off at every corner. Do you know barbed wire? Think of a fence of it on rotten posts, and you barefoot. But I crossed it at last with ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... grey, rather small, not unpleasant in good-humour, diabolic in a passion, but worst when a little suspicious; then they watch you as though you were a young rattle-snake, to be killed ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... voyage began with excited sleeplessness and glowing health, and ended with a headache and great tiredness. There was the bustle of embarkation on to the boat; the rattle and bang of falling luggage; the jangle of French and English tongues; the unstraining of mighty ropes; the "hoot! hoot!" from the funnel, a side-splitting incident; the suff-suff-lap-suff of the ploughed-up ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... brought them in front of a lighted building in Texas Street with a straggling crowd gathered about the porticoed entrance. As Loring spoke, there was a rattle of snare drums followed by the dum-dum of the bass, and a brass band ramped out the opening ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... ladder against the tree, and Puglioni went up with his sword in his right hand, and at the top of it he reached up and began to hack at the neck below the iron collar. Presently, the bones and the old coat and the soul of Tom fell down with a rattle, and a moment afterwards his head that had watched so long alone swung clear from the swinging chain. These things Will and Joe gathered up, and Puglioni came running down his ladder, and they heaped upon its rungs the terrible remains of their friend, and hastened away wet through with ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany
... questions ceased, and the prefect appeared to have given the matter up as a bad job, P. St H. Harrison began to feel that under certain circumstances life was worth living. It was while he was in this happy frame of mind that the string, with which he had just produced a triumphant rattle from beneath the chest of drawers, was seized, and the next instant its owner was enjoying the warmest minute of a chequered career. Tony, like Brer Rabbit, had laid low until he was certain of the direction from which the sound proceeded. He had then slipped out of bed, crawled across the ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... wicked rattle you are!" Mabel said, affecting to box her ears. "I could not love you if I believed you to be in earnest. As to your figure of the stabled steed—this disapproving customer has the consolation that she need not accept him, unless she wishes to do so. She has the invaluable privilege of ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... Without heeding the rattle, Napoleon went on eating and Dr. Lively went on searching—now in the dining-room, now in the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... daylight began to brighten the window, and he noticed that snow was quietly falling outside, the flakes noiselessly beating against the window pane. Every one slept late that morning, but at last he heard the preparations for breakfast going on downstairs—the light clatter of china on the table, the rattle of the grate; and, as he thought of these things, he found himself in the dining-room, and saw the trim little maid, who still yawned every now and then, laying the plates in their places. He went upstairs again, and stood watching the sleeping face of ...
— From Whose Bourne • Robert Barr
... the barons of old, who once proudly to battle Led their vassals from Europe to Palestine's plain; The escutcheon and shield, which with ev'ry blast rattle, Are the only ...
— Fugitive Pieces • George Gordon Noel Byron
... Marengo's field was won, And Jena's bloody battle; Again the world was overrun, Made pale at his cannon's rattle. ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... other hand, it must not be forgotten that there are many visitors who want their first impression of this city of their dreams to be abrupt; who want the transition from the rattle of the train to the peace of the gondola to be instantaneous; and these, of course, must enter Venice at the station. If, as most travellers from England do, they leave London by the 2.5 and do not break the journey, they will reach ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... satchel, set it upon my lap, and looked out of the window at you all, as well as I could for crying, till the train gave a jerk that made my teeth rattle, and moved on. ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... hosts; more numerous still are the unbidden guests that fasten themselves upon the roots of their prey. The broom-rape, a comparatively recent immigrant from Europe, lays hold of the roots of thyme in preference to other place of entertainment; the Yellow Rattle, the Lousewort, and many more attach themselves to the roots of grasses—frequently with a serious ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various
... "I am in this charming land which I entered for the first time to the noise of the drum and the rattle of musket shots." ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... water delighted him even while they brought homesick memories of his own native Virginia. It was a relief to get away from the towering mountains, the eternal blue of unclouded skies, the parched, arid miles of unclothed mesa, the clang and rattle of ore cars and the incessant grinding of quartz mills. Yes, it was decidedly pleasant to have a whole summer—if he wanted it—in which to go where he liked, do what he liked. One might do much worse, ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... she failed: but as I partly perceived my silence in the accompaniment, instead of continuing to make a discordant noise with Enoch and herself, had chiefly disconcerted her, I determined to rattle away. My ears were never more completely flayed! But what could be done? Miss panted for fame, and the ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... a great city, the grind of the trolley-cars, the cries of the itinerant sellers of nuts and fruit, of chewing gum and lottery-tickets, of shoe laces and suspenders, of newspapers, and prawns, and oysters, and eggs, and bread, the rattle of carriages and all the flashing brilliance of the palaces of pleasure, were shut out from that quiet street near the Greek Patriarchate. I had the sudden notion of asking for permission to sit in that Universal Library, and ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... among foreign scenes, amidst the chatter of foreign tongues, surrounded by foreign faces, he still caught the sound of those two distant voices—one quiet and low, the other gay and piping; and even when, at last, he dropped asleep and forgot everything else, they joined in with the rattle of the rail to give him his lullaby. Such are the freaks of which a sensitive musical ear is often ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... tangle of men and weapons, with the flaming red moustaches and the crown of laurel. Bowles slashed at his head and tore away some of the wreath, leaving the rest bloody, and, with a roar like a bull's, Wilson sprang at him, and, after a rattle of fencing, plunged his point into the chemist, who fell, crying, "Notting Hill!" Then the Notting Hillers wavered, and Bayswater swept them back in confusion. Wilson had ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... might have entertained as to the treatment I should receive. But a singular silence that pervaded everything impressed me painfully. I stood upon the uplifted verge of an immense city, but from its broad streets came no sound of traffic, no rattle of wheels, no hum of life. Its marble homes of opulence shone white and grand through mossy foliage; from innumerable parks the fountains sparkled and statues gleamed like rare gems upon a costly robe; but over all a silence, as of death, reigned unbroken. The awe and the mystery of it ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... lying down, ready, however, and alert. At about nine o'clock a sharp rattle of rifles was heard at our left—about where Lane's brigade was posted, as we thought—and soon a mournful group of men passed by us, bearing the outstretched form of one whom we knew to be some high officer. Jackson had been shot dangerously ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... scrubbing brush, and a bucket of water, in an endeavor to improve the outward appearance of the paint of the upper deck. Nothing occurred about me for some time, the passengers being at dinner in the main cabin. I could hear the rattle of dishes, together with a murmur of conversation, and even found a partially opened skylight through which I could look down, and distinguish a small section of the table. Kirby was not within ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... on that sea of moonbeams, I pondered over that twilight of the heroic world. In the soft rattle of the water on the hull I seemed to hear the rattle of all that armor, of all those swords swinging rusty on the walls, neglected by the degenerate sons of the great champions of old. I had long been in search of a theme which I called the theme of the "Prowess of Ogier;" it was ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... cows for an old fellow called Sam Ford; a man so mean you could pull the pith out of a horse-hair and then put his soul inside, and it would rattle. ...
— Bob Chester's Grit - From Ranch to Riches • Frank V. Webster
... street. Often enough, during my stay in England, have I listened to these gruff or broken voices; or perhaps gone to my window when I lay sleepless, and watched the old gentleman hobble by upon the causeway with his cape and his cap, his hanger and his rattle. It was ever a thought with me how differently that cry would re-echo in the chamber of lovers, beside the bed of death, or in the condemned cell. I might be said to hear it that night myself in the condemned cell! At length a fellow with a voice like a bull's began ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... chattered—and he did so rattle along that it was quite impossible for anyone to get in a word—there was a movement outside which was ominous ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan
... her dying will and brought her hand up to the infant's mouth. A wild look was on her poor, small face, she panted and fell forward on its breast, the rattle in her throat growing louder. The child awakened, opening great black eyes, and with her dying weakness its new-born life struggled. Her cold hand lay upon I its mouth, and her head upon its body, for she was too far gone to ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... poisonous. The boa is not poisonous. He relies on his huge strength to kill his enemies; but other snakes, such as vipers and rattlesnakes, are. Even when the head of a viper has been cut off it still remains poisonous, and may cause death. The rattlesnake is so called because it makes a funny rattle with its tail before it strikes. It is about five feet long sometimes, and the sound of its rattle sends terror into the heart of anyone who is near, as he knows that at any moment the snake may dart out upon him with its hideous head aloft and its wicked eyes gleaming. The ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... then he caught sight of a shredded arras on the walls; in one room a disordered bed; on the floor of another a woman's glove. Never a sight of life but rats, and never a sound but his own steps, the shrieking of the wind, the rattle of ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... tea-urn, is boiling in the great room. While I am drinking my first glass of tea the stamping and rattle is heard of two other teams which roll into the yard. It is the post; and the courier enters covered with snow and with icicles on his beard. He is a good fellow, and we become acquainted at once and travel together to Orsk. He has travelled for twenty years ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... we thought so. Let us be gay, Richard, and not part like ancient fogies. Where's your fun? You can rattle; why don't you? You haven't seen me in one of my characters—not Sir Julius: wait a couple of minutes." She ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... and his companion had been absorbed into the expeditionary force, it resumed its advance. Conversation was forbidden; arms and accouterments were denied the right to rattle. The horses' tramping was all that could be heard and the movement was slow in order to have as little as possible of that. It was after midnight and pretty dark, although there was a bit of moon somewhere ...
— Present at a Hanging and Other Ghost Stories • Ambrose Bierce
... which shrieked their opinions noisily; and there were numerous monkeys, which gambolled in mischievous fun, or sat still, the embodiment of ludicrous despair; while, intermingling with the general noise could be heard the rattle of the paying-out wheels, as the cable passed with solemn dignity and unvarying persistency over the stern into the sea, it seemed almost unheeded, so perfect and self-acting was the machinery; but it was, nevertheless, watched by ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... trees. Now and then, in our rambles, we met and skirted great pits dug in the grassy roads to prevent the peasants from conveniently perpetrating thefts of wood. Once we came upon a party of timber-thieves (it was Sunday afternoon), who espied us in time to rattle off in their rude telyega with their prize, a great tree, at a rate which would have reduced ordinary flesh and bones to a jelly; leaving us to stare helplessly at the freshly hewn stump. Tawny hares tripped across our ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... Smith, Smith and Smith, Solicitors) sat in his office awaiting his confidential clerk. There was a rattle as of castanets outside the door. It was produced by the teeth of the ...
— Punch, Volume 156, January 22, 1919. • Various
... least-considered grades of the City's slaves were in the streets on the quest for cheap luncheons. Thorpe noted the manner in which some of them studied the large bill of fare placarded beside a restaurant door; the spectacle prompted him luxuriously to rattle the gold coins remaining in his pocket. He had been as anxious about pence as the hungriest of those poor devils, only a week before. And now! He thrust up the door in the roof of the cab, and bade the driver stop at his bank. ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... faces at the windows. Slowly the twilight crept down as the sun sank behind the high towers of Holdernesse Hall. Then in the gloom we saw the two side-lamps of a trap light up in the stable yard of the inn, and shortly afterwards heard the rattle of hoofs, as it wheeled out into the road and tore off at a furious pace ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... poor Jacques—how he must suffer! Hark to that low, sickening thud! 'Tis the accursed soap dropping from his nerveless grasp. Hist to that sound—like unto a death rattle! It is the water gurgling in the tub. And what means that low, poignant, smothered gasp? It is the last convulsive cry of Jacques descending into the depths. All is over! ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... were busy hauling in ropes, singing and shouting. The vessel gave a little start and shiver, there was a rattle of canvas overhead, and a gentle lurching movement. Then the shore seemed suddenly to be slipping away; and Tom knew, with a start of surprise and exhilaration, that they were off upon their voyage to ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... when, in replacing the penholder, which is attached there by a small brass chain, some inattentiveness, some want of care, my ill-luck, in short, led me to set it down in unstable equilibrium on the edge of the desk. It tumbled-I heard the little chain rattle-it tumbled farther-then stopped short. The mischief was done. The sudden jerk, as it pulled up, had detached an enormous drop of ink from the point of the pen, and that drop—Ah! I can see him yet, as he rose from the shadow of the desk, that small, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... or Petoskey, Delmonico, Early Christiana, Banana, Tip Top Water Melons.—Cole's Early, Green Gold, Florida Favorite, Pride of Georgia, Hungarian Honey, Seminole, Black Spanish, Phinney's Early, Ice Cream White-Seeded, jumbo or Jones, Striped Gipsy, Georgia Rattle Snake, Mammoth Iron Clad, Kolba Gem, New Dixie, Volga, Kleckley's Sweet, Iceberg Mustard.—White London or English, Giant Southern Curled Mushroom Spawn.—Best English Okra.—White Velvet Pod Parsley.—Champion Moss-Curled ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... waited. Then, of a sudden, the light in the room was extinguished. Whoever had entered had turned out the light. He heard a soft footfall coming towards the window looking into the conservatory and the rattle of the blinds as they were lowered. Then the light went up again, but he could see nothing ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... "No, Sallie —not Sue—not this time. That little rattle-brain's affections will only last the week out. Nothing very important—that is, nothing urgent. We were talking about the Tilghman portraits and the Lely that Cousin John has brought into town from Claymore ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... saved the people. It opened to the barbarians the palaces of Constantinople, but it opened the doors of cottages to the ministering angels of Christ. It had much to do with the great ones of earth. And what is more interesting than the death-rattle of an empire corrupt to the very marrow of its bones, than the sombre galvanism under the influence of which the skeleton of tyranny danced upon the tombs of Heliogabalus and Caracalla? How beautiful that mummy of Rome, embalmed in the perfumes of Nero and swathed in the ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... had now decided that the boy was their enemy, and no sooner had he touched the ground than a shower of stones and sticks rained about him. Not one reached his body, however, for the Garment of Repulsion stopped their flight and returned them to rattle with more or less force against those who had thrown them—"like ...
— The Master Key - An Electrical Fairy Tale • L. Frank Baum
... take a little repose, for twelve hours daily in the saddle was beginning to tell on us. Quite cheerfully we rode down to the village, listening to the music of the bursting shells and the lively rattle of the small-arms. Suddenly a cloud of Boers issued from a kopje to our right, and slowly retreated across our front. We rode up to them and learnt that they had just received orders to retire, as the place could no longer be defended. It appeared that the British general had informed ...
— With Steyn and De Wet • Philip Pienaar
... added, as her nephew, fumbling with a box of matches, opened it upside down and let them all fall with a rattle on to the ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... doubtless a host of neighbors who lived in the same manner; but they were a class with whom I was wholly unacquainted. Miss Kingsley's rooms were in the top story where, as I reflected, she could enjoy fresh air and escape the everlasting tinkling of the horse-cars and rattle of vehicles in the ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... the racing was at its height, and almost all Mr. Wooster's visitors had crowded to the terrace by the river, Clarissa strolled into one of the shrubbery walks, quite alone. It was after luncheon; and the rattle of plates and glasses, and the confusion of tongues that had obtained during the banquet, had increased the nervous headache with which she had begun the day. This grove of shining laurel and arbutus was remote from the river, and ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... said. "Look, Arthur! I noticed that some of these were empty, but I thought anything like a gun would rattle around inside. But do you see what they did? They have the guns here, but they're packed in with rags and sacking, so they can't move and make ...
— The Belgians to the Front • Colonel James Fiske
... between the double row of pillars, a man is standing on a form, whirling a sort of crackling rattle high above his head. In the next, another is yelling to call attention to his clocks. There they are, ranged tier upon tier, regular "English" busy-bee clocks, ticking away, as a small child remarks, as if they were alive. Then come sweet-stalls, ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... fifty paces from us; and then with hiss and rattle as of the first gust of a storm in dry branches the arrows flew among them, smiting man and horse alike, and down went full half of the foremost line, while over the fallen leapt and plunged those behind them unchecked, and were upon us sword in air; and the tough spear shafts bent and ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler
... land. By day it was hideous enough; but in the dusk the flat dullness of it was transfigured. Each pond with the shadows lying black on its unruffled surface seemed a fairy lake; each gaunt and stunted tree seemed to clothe itself again with rustling leaves. The night was silent; only the rattle of the little train, as it rumbled over bridges which spanned some sluggish brook or with a warning hoot crossed a road—broke the stillness. Great shell-holes filled with rotting debris flashed by, the mouldering ruins ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... all the national hatred of making a scene, and he knew so little of his neighbour that he would not lightly intrude upon his affairs. For a moment he stood in doubt and even as he balanced the matter there was a quick rattle of footsteps upon the stairs, and young Monkhouse Lee, half dressed and as white as ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... over her face, and, in a momentary pause, between the anthem and the rest of the service, her sobs were distinctly audible. The holy father began the service, and Emily again commanded her feelings, till the coffin was let down, and she heard the earth rattle on its lid. Then, as she shuddered, a groan burst from her heart, and she leaned for support on the person who stood next to her. In a few moments she recovered; and, when she heard those affecting and sublime words: 'His body is buried in peace, and his soul ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... rice, tamales, and dulces which her cook had prepared in honour of the event. Excitement and good will reigned; even Don Jose had forgiven the young offenders, and they all talked at once, at the top of their voices, as fast as they could rattle and with no falling inflection. Roldan and Adan were pressed to remain at the Hacienda Perez until the search was over, and although the former had a secret yearning for adventure he was more ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton
... religions. The procedure, from a simple commemorative act, acquires a mystic efficacy, a supernatural or spiritual power, often supposed to extend to the deity as well as the votary. Thus the Indian "rain-maker" will rattle his gourd, beat his drum, and blow through his pipe, to represent the thunder, lightning, and wind of the storm; and he believes that by this mimicry of the rain-god's proceedings he can force him to send the wished-for showers. The charms, ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... palm trees, but they count the miles of their sea-coast, and the acres under cultivation and the height of the peaks, and revel in large statistics and the bigness generally, and forget how a few men rattle around in a great deal of scenery. They shout their statistics across the Rockies and the deserts to New York. The Mississippi Valley is non-existent to the Californian. His fellow-feeling is for the opposite coast-line. Through the geographical accident ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... and then comes the bursting of a shell immediately overhead, and the rattle of its fragments on the roof of the bomb-proof dug-out. Think what it must have meant to this eager, ardent, pleasure-loving spirit to sit out, day after day, in a chill, sodden, verminous trench, a grand orchestral concert of ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... these, in silence and darkness beneath the prison where they had lain so long and so forbodingly, the body of John Wilkes Booth, sealed up in the brick floor, had long been mouldering. If the dead can hear he had listened many a time to the rattle of their manacles upon the stairs, to the drowsy hum of the trial and the buzz of the garrulous spectators; to the moaning, or the gibing, or the praying in the bolted cells where those whom kindred fate had given a little ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... have been made audible throughout the chamber by a trained master in elocution—"there is in war a manoeuvre which is well known. First the cavalry advance creating dust and waving sabres, then a rattle of musketry is heard along the line, and next the big guns are brought into play, and when the dust and smoke have cleared away the force which has created it is found to have removed to a considerable distance. This manouvre, sir, is known as the covering of ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... his "dear little pal" again, because of what he could get out of her about his loved one. He did hold back his eagerness long enough to rattle off, "Why, Peggy, you're growing up! By Jove, you're almost a woman, aren't you? and a pretty one, too—though you've kept your impish look, I'm glad to see!" But that was only the preface. As soon as he decently could, ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... offered to lay hold of him to whirl him about, he vowed to God he would kick his soul out; and as he said this he stood up and clapped his hand upon his sword. At this instant they struck the awning and lowered the yard with a prodigious rattle. Sancho thought heaven was coming off its hinges and going to fall on his head, and full of terror he ducked it and buried it between his knees; nor were Don Quixote's knees altogether under control, for he too shook a little, squeezed his shoulders together ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... the thousand useless things which her nervous fancy prompted. First the front door, usually secured with a bit of whittled shingle, must be nailed, "or somebody would break in." Next, the windows, which in the rising wind began to rattle, must be made fast with divers knives, scissors, combs and keys; and lastly, the old clock must be stopped, for Rose was not accustomed to its striking, and ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... treaty and the consent of the Pope and King to his marriage, would have carried him out of Okhotsk in forty-eight hours had disease declared itself. Nor were there any inducements aside from a comfortable bed and refined fare, in the flat, unhealthy town with its everlasting rattle of chains, and the hideous physiognomies of criminals always at work to the ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... frequent. The males are in some cases distinguished by bright colours and ornamental appendages. During their amours and duels certain male fishes flash with beautiful and glowing colours. Reptiles exhibit the same form of sexual-passion, and jealous combat of rival males. The rattle of certain snakes is supposed to act as a love-call. Snakes of different sexes appear to feel some affection for each other when confined together in cages. Romanes relates the interesting fact that when a cobra is killed, its ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... at that moment preparing to mount the wooden watch-tower of the cottage to see the view. The ever useful Pedgift volunteered to go up with him, and rattle off all the necessary local explanations in half the time which the reed-cutter would occupy in describing his ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... yourself a giddy centurion, don't you?" said Beetle, listening to the crash and rattle of grounded ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... As for Rattle-Snakes, &c. they make off from you, unless you by Carelesness chance to tread on them; and then their Bite is found now not to be mortal, if Remedies can ...
— The Present State of Virginia • Hugh Jones
... clinging to her grandfather and looking up to him with trusting eyes. At last he said, glancing down: "All right, child, we'll see that it won't rattle any more. We ...
— Heidi - (Gift Edition) • Johanna Spyri
... San Giovanni, and in about two hours the old castellated monastery may be seen at whose feet the little village of Grotta-Ferrata stands. As we advance through noble elms and planetrees, crowds of contadini line the way, beggars scream from the banks, donkeys bray, carretti rattle along, until at last we arrive at a long meadow which seems alive and crumbling with gayly dressed figures that are moving to and fro as thick as ants upon an ant-hill. Here are gathered peasants from all the country-villages ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... till it has given warning. The writer had counted the rattles on the naval flag, and found them to be exactly thirteen, the number of the colonies. He had also noted that the rattles were independent of one another, and yet most firmly united; and that while one rattle alone is incapable of producing any sound, the ringing of the thirteen together is sufficient to alarm the boldest man living. Whether Franklin wrote this or not, let us at least be thankful that these arguments did not prevail, and that on the ...
— The Little Book of the Flag • Eva March Tappan
... of hoofs is heard outside; the rattle of musketry and sabers, and the next instant a company of soldiery, headed by Major R——, ride straight up into the saloon, ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler
... come upon them suddenly and find them coiled. It is a peculiarity of these specimens of the Crotalus of America that they strike only from the coil, are easily killed, and generally, although not always, do they rattle before they ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... ceilings and all the old paper had to be scraped off the walls preparatory to the house being repainted and decorated. The air was full of the sounds of hammering and sawing, the ringing of trowels, the rattle of pails, the splashing of water brushes, and the scraping of the stripping knives used by those who were removing the old wallpaper. Besides being full of these the air was heavily laden with dust and disease germs, powdered ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... all the aids of animated human voice and countenance, and the appropriate mise-en-scene of the old-fashioned parlour fireside and its listening circle of excited faces, and, outside, the wintry blast and the moan of leafless boughs, with the occasional rattle of the clumsy old window-frame behind shutter and curtain, as the blast swept by, is ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 2 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... in the room stopped their conversation in order to hear. He wore on his breast the orders of the Black Eagle, the Red Eagle, the Elephant and the Seraphim, and when he struck all this menagerie the rattle alone was quite loud. I reminded him politely of the Hague Convention, of the fact that we could not change international law from time to time with the change in the situation of the war, and that Germany had furnished arms ...
— My Four Years in Germany • James W. Gerard
... mistaken. In spite of the two partitions which separated us from the scene of this angry interview, we distinctly heard the furious accents of passion. All at once a violent shock made the wall—thin enough, it is true—creak and rattle; then, a moment afterward, we heard the fall as of a body, accompanied with a ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... their connection with each other, but also that they may not seem slow, nor long, nor, what is now a great vice, jump and start from being made up of many short syllables, and producing the same effect on the ear as the sounds from a child's rattle. For as the ordering of the beginning and ending is of much importance, as often as the sense begins or ends; so in the middle, too, there is a sort of stress which slightly insists; as the feet of people ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... in her throat in a kind of toneless rattle. She walked up and down a few times in the room. Then she placed herself straight before Dionysia, and, looking fixedly into ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... rose high above the droning of the wings. In another moment the interior of the room had grown as black as night. The rattle of the beetle shells against the four walls of the house was like ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... wants money to follow the chase of pleasure through her yearly circuit, and is left at home when the gay world rolls to Bath or Tunbridge; he whose gout compels him to hear from his chamber the rattle of chariots transporting happier beings to plays and assemblies, will be forced to seek in books ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... warmth, the agreeable sense of friendliness. With the tingling sensation of doing a daring deed, he glanced round the empty room, scanned the two long windows on which the cold, bright sun played laughingly, and through which the rattle and hum of the rue de Dunkerque penetrated like an exhilarating accompaniment, then, he walked straight to the table of the lady, smiled and, ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... the sound of a shot. Another and another—then a volley, which almost at once became a continuous rattle ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... four. At half-past six o'clock, when their destination was drawing near, the two men went below and dined. At seven, while they were still at table, they heard the slow-down signal, and, a moment later, the rattle of the anchor line. Now, at quarter-past seven, Varney lounged alone by the starboard rail and ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... the news!" cried Cherry, later that afternoon, shrieking to make herself heard above the rattle ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... was half impatient of her own momentary lapse into enthusiasm, and she knew the temper of her "children" as accurately as a bugler knows the notes of the reveille—knew that they loved to laugh even with the death-rattle in their throats, and with their hearts half breaking over a comrade's corpse, would cry in burlesque mirth, "Ah, the good fellow! He's ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... wraith of his former self. His cheeks, his chin, had waned to the vanishing point. He opened his lips and mouthed horribly, yet his frightful grimacings conveyed no meaning. Mary called to Mrs. Yellett, but her voice was drowned in the rattle of the wagon, the clatter of four horses' hoofs, and the continual "Hi-hi-hi-kerat! hi-kerat!" of the driver. In the mean time Leander pointed to his mouth and back to the road in indescribably pathetic pantomime. "Perhaps the poor creature wants to turn back and die in his bed, ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... very line some dozen hours before? Lavender asked himself as he looked out on the hills and valleys and woods of Buckinghamshire. Had the throbbing of the engine and the rattle of the wheels kept the piteous eyes awake all through the dark night, until the pale dawn showed the girl a wild vision of northern hills and moors, telling her she was getting near to her own country? Not thus had Sheila proposed to herself to return home on the first holiday-time that should occur ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... Banks heard the rattle of the musketry on the left, and saw from the smoke of the Confederate guns that Sherman was engaged, he ordered Augur forward. Augur, as has been said, had been ready and waiting all day. His arrangements were to make the attack with Chapin's brigade, deployed across the Plains ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... but what careless, reckless ignoring of God as the Governor among the nations, is there in all connected with the lot in our days. What foul associations cloud and wrap up almost every game of chance: how soiled are the cards, how unhallowed the rattle of the dice. What degrading, debasing work is done by every species of lottery; what desperate evils spring up and grow out of "a chance" at a Church fair! Some years ago, at the time of the great German and French fairs in New York, a lady thoughtlessly gave ...
— Tired Church Members • Anne Warner
... of the stuff was along nursery lines, too—milk, eggs and baby fodder, three times a day. I was O.K. when I went in there, but in a couple of weeks I was the prize patient on account of them meals. They tell me I raved one night and bellered for a rattle, and Scanlan made the nurse tell him all about Jack the Giant Killer and Old Mother Hubbard. The place must have been run by a guy who believed in lettin' the dumb animals live, because you couldn't have got a piece of meat ...
— Kid Scanlan • H. C. Witwer
... battle to be something yet more awful than he had imagined. The roar of artillery, the rattle of musketry, the clang of swords and bayonets, the stormy gallop of cavalry, the groans and shrieks of wounded and dying men, appalled his very soul. But though his cheeks grew deathly white, and his eyes large and wild, he ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... happened to be present when the above spicy conversation took place. As soon as he had retired, she broke out with—"Humph! just like him; any thing to be contrary. But I wouldn't live in this old rattle-trap of a place another year for any man that ever stepped into shoe-leather. No, indeed, not I. Out of repair from top to bottom; not a single convenience, so to speak; walls cracked, paper soiled, and ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur
... listen to me, will you? You may at any rate do as much as that for me." And then Clara stood perfectly mute, looking into his handsome face as he continued to rattle out ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... in all haste, whips crack, wheels fly, and shouting, racing and singing along all the roads, the country-folk rattle away to their homes. Our two turn their wheels towards the ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... Again came a rattle. A puzzled expression passed over Johnny's face. The same song was repeated over and over ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell
... deck before the crew had surrounded the wheelhouse. There was a rattle of steamer folded chairs, a pounce by the third mate, and out came the unfortunate Cupples, dragged ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... The rattle of an approaching carriage made them all start and listen. That was the hard minute, but the girls stood it well. No one cried, no one ran away or uttered a lamentation, though their hearts were very heavy as they sent loving messages ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... top of the bluff, with Rex Krane and Aunty Boone, we watched and waited. The wooded Neosho valley full of inky blackness seemed to us like a bottomless gorge of terror which no moonlight could penetrate. We strained our ears to catch the rattle of the wagons, but the noise from the saloon, coming faintly now and then, was all the sound we could hear save the voices of the night rising up from the river, and the whisperings of the open ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... with great speed. And those best of steeds, duly urged by Vahuka, rose to the sky, confounding the occupant of the vehicle. And beholding those steeds gifted with the speed of the wind thus drawing the car, the blessed king of Ayodhaya was exceedingly amazed. And noticing the rattle of the car and also the management of the steeds, Varshneya reflected upon Vahuka's skill in guiding horses. And he thought, 'Is he Matali, the charioteer of the king of the celestials? I find the same magnificent indications in the heroic Vahuka. Or, hath ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... above his knees and required a string attached to his belt to keep them up. The light hearted fellow gloried in these shining encasements of his well shaped legs, and told Philip that they were a perfect protection against prairie rattle-snakes, which ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 2. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... stone rattle up above, somewhere, and a sick horror rushed over me, because of the gipsy men coming back with their wicked ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... he uttered the last word than there was a rattle of firearms as the three of them discharged their weapons. There arose a mighty roar of anger as the bear felt the sudden pain of bullets entering ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach
... she was surprised at the space she went over. She wore her broad-brimmed straw hat tied down over her face, and determined she would not look at the road, and would act as if it were not there, letting people think what they pleased. But a familiar rumble and rattle caused her to look shyly up after the wagon had passed, and she saw Arden Lacey gazing wonderingly back at her. She dropped her eyes instantly as if she had not seen him, and went on with her work. At last, thoroughly wearied, she went in and said half triumphantly, ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... Ingleton took up "The Liverpool Mercury" and tried to read the news of the day. The March wind roared outside and made the windows rattle. She listened to it and forgot the chronicle of the passing hour. She was a women who cared to know the big things that were happening in the big world. She had always lived among men who were helping to make history, and she was intelligent enough to understand their efforts and to join ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... vigorously erect, and with no decumbency whatever in any part of it. Root branched, and enormous in proportion to plant, and I fancy therefore must be good for something if one knew it. But Gerarde, who calls the plant Red Rattle, (it having indeed much in common with the Yellow Rattle), says, "It groweth in moist and moorish meadows; the herbe is not only unprofitable, but likewise hurtful, and ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... hand on scimitar, Gave, like Sempronius, still their voice for war— "The saber of the Sultaun in its sheath Too long has slept, nor own'd the work of death, Let the Tambourgi bid his signal rattle, Bang the loud gong, and raise the shout of battle! This dreary cloud that dims our sovereign's day, Shall from his kindled bosom flit away, When the bold Lootie wheels his courser round, And the arm'd elephant shall shake the ground. Each noble pants ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... his hand or looked at him as she turned away. She was wounded to the heart; and the poor lad, putting a fearful curb upon himself, suffered her to leave him. He did not even go down to the door to see the carriage leave, and in a few minutes the rattle of wheels across the stony street fell upon his ears like a last farewell. Then, there being none to witness his weakness, he laid his head down upon the battered old desk, and wept as he had not wept since his childhood. He had a ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... Harry Brooks, and try to be a man!" Her embrace relaxed, and with a dry-sounding sob she let me go as I caught the coachman's hand and was swung up to my seat; and with that we were off and up the cobble-paved street at a rattle. ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... to Walker are waiting to see you raise one of their favorite dogmas over the ropes. Call Prof. Jevons a jackass, give Ricardo a tremendous rap, have no mercy on John Stuart Mill, make old Adam Smith's bones to rattle, take a terrible fall out of Turgot—then flap your ears and bray until the welkin rings again. That's the way to settle a political adversary who goes galivanting off after false economic gods. In the meantime ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... hall came the sharp rattle of ivory balls, and in the bar-room there was a glitter of electric light, cut glass, and French plate mirrors. Out of the door came the merry laughter of the giddy throng, flavored with fragrant Havana smoke and the delicate odor of lemon and ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... Suddenly the rattle of a horse's feet struck him. It broke upon his hearing for an instant, and then ceased as abruptly as it had made ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis
... Dundee and Talana Hills. The artillery behind had never slackened in their efforts to support the infantry, and their shrapnel searched the whole length of the crest line. This combined fire began at last to tell. The rattle of the enemy's musketry, which had lasted since 6.30 a.m., gradually grew feebler, until about 1 p.m. our infantry made a second dash across the wall and this time reached the top of the hill. Below them they saw the stream of ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring
... of voices outside and a rattle and creak of gates. Malcolm crept to the one window which the office held (he guessed it was here that Cherry had written his ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... old ebony face," he said angrily to the negro, in a manner which proved that his equanimity was considerably disturbed. "You jest stow that, and hold your rampagious cacklin', or I'll soon make you rattle your ivories to another toon, I reckon, ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... lifted his hand and knocked on the door with his knuckles, first loudly, then very softly, the gentler stroke being repeated five times in rapid succession. Clearly he was expected, for without any sound of approaching feet the chain was unfastened with a subdued rattle. Then came the noise of the bolt being cautiously worked back into its socket. As it shot home a chink of the door opened. At the same moment Rudolf's hand slipped from Bauer's arm. With a swift movement he caught ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... the next story, if the baby who lives in the house opposite doesn't shake his rattle at me all night so that I can't get to sleep and dream about the next story in time to write it for to-morrow night, I'll tell you more about the ...
— Billy Bunny and Uncle Bull Frog • David Magie Cory
... so flat busted, Boston, that I rattle when I walk. What would you suggest to cure ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... And there was noise of every conceivable kind, in plenty, from the blare of a band at the Pioneer Dance Hall opposite, to the energetic cursing of the cook in the rear. A discordant din of voices surged up from the street below—laughter, shouts, the shrieks of women, a rattle of dice, an occasional pistol shot, and the continuous yelling of industrious "barkers." There was no safety anywhere. An exploding revolver in No. 47 was quite likely to disturb the peaceful slumbers of the innocent occupant ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... After that, he advanced three steps, staggered, stretched out his arms, and fell on his face. And he rolled on the ground, crying out, beating the floor with his hands and feet, and uttering such groans that they seemed like a death-rattle. ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... goes by: and clocks still chime And stars are changing patterns in the dark, And watches tick, and over-puissant Time Benumbs the eager brain. The dogs that bark, The trains that roar and rattle in the night, The very cats that prowl, all quiet find And leave the darkness empty, silent quite: Sleep comes to chloroform the ...
— Songs for a Little House • Christopher Morley
... namesh—" But before the parley could go farther, the farmer burst past policeman and Jew, and rushed into the passage, roaring, in a voice which made the very windows rattle, ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... light more indivisibly, than did our all-conquering arrival upon the escaping efforts of the gig. That must the young man have felt too plainly. His back was now turned to us; not by sight could he any longer communicate with the peril; but by the dreadful rattle of our harness, too truly had his ear been instructed—that all was finished as regarded any further effort of his. Already in resignation he had rested from his struggle; and perhaps, in his heart he was whispering—"Father, which art above, do thou finish ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... The men halted a few moments, and then were ordered to fall in and advance against the enemy. Skirmishers, as usual, had advanced and prepared the way for the lines of infantry and the artillery. The shots of the skirmishers had become more and more frequent, till the sharp rattle of musketry told of the actual presence of the enemy. The artillery of the Sixth corps was at once run out, and a brisk fire opened upon the rebels, who replied with their guns, but with less vigor than that exhibited by our own. The commands of ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... previous to the coveted nominal rank enabling her to trample on those beneath it. And women like that Mrs. Warwick, a woman of no birth, no money, not even honest character, enjoyed the entry undisputed, circulated among the highest:—because people took her rattle for wit!—and because also our nobility, Lady Wathin feared, had no due regard for morality. Our aristocracy, brilliant and ancient though it was, merited rebuke. She grew severe upon aristocratic scandals, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... barrow. A motor cab followed, two Australian troopers on the roof of that, with a hospital nurse, her cap awry, sitting across the knees of one of them. A girl on the kerb, continuously springing a rattle in a sort of trance, shrieked with laughter at the nurse. Lines of people with linked arms chanted and surged along, bare-headed, or with hats turned into jokes. A private car, a beautiful little saloon in which a lady was solitary, stopped near me, and the lady beckoned with a smile to a Canadian ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... the whole house was in silence, when there was heard the rattle of a latchkey in the stairway door, followed by footsteps in the corridor and then the querulous tinkling of the music-box upon ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... did!" shouted Mr. Blake. Both he and Mr. Porter had to shout to be heard above the noise of the storm; for the thunder was very loud, and the patter of the rain drops, and the rattle of the hail made a very great ...
— Daddy Takes Us to the Garden - The Daddy Series for Little Folks • Howard R. Garis
... turning the piece of cane upside down, shaking it, listening for any rattle within, and otherwise examining it most carefully. Meanwhile Cleo had rescued the wrappings, and was trying to connect the line of print. She smoothed out the torn, yellow pieces, and presently her eye fell upon a ringed ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis
... windows had been smashed by shrapnel, and bits of glass and things crunched under foot. The room was full of noises—the crackle of the telephones, the crooning of the woman, the croak of the wounded old man, the clear and incisive tones of the general and his brigade-major, the rattle of not too distant rifles, the booming of guns and occasionally the terrific, overwhelming crash of a ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... we must hie away from these "junketings"—these festive boards, which our loyal ancestors seem to have infinitely enjoyed. We must hie away the long wished for "snow storm," the signal of attack has come. 'Tis five o'clock before dawn. Hark to the rattle of the alarm drum. Hark! Hark to the tolling of every city bell (and you know Quebec bells are numerous) louder! louder even than the voice of the easterly storm. To ARMS! To ARMS! resounds in the Market Place—the Place d'Armes—and ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... the windows rattle; the weapon fell from her hand, having done its work and, amid the smoke, a body dropped heavily on the carpet, which was soon ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... "it's all very well for you to rattle on like this, but you mustn't treat Ken's proposal lightly. He's a splendid man and he's ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... a clatter of hoofs and a rattle of wheels, and a brown horse, drawing a very loose-jointed wagon, with Ralph Haverley, in a broad hat and light tennis jacket, driving, dashed up to the back door and stopped ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... out rather a Levite than a Samaritan. In mere self-defence, I would have been constrained to keep up a series of general and impersonal reflections till the swagman lost his individuality—say, five or six hours—but I was rescued from this tyranny by the faint rattle of a buggy on the other side of the river. Idly turning my glass on the two occupants of the vehicle, I recognised one of them as a familiar and valued friend—a farmer, residing five or six miles down ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... larger, and his throat was filled with an exultant rattle. In the matter of the Upisk wives he knew that ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... in a corner of the comfortable carriage, that hardly swayed on its supple springs, while the grays trotted swiftly, in the midst of the unceasing rattle of wheels and the changing impressions in the pure air, Anna ran over the events of the last days, and she saw her position quite differently from how it had seemed at home. Now the thought of death seemed no longer so terrible and so clear ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... at Llandudno must see our burning ship, and will come out in their boats." He kept in the line of light, although it did not lead him direct to the shore, in order that they might be seen. He swam with desperation. One moment he thought he had heard her last gasp rattle through the rush of the waters; and all strength was gone, and he lay on the waves as if he himself must die, and go with her spirit straight through that purple lift to heaven; the next he heard the splash of oars, and raised himself ...
— The Moorland Cottage • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... its base, a stream disappears in an arched cave at the foot of a towering rocky cliff, and I have bethought me since of whether, like Allan Quatermain's subterranean stream, it would, if followed, reveal things heretofore unseen. And so we climb the lovely Suran Pass, rattle down the western slope upon the Black Sea coast, and reach ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... tormented by doubts as he lounged in the parlor-car, and, growing restless, he went out on the rear platform and lighted a cigar. There was faint moonlight, and dim trees fled past him; the rattle of wheels and the rush of the cool wind was soothing. He could not think while he stood holding on by the brass rail to protect himself against the lurching, and he found a relief in the roar as the great train swept across a foaming river. They had been detained at a junction ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... desirable plan, if you want to do anything, to do it in the way consecrated by custom, more especially if you are a woman. The rattle of a carriage along the road just behind me, and the fact that I started and turned suddenly hot, drove this truth home to my soul. The mist hid me, and the carriage, no doubt full of cousins, drove on in the direction of the house; but what an absurd position ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... little snakes, and all kinds of stork-dainties that he could find. And then, how funny it was to see the tricks he would perform to amuse them. He would lay his head quite round over his tail, and clatter with his beak, as if it had been a rattle; and then he would tell them stories all ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... The trees of the boulevard, in four straight lines, lifted their frail skeletons in the fog. They heard, through the wide silence, the diminishing rattle of their cab, on its way back to the barrier, and the trotting of a horse coming ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... I exclaimed, and I jumped up so suddenly that I made all the cups rattle and nearly threw over the table altogether. 'Then if anything stops Clem getting back quickly, I can run home and explain. Anyway you'd be more comfortable if you knew the two of us were on the hunt together. You don't mind my ...
— Peterkin • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... looked at him as she turned away. She was wounded to the heart; and the poor lad, putting a fearful curb upon himself, suffered her to leave him. He did not even go down to the door to see the carriage leave, and in a few minutes the rattle of wheels across the stony street fell upon his ears like a last farewell. Then, there being none to witness his weakness, he laid his head down upon the battered old desk, and wept as he had not wept since his childhood. He had a proud spirit, and circumstances had made him morbidly sensitive. ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... at the inn, I do not know how long, but they told me afterward it was for many days, hanging on the brink between life and death, until one day I heard in my dreams the music of the fife and the rattle of the drums, and awoke to life and hope again. The sunlight was streaming through the south window across the counterpane of the bed, and outside could be heard the steady tread ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... one instance he had the greatest difficulty in proving that the machine had been used in Georgia, although at that very moment three, separate gins were at work within fifty yards of the building in which the court sat. They were all so near, that the rattle and hum of the machinery could be ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris
... up a shaly bank, Kit was glad to see a broken wall loom among the tossing flakes. This was the shaft-house of an abandoned mine, and there was a sheep-fold, built with pulled-down material, close by. He shouted and waited until he heard the dogs bark and a rattle of stones. The Herdwicks were coming down and presently broke out from the snow in a compact, struggling flock. Tom shouted and threw a hurdle across the entrance when the dogs had driven the ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... young, rattle-headed creature, not much like your own kin, I guess; but, young man, she is as dear as the apple of our eyes, and I charge you to treat her well. She has never had a crossways word spoke to her all her life, and don't you ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... brigade a cry of recognition, and every man instinctively perceived that some grim business had begun. Another Sunday battle was raging just over the ridge, and the rest of that day's march had for its accompaniment the music of pom-poms, the rattle of rifle fire, and the thud of shells. But at the close of the day an officer somewhat discontentedly reported that "if" our artillery had only reached a certain place by a certain time, something splendid would have happened. Many of our rat-traps proved thus weak in ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... of a quick, lively dance. Cf. Middlemen's Spanish Gipsy (IV. 2): "Fortune's a scurvy whore if she makes not my head sound like a rattle and ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... "What a rattle-headed dunce I am! Thai brave and unfortunate Athos was wounded right on that shoulder I ran against head foremost, like a ram. The only thing that surprizes me is that he didn't strike me dead on the spot; he had provocation enough, for I must have hurt him savagely. As to Porthos—oh! ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... heretics always were inconsistent, never could state plainly their meaning, much less agree together; and thus, whether they would or no, could not help giving to the simple a warning of their true character, as if by their rattle." ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... street-junction I have already mentioned. Here stands one of the most beautiful monuments to Prague's former glory, the "Powder Tower." When first you come upon this, rising serenely in all its ornate loveliness out of the roar and rattle of the traffic, the sight of it catches your breath. King Vladislav II caused it to be erected—one of the gates of the old city. An unhappy King this latter, I should say; at least his lot was cast in unhappy times. One of the last Slavs to occupy the throne of Bohemia—he ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... meteor! An Isolde, who is a Jewish prostitute. Bestial and mournful lust. The frenzy of murder, pillage, incest, and untrammeled instincts which is stirring in the depths of German decadence.... And, on the other hand, the spasm of a voluptuous and melancholy suicide, the death-rattle which sounds through your French decadence.... On the one hand, the beast: on the other, the prey. Where is man?... Your Debussy is the genius of good taste: Strauss is the genius of bad taste. Debussy is ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... there two bands of one hundred men each, waiting for their commander. About fifty among the strongest and most zealous had helmets on their heads and long swords hanging to belts from their waists. Others displayed with pride bucklers, on which they loved to rattle an iron gauntlet. ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... few minutes Miss Laura stood by the door and looked in, but soon the men had piled up so many boxes and trunks that she could not see me. Then she went away. Mr. Morris asked one of the men to see that I did not get hurt, and I heard some money rattle. Then he went ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... each an exhortation, And kind friend Luth engaged awhile in prayer, Which met, at present, no disapprobation. Much death bed comfort does the sick one share, But soon his eyes assume a brighter glare, The rattle in his throat bespeaks death near. Anon they raise the dying youth with care, Whose smiling face shows plain he has no fear, For Jesus in the valley ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... There was a mournful dispirited look about the hound, evidently an aged animal, for the once black muzzle was touched with grey, and there was a film over one of the keen beautiful eyes, which opened eagerly as he pricked his ears and lifted his head at the rattle of the door latch. Then, as two boys came out, he rose, and with a slowly waving tail, and a wistful appealing air, came and laid his head against one of the pair who had appeared in the porch. They were lads of fourteen and fifteen, ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... which had been the first building seen when the darkness brightened, and was propped up against the garden wall, like an artist's lay figure waiting to be forwarded, until the dog- cart should arrive from the farm-house below. In due time—and a very long time it seemed to Mr. Idle—the rattle of wheels was heard, and the crippled Apprentice was lifted into the seat. As the dog-cart was driven back to the inn, the landlord related an anecdote which he had just heard at the farm-house, of an unhappy man who had been lost, ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... his wife yet. Ben drove fiend-fashion; but before they passed the last house in the village, lights were glancing and windows grating as they were opened. Years after, I heard the story of such a midnight cry borne past sleeping houses with the quick rattle of wheels; but no one who heard it could give the right clue to its explanation, and it dried ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... down, the order was given to fire. A flash of flame ran along the face of the great square, and then a continuous roar told that the breech-loading rifles were at work, while the machine-guns of the sailors added their rattle to the din of ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... lift up their voices with cries for night to come; the horses, ruffled and shivering, with their tails to the wind, as they snap their frosted fodder, or paw through the rime to the frozen grass underneath, causing their icy fetlocks to rattle about their hoofs; the cattle, crowded to leeward of some deep-buried haystack, the exposed side of the outermost of them white with whirling flakes; the sheep, turning their pitiful, trusting eyes about them over the fields of storm in earth ...
— Aftermath • James Lane Allen
... tells how St. Francis overcame in himself the mediaeval dread at the touch of a leper, and washed and tended one of the poor unfortunates. He was but following the example of Amil, who was not deterred by the dreaded sound of the "tartavelle"—the clapper or rattle which announced the approach of the leper {4}—from ...
— Old French Romances • William Morris
... incautious trespasser to run the gauntlet of batteries of blue and black eyes on either side of the way. A carriage passing through it communicated a singular thrill to the floors, and caused the china on the dining-table to rattle. Although we were comparatively free from the prevailing winds, wandering gusts sometimes got bewildered and strayed unconsciously into our street, and finding an unencumbered field, incontinently set up a shriek of joy, and went gleefully to work on the clothes-lines and chimney-pots, ...
— Urban Sketches • Bret Harte
... no longer in her cradle, Francis, and it is time to rattle at the windows. As for the black minx, who should have been up and at her duty this hour, there will be a balance to settle between us. Come, Patroon:—the appetite will not await the laziness of a wilful girl; we will to ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... he cried out to himself that the fear was groundless. There was blood in the secret at the very last! He arrived at Fleurieres almost in a state of elation; he had satisfied himself, logically, that in the presence of his threat of exposure they would, as he mentally phrased it, rattle down like unwound buckets. He remembered indeed that he must first catch his hare—first ascertain what there was to expose; but after that, why shouldn't his happiness be as good as new again? Mother and ...
— The American • Henry James
... that he had to be prating; and so would hush, still, and put all to quiet again. And that he might leave no argument unurged that might tend to make them secure, he said, and said it often, O Mansoul! consider that notwithstanding the old gentleman's rage, and the rattle of his high and thundering words, you hear nothing of Shaddai himself, when, liar and deceiver that he was, every outcry of Mr. Recorder against the sin of Mansoul was the voice of God in him to them. But he goes on and says, You see that ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... destroyed the emperors but it saved the people. It opened to the barbarians the palaces of Constantinople, but it opened the doors of cottages to the ministering angels of Christ. It had much to do with the great ones of earth. And what is more interesting than the death-rattle of an empire corrupt to the very marrow of its bones, than the somber galvanism under the influence of which the skeleton of tyranny danced upon the tombs of Heliogabalus and Caracalla! What a beautiful thing that mummy of Rome, embalmed in the perfumes of Nero ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... and imaginary beauties. All that can furnish this representation are the sounds of the words considered singly, and the time in which they are pronounced. Every language has some words framed to exhibit the noises which they express, as thump, rattle, growl, hiss. These, however, are but few, and the poet cannot make them more, nor can they be of any use but when sound is to be mentioned. The time of pronunciation was, in the dactylick measures of the learned languages, capable ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... from its scabbard and stood pressed against the rock wall while her eyes searched swiftly the prison into which she had fallen. Again came that light swift rattle with ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... bell came more slowly. The humming departed from the air. The window panes, the glass of the bookcase, the tumblers on the table, ceased to rattle and gave off only a ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... lives of most women, of the vast majority, the clatter and clash of housewifery prelude and postlude the spring song of their years. And the rattle of dishes, of busy knives and forks, the quick tapping of Maud's attendant feet, the sound of young and ravenous jaws at work: these sounds were in Joan's bewildered ears, and the sights which they accompanied in her bewildered eyes, just ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... rejoicings the sharp rattle of musketry was heard, and the Italians rushed to cover. A reconnoitering party reported that the Austrians were intrenched in a large villa beyond a stream outside the town. The Italian troops began an attack upon this position, and a skirmish party sought to take a position in a house ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... a flurried rattle against the fudge pan. "Oh!" a shriek of dismay, "my dear young and giddy friend, we're all out of sugar. What if we should want to make anything to-night? Let's run back to the grocery by the kitchen ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... of a fresh egg looks dull and porous. As it begins to age, the shell takes on a shiny appearance. If an egg is kept any length of time, a portion of its water evaporates, which leaves a space in the shell, and the egg will "rattle." An egg that rattles may be perfectly good, and ...
— Many Ways for Cooking Eggs • Mrs. S.T. Rorer
... rattle of the train on the railway lines, and, turning towards the other end of the platform, he saw that Ninian, having settled about the luggage and finished listening to the story of the fox hunt, was approaching them. "Come on," he said, catching hold of ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... and placing them away on the shelf behind Borg's back, dropped a heavy tin cup. The cabin was very still, and the sharp rattle came without warning. On the instant, with a brute roar, the chair was overturned and Borg was on his feet, eyes blazing and face convulsed. Bella gave an inarticulate, animal-like cry of fear and cowered at his feet. St. Vincent felt his hair bristling, ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... children's tombs—cocks and hens, pigs and horses, very rude. Similar toys are to be found in the Arles and the Avignon museums. I remember in the catacomb of S. Agnes at Rome is a whole collection of toys found in a Christian grave there, ivory dolls, a rattle, bells, and an earthenware money-box, just such as may be bought for a sou now in a foreign fair. De Rossi, the curator of the catacombs, has had them all put together under glass in proximity to the little grave where they were found. In a child's ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... must not be forgotten that there are many visitors who want their first impression of this city of their dreams to be abrupt; who want the transition from the rattle of the train to the peace of the gondola to be instantaneous; and these, of course, must enter Venice at the station. If, as most travellers from England do, they leave London by the 2.5 and do not break the journey, they will reach Venice a ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... a fierce whisper. 'Cheer to show them we aren't afraid, and rattle the daggers to make more noise. One, two, three! Hip, hip, hooray! Again - Hip, hip, hooray! One more - Hip, hip, hooray!' The cheers were rather high and weak, but the rattle of the daggers lent ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... "I never thought to warn you against them. That's a poisonous one, I think, and they climb up the trees and among the flowers to get the young birds and eggs and beetles and things. Better always rattle a stick in amongst the leaves, sir, before you get handling them. Try again, now, with the handle of ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... place the body, take a turn of end of nape cord about tip of neck-wire and twist a wisp of cotton about them both to prevent wire catching in neck skin when passing through. Hold up the bird-skin by the head, shake it out loose and rattle neck-wire up through the neck. Run wire out of mouth, remove cotton and release free end of nape cord. Draw wire back to base of skull, leaving nape cord hanging from mouth. Now push wire through brain cavity, between eye sockets ...
— Taxidermy • Leon Luther Pray
... his window, saw the carriage rattle past, and saw his friend leaning back in it, with alert eyes, to scan every woman passing by. He stood on the balcony for a moment till the noise of the wheels on the stone pavement died away. When he returned to ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... kitchen they were having tea. The rattle of the crockery sounded very distinctly. He could distinguish the sharp, staccato ring when a cup was laid in a saucer, and the nervous rattle when cup and saucer were passed from one hand to the other. Spoons struck ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... us. They formed a complete line in front of us. General Carr, being desirous of striking their village, ordered the troops to charge, break through their line, and keep straight on. This movement would, no doubt, have been successfully accomplished had it not been for the rattle-brained and dare-devil French Lieutenant Schinosky, commanding Company B, who, misunderstanding General Carr's orders, charged upon some Indians at the left, while the rest of the command dashed through the enemy's ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody
... the floor of his prison, the bars appeared of a formidable thickness, and he dreaded lest the time that would elapse till the next visit of his jailer, should be insufficient for him to overcome the obstacle. To his unspeakable delight, however, his first effort caused the grating to shake and rattle. The stone into which the extremities of the bars were riveted was of no very hard description; the iron was corroded by the rust of centuries, and Paco at once saw, that what he had looked forward to as a task of severe difficulty, would be accomplished with the utmost ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... would have kicked. And here we'd been makin' hay, and makin' hay, the ranch people thanking Providence that prairie grass cures on the stem, while we cussed, for we were sick of the sight of hay. I got so the rattle of a mower give me hysterics. We were picked because we were steady and reliable, but one day we bunched the job. Says I, 'Here; we've cut grass for four solid months, includin' Sundays and legal holidays, although the Lord knows where they come in, for I haven't the least suspicion ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... his own. The brain within was well developed with healthy exercise. It filled its case, and did not rattle like a withered kernel, or sound soft like a rotten one. It was a vigorous, muscular brain. The owner felt that he could trust it for an effort, as he could his lungs for a shout, his legs for a leap, or his fist for a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... tesselated floors, the mottled marble of the balustrades; the hushed approach to the Supreme Court; the precipitous descent into the galleries of House and Senate, the rap of the Speaker's gavel—the rattle of argument as political foes contended in the legislative arena; the more subdued squabbles on the Senate floor; the savory smell of food rising from the restaurants in the lower regions; the climb to the dome, the look of the ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey
... looking other than "spick and span," as her husband often admiringly declared. Rose always said that she could tell just what part of the big house Aunt Hetty was in because she could hear her starched skirts rattle; and she realized that Anne's untidy appearance was a real trouble to her ...
— A Little Maid of Massachusetts Colony • Alice Turner Curtis
... Profound and ingenious policy! Instead of curing the disease, to remove those symptoms by which alone its nature can be known! To leave the serpent his deadly sting, and deprive him only of his warning rattle! ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... before me with the first two fingers spread wide apart. "You lost," he said. "How's that, Sour-dough? We stuck him the first rattle out ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... hundred in number, perhaps, they swerved in dignified fashion and in their ineffably beautiful posture of flying, necks gently bent backward and long legs trailing delicately, flew away to the west. They were beginning to rise for a long flight when a harsh rattle of shots broke the evening quiet. Pop-pop-pop! Repeating shotguns worked at full speed. The flock crumpled and broke and a score of the beautiful birds came crashing down in shapeless, broken lumps. And then, too late to prevent the crime, ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... into the long prayer of the Presbyterian service. Bragg's army was still in middle Tennessee. There was no thought of an attack. Bang! Bang! Then the bursting of a shell too close for comfort. Bang! Bang! Then the rattle of shell fragments on the roof. On the other side of the river the Yankees ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... the rattle of the wagon, with which he delivered goods to the customers, was heard as he drove off. Don John came into the hall, and Nellie asked him ever so many questions about the condition of Michael, and what the doctor ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic
... did so rattle along that it was quite impossible for anyone to get in a word—there was a movement outside which was ominous had Allen but ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan
... wild things and wild places. The benedicite of the Druid woods, always appreciated by the few, like Lowell, is coming to be understood by the many. There is an increasing desire to get away from the roar and rattle of the streets, away from even the prim formality of suburban avenues and artificial bits of landscape gardening into the panorama of woodland, field, and stream. Men with means are disposing of their palatial residences in the cities and moving to real ...
— Some Winter Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... trumpet, with ringing cheer, with thundering hoof and streaming pennon and thrilling rattle of carbine and pistol; with one magnificent, triumphant burst of speed the troop comes whirling out from the covert of the bluff and sweeps all before ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... the devil" To exchange in our revel The ingot, the gem, and yellow doubloon; Coronets are but playthings— We reck not who say things When the Reiters have ridden to death! none too soon!— To flourish of trumpet and rattle of drum, The Reiters will finish as firm ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... lurked in the dark recesses of the swamp; on cypress-stumps or floating logs the deadly water-moccason lay stretched out, ready to bite without warning. Wherever there was a bit of dry ground, the workers were sure to hear the rattle of the rattlesnake. Sometimes whole nests of these reptiles ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... that he could hear the clatter of their golden wings, and their shrieks to each other: "here, here," "no, there; this way he went," as they chased him. But the Shoes of Swiftness flew too fast for them, and at last their cries and the rattle of their wings died away as he crossed the great river that ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... others: notably now it bewildered Duncan as he entered on the echo of Spaulding's "Come!" He had apprehended the visage of a thunderstorm, with a rattle of brusque complaints: he encountered Spaulding as he had always seemed: a little, urbane figure with a blank face, the blanker for glasses whose lenses seemed always to catch the light and, glaring, mask the eyes behind them; a prosperous man of affairs, well groomed both ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... man cried, with a gesture of tolerant impatience. "Of course it's life. Lorson! A hundred thousand dollars! It couldn't be for a thing less than life. It don't rattle me any." ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... easy to say, but when the reports came of victories to the British armies, assisted although they may have been by paid allies, the patriotic feelings of these Yorkshiremen did not fail to manifest themselves in a heavier consumption of beer than usual. We can hear the chink of glasses and the rattle of pewter tankards in the cosy parlours of the "White Swan," the "George," and the rest; we can hear as the years go by the loud cheers raised for Marlborough, for Wolfe, for Nelson, or for Wellington, while overhead the church bells are ringing loudly in the old ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... of strident voices that went from one end of the great square to the other, which was prolonged like the sound of the rising tide, which beats against the shore with ceaseless noise, that rattle of rifles, and the sound of the music that alternated with blasts of the trumpets all along the line, made the General's heart swell ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... silently, suffering always, but never hardening—on the contrary, growing tenderer for others the more it had to endure itself! Would it always be so? Was there no peace on earth for Ideala? No one who could be all her own? I felt responsible for this last hard blow; had I done well? The rush and rattle of the train shaped itself into a sort of sub-chorus to my thoughts as we sped through the pleasant fields: Was it right? Was it right? Was it right? And I saw Ideala, with soft, sad eyes, pleading—mutely ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... few minutes the rattle of the chain announced that the anchor was down. The sails were dewed up, ...
— Chasing the Sun • R.M. Ballantyne
... capture of the skirmish-line that killed him. Of course a great many of the official reports are misleading as to time, and it is only by these circumstances that we can judge definitely. I notice it was 12:20 o'clock, according to Allen, when they first heard the rattle of musketry ...
— The Battle of Atlanta - and Other Campaigns, Addresses, Etc. • Grenville M. Dodge
... signal flag against attack. Large numbers of insects thus coloured are nauseous and inedible; others, like wasps and bees, have stings; others are too hard to be eaten by small birds; while snakes with poisonous fangs often have some characteristic either of rattle, hood, or unusual colour, which indicates that they ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... to examine a pile of papers before her with that concentration and attention to detail which was characteristic of her eyes, pausing at times with prettily knit brows, and her penholder between her lips, in the semblance of a pout that was pleasant enough to see. Suddenly the rattle of hoofs and wheels struck her with the sense of something forgotten, and she put down her work quickly and stood up listening. The sound of rough voices and her father's querulous accents was broken upon by a cultivated and more familiar utterance: "All right; I'll speak to her at ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... and was pacing the floor with impatient strides. "Pierre Philibert!" exclaimed he, "where is the poor lad? He must be sought for and saved yet. What demons have assailed him now? Was it the serpent of strong drink, that bites men mad, or the legion of fiends that rattle the dice-box in their ears? Or was it the last temptation, which never fails when all else has been tried ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... activity of the wharf, while impeded, was in no wise stopped. The bustle, rattle, and shouting were, in fact, augmented by the temporary interference. Everybody seemed in a hurry, and everybody seemed out of temper, save a boy who lay at full length on the quay and earnestly studied ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... the place for a young man. You can be a baron out there with ten thousan' head of rattle. But the place for me is Texas. Trees is ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... admitted (but refused to show me), consisted of a butterfly-cocoon rattle, an eagle-bone whistle, and a feather headband. "I don't really do nothing but help nature," he said. When I replied that only some people know how to help nature he was gratified and smiled. "Oh well, it's all psychological anyway," he answered, confirming Lowie's description ...
— Washo Religion • James F. Downs
... waited for the signal from the hidden lokali player, on the far side of the river bend. At the first hollow rattle of his sticks, N'gori pushed off in his ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... lonely camp the dread tarantela disturbed her rest and in day's early gloam a warning rattle of creepy ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... hillock, on the leeside of which we are, rocks and shakes; and the air grows thick and suffocating—full of dust and saltpetre and sulphur. We are like to choke. All around is dark as night. We can see nothing, hear nothing but the howling of the hurricane, and the thunder and rattle of falling trees ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... with as many more. He thought to himself, "I must find out the way of making these heads." Cunning and curiosity prompted him to make the discovery. But he deemed it necessary to deceive his grandmother in so doing. "Noko," said he, "while I take my drum and rattle, and sing my war-songs, go and try to get me some larger heads for my arrows, for those you brought me are all of the same size. Go and see whether the old man cannot make some a little larger." He followed her as she went, keeping at a distance, and saw the old ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... were three years older than you really are. I wish—if I dare wish you anything different—that you were! It makes me uncomfortable to remember that I am—what? Almost half a year your elder as time flies:—not really, for your brain was born long before mine began to rattle in its shell. You say quite old things, and quietly, as if you had had them in your mind ten years already. When you told me about your two old pensioners, the blind man and his wife, whom you brought to so funny a reconciliation, I felt ("mir ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... seldom heard the corncrake, and never once the grasshopper lark. These two birds are so characteristic of the meadows in southwestern counties that a summer evening seems silent to me without the "crake, crake!" of the one and the singular sibilous rattle of the other. But they come to other places not far distant from the road, and one summer a grasshopper-lark could be heard in some meadows where I had not heard it the two preceding seasons. On the ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... continued their occupation in death-like silence, undisturbed by the buzz or the gaze of the lookers-on; not a sound was heard but the rattle of the heaped-up money, as it was passed from one side of the table to the other; nor was the smallest anxiety or emotion visible ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... the hut. The sky was solid with stars; the moon rose like a sharp scythe. The confused rumor of women crying in fright resounded from the various huts; the men who had been sleeping in the open, also woke up and the rattle of arms ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela
... another picking up the trail until the whole sky was ablaze with wavering shafts of light. The murmuring grew to a roar, accompanied by a deafening din of an Archie (anti-aircraft) barrage and the unceasing rattle of machine guns. ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq
... not left long in doubt as to the correctness of our surmisings, for we were soon rudely awakened by the rattle of shots exchanged between our vedettes and those of the enemy. Information was sent back at once to the advance guard and to our Commander, while we set to work to ascertain the enemy's exact position; this proved ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... capitalists both dared and did. If specific statutes were against them, the impelling forces of economic development and the power of might were wholly on their side. The competitive system was already doomed; the middle class was too blind to realize that what seemed to be victory was the rattle of the slow death struggle. At first, the great capitalists made no attempt to have these laws altered or repealed. They adopted a slyer and more circuitous mode of warfare. They simply evaded them. As fast as one trust was dissolved by ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... and as the rattle sounded once more, he made a long leap for the doorway. "That was a narrow escape. S'pose I hadn't a ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown
... Hogarth's Harlot's Progress done into unsparing prose. Smollett guides us at a brisk pace through the shady and brutal side of the eighteenth century; his vivacity is as unflagging as that of his disagreeable rattle of a hero. The passion usually understood as love is, to be sure, one of which he seems to have no conception; he regards a woman much as a greedy person might regard a sirloin of beef, or, at least, a plate ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... one may see the cloud of smoke, which waves in the wind like a pall over the city, slowly moving and settling down upon the land. One may almost hear the roar of the continual fires, the throb of the engines, the heavy beat of the trip-hammers, and the rattle of the spindles, by which the work of the world is done; and their noises, blended by the distance into one monotonous sound, seem like the voice of the restless, hard-working, unsettled spirit of gain. Manchester ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... knew you were too bright a man to hide your light under a half b-b-bushel of a village like that. In those seven-by-nine towns, all the sap dries out of men, and before they are forty they begin to rattle around like peas in a p-p-pod. In such places young men are never anything but milk sops, and old men anything but b-b-bald-headed infants! You needed to see the world, young man. You required a teacher. You have put yourself into ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... went the wheels—were never folks so glad; The stones did rattle underneath, as if ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... gun and fired. His shots rang out like the rattle of a maxim gun, so swiftly did he empty the six chambers. In a few moments they were once more on their way ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... parish constable in North Hunts. P.C., a supporter of Her Majesty's Government, resented Liberal candidate presenting himself before constituency. Determined he should not be heard. Brought down enormous rattle; swung it about throughout candidate's speech. JOSEPH GILLIS pricked up his ears. What a notion this would be for adaptation to Parliamentary usage! Suppose he had rattle and swung it whilst SAUNDERSON or JOHNSTON were speaking? Will consult SPEAKER ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 3, 1887 • Various
... bleak acres of bare red earth its light glanced, not warming them, but showing forth their coldness, as firelight glancing through a window-pane glows cold upon the garden snows. The big butter-nut-tree that stood up high and strong over the pump rattled its twigs in the air, as bare bones might rattle. ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... a few minutes to live. He had the death-rattle in his throat. Nevertheless, he had strength enough left to tell me his name and to speak a few words; and he died in my arms, not, however, before I learnt from him that M. Jorance and my father had tried to protect ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... the two dragging the stretcher could move in a last desperate rush for safety, before they could rise from their prone position, they heard the rattle of fire increase swiftly to a trembling staccato roar. But, miraculously, no bullets came near them, no whistling was about their ears, no ping and smack of impacting lead hailed about them—except, yes, just the fire of one rifle or two that sent ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... slightly open. Mrs Clowes's gaze, penetrating now and then the slit, could see the gleam of her lamp's ray on a horse's flank. The only sounds were the hoof-falls of the horse, the crunching of the wheels on the wet road, the occasional rattle of a vessel in the racks when the van happened to descend violently into a rut, and the steady murmur of Mrs Clowes's voice rehearsing the grandiloquence of the ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... the rail and gazed earnestly at the shore. There was a rattle, as the gang-plank moved in-board and was deposited on the deck. The girl uttered a little cry of dismay. Then suddenly her face brightened, and she began to wave her arm to attract the attention of an elderly man ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... room pitch-dark when closed, and it is doubtless wisest to have some of their central folds made with movable slats, but they give a charming sense of security and seclusion when the wintry blasts roar around our castle. On the other hand, the light outside blinds, that shake and rattle and bang when the stormy winds "do blow, do blow," are a fair substitute for the cooling shade of forest-trees. You may have learned that life is a succession of compromises. Building in New England certainly is. No sooner do we ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner
... compliment, they whisper soft nonsense which they would be sincerely ashamed to utter in the presence of their own sex, they act as if they were amusing babies, rather than conversing with intelligent human beings. Their own notion seems to be to shake the rattle-box, and awaken a laugh. I am not a baby, nor am ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... that which his profession had been supposed at all times to open to him. And now, since I have returned here, even our wise neighbours of Fairport have caught the same valiant humour. I hate a gun like a hurt wild duckI detest a drum like a quaker;and they thunder and rattle out yonder upon the town's common, so that every volley and roll ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... in progress, Lord Seacliff was enjoying a refreshing sleep in his room on the fourth floor. Two hours passed. The noise of the traffic in the street below faded away. Only the rattle of an occasional belated cab broke the silence. In the hotel all was still. Mr. Brewster had gone to bed. Archie, in his room, smoked meditatively. Peace may ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... the stream poured through the intervals between the squares. As they did so, crackling volleys broke out, while from the batteries on the sand hills an incessant fire was kept up upon them. Then, following the volleys, came the incessant rattle of musketry. The confusion among the cavalry grew greater and greater. Regiments were mixed up together, and their very numbers impeded their action. Many gallant fellows, detaching themselves from the mass, rode bravely at the squares, and died on the bayonets; ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... have become interwoven with the lives of the saints, a subject on which many works have been written. Hence it is unnecessary to do more than briefly note some of the more important items of sacred lore which have been embodied in many of the early Christian legends. The yellow rattle has been assigned to St. Peter, and the Primula veris, from its resemblance to a bunch of keys, is St. Peter's wort. Many flowers, too, from the time of their blossoming, have been dedicated to certain saints, as the square St. John's ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... the evening when he went down into the barroom, and he was sitting there watching a game of high, low, jack being played by some old fishermen. It was a pretty rough sort of night. The wind howled without and made the shutters and casements of the old building rattle, and finally an old man who ...
— Two Wonderful Detectives - Jack and Gil's Marvelous Skill • Harlan Page Halsey
... go, because I hear the rattle that can be made only by Kurt's car. He must have come back for something. You can go around ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... what lesson can we learn from the prison-house at Rome? We can learn this, that this world in which we live is in one sense a prison-house to all. It is a prison-house of hard work. In our great cities the roar of traffic, the rattle of machinery, the shriek of the steam-whistle, the eager crowds flocking to office and bank and exchange all mean one thing—work. Every man's talk is of business; he is in the prison-house, and he ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
... unless there are too many of them, it is only necessary to make noise enough to let the snake know that some one is approaching, and it gets out of the way as fast as possible; or, if it has not time to do this, it coils itself up and springs its rattle, thus giving notice that it is on hand, and ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton
... we vow a pilgrimage to St. James, to this place and to that; then we make earnest prayer, have a good confidence and every good kind of prayer. But when we are in our churches during mass, we stand like images of saints; know nothing to speak of or to lament; the beads rattle, the pages rustle and the mouth babbles; and that is ...
— A Treatise on Good Works • Dr. Martin Luther
... usually grey and very large, and their bodies are shaved in such a manner as to leave patterns on the legs and snout, which are often coloured. The saddles are of red leather and cloth, and from them hang long tassels which swing as they canter through the streets, while the musical rattle of coloured beads and the chains of copper and brass which all donkeys wear around their necks, add their quota to the many noises of the streets, through which in a low murmur one may ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Egypt • R. Talbot Kelly
... he waited patiently, and then came the rattle of wheels, and loud voices and laughter, as a vehicle drew up at ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... True, the world's eyes are open now: —Less need for me to disallow Some few that keep Love's zone unbuckled, Peevish as ever to be suckled, Lulled by the same old baby-prattle With intermixture of the rattle, When she would have them creep, stand steady Upon their feet, or walk already, Not to speak of trying to climb. I will be wise another time, And not desire a wall between us, When next I see a church-roof cover So many species ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... Samuel Gason (of whom it has been said that "no man living has been more among blacks or knows more of their ways") remarks concerning a dance of the Dieyerie tribe: "This dance men and women only take part in, in regular form and position, keeping splendid time to the rattle of the beat of two boomerangs; some of the women keep time by clapping their hands between their thighs; promiscuous sexual intercourse follows after the dance; jealousy is forbidden." Again, at the Mobierrie, or rat-harvest, "many weeks' preparation before the dance comes off; no quarreling ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... the eyes of all save one, the proprietor, Hawkins, returned to their plates, and the rattle of steel ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... in the dear objects at the Hutted Knoll. If I had met with a single woman I admired half as much as I do her pretty self, I should have been married long since." This was written in answer to some thoughtless rattle that the captain had volunteered to put in his last letter, as coming from Maud, who had sensitively shrunk from sending a message when asked; and it was read by father, mother, and Beulah, as the badinage of a brother to a sister, without awaking a second thought in ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... entirely different type. Big, husky, happy-go-lucky—a poor student but a right jolly companion; a fellow who could pitch into any kind of sport and play an uncommonly good game at almost anything. More than that, he could rattle off ragtime untiringly and his nimble fingers could catch up on the piano any tune he heard whistled. What wonder he speedily became the idol of Colversham? He was a born leader, tactfully marshaling at will the boys who were his own age, and good-naturedly ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... and then pointing with a convulsive movement of his wasted hand he cried, 'Don't you see, under that seat there, the worms crawling up through the rotten flooring, there? there!—fifty—a hundred—legion. For God's sake get me out of this charnel house! I can hear the dry bones rattle as the worms swarm out of the ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... Father Corrigan had been preparing me to take the Civil-Service examination, and that afternoon a lesson was due, so I went over to let him see how little I knew. I was in pain and was so blue that I could hardly speak without weeping, so I told the Reverend Father how tired I was of the rattle and bang, of the glare and the soot, the smells and the hurry. I told him what I longed for was the sweet, free open, and that I would like to homestead. That was Saturday evening. He advised me to go straight uptown and put an "ad" in the paper, so as to get it into the Sunday ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... a welcome in the sunny wind as the mail-boat came creeping through the Gate and with a great rattle and splatter dropped anchor in the basin off my father's wharf: for through my father's long glass I had from the summit of the Watchman long before spied the doctor aboard. He landed in fine fettle—clear-eyed, smiling, quick ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... in a reckless hour, it occurred to poor Corvick to take his young bride a drive. He had no command of that business: this had been brought home to me of old in a little tour we had once made together in a dogcart. In a dogcart he perched his companion for a rattle over Devonshire hills, on one of the likeliest of which he brought his horse, who, it was true, had bolted, down with such violence that the occupants of the cart were hurled forward and that he fell horribly on his head. He was killed on the ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James
... silent. Silence sits Lord of the revel, incubus of wits Arch palsier of prattle Yet many a girl here mute's a chatterer sweet, And many a youth in circles less discrete Is an 'agreeable rattle.' ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 February 15, 1890 • Various
... went out, slamming the door after her so violently that the precious, fragile objects in the room trembled. To Pons in his torture, the rattle of china was like the final blow dealt by the executioner to a victim ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... arrival upon the escaping efforts of the gig. That must the young man have felt too plainly. His back was now turned to us; not by sight could he any longer communicate with the peril; but by the dreadful rattle of our harness, too truly had his ear been instructed—that all was finished as regarded any further effort of his. Already in resignation he had rested from his struggle; and perhaps, in his heart he was whispering—"Father, which art above, do thou finish in heaven ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... a ewer, a spout-pot, from the Pers. Ab-rizwater-pourer: the old woman thus vaunted her ceremonial purity. The basin and ewer are called in poetry "the two rumourers," because they rattle when ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... between the porch and the altar. One of them took the shovel,(555) and flung it between the porch and the altar. No one could hear the voice of his neighbor in Jerusalem from the rattling of the shovel. And it was useful for three purposes: when the priest heard its rattle, he knew that his brother priests were entering to worship, and he came running; and the Levite, when he heard its rattle, knew that his brother Levites were entering to chant, and he came running; and the chief of the Delegates(556) compelled ...
— Hebrew Literature
... course it wasn't. With the rattle of the first milkcart, which in a modern city has taken the place of the half-awakened bird, he woke up, and if he had been in jail he could not have felt a more choking sense of imprisonment. There was no escape ...
— Ladies Must Live • Alice Duer Miller
... (first and second) to the "hardening" of the dry ground and, according to some, to the solidification, freezing, of the water in the highlands. Rajab (No.7)"worshipping," especially by sacrifice, is also known as Al-Asamm the deaf; because being sacred, the rattle of arms was unheard. Sha'abn"collecting," dispersing, ruining, because the tribal wars recommenced: Ramazan (intensely hot) has been explained and Shawwl (No. 10) derives from Shaul (elevating) when the he-camels raise their tails in rut. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... unceasing rattle of the train being occasionally changed for the momentary dead stillness, when it stopped, as it did now and then, at some small place on the way, for apparently no better reason than that of pulling the station-master out of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, October 18, 1890 • Various
... not want him to prove like other men, and she could have hated him had he dared to take advantage of that slight movement of her fingers and put his arm around her. He did not, and she flamed toward him. There was fineness in him. He was neither rattle-brained, like Bert, nor coarse like other men she had encountered. For she had had experiences, not nice, and she had been made to suffer by the lack of what was termed chivalry, though she, in turn, lacked that word to describe ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... the "New Lucy" should stay stuck on a sand-bar for days and days, and he should have such a good game of whist, with the lovely lady from Baltimore for a partner. But the military gentleman grew tired. His luck was very poor, and when the servants began to rattle dishes on the supper-table, he suggested that it would be just as well perhaps if they did not play too much now; they would enjoy the game better later on. They agreed to stop with the ...
— The Boy Settlers - A Story of Early Times in Kansas • Noah Brooks
... come by contraries, child. Oh, fie; what, we must not love one another now. Pshaw, that would be a foolish thing indeed. Fie, fie, you're a woman now, and must think of a new man every morning and forget him every night. No, no, to marry is to be a child again, and play with the same rattle always. Oh, fie, marrying ...
— Love for Love • William Congreve
... and with no decumbency whatever in any part of it. Root branched, and enormous in proportion to plant, and I fancy therefore must be good for something if one knew it. But Gerarde, who calls the plant Red Rattle, (it having indeed much in common with the Yellow Rattle), says, "It groweth in moist and moorish meadows; the herbe is not only unprofitable, but likewise hurtful, and an infirmity ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... the stage pull out slowly and stop before a little white cottage next door to the steepleless church. Then he reached for the bottle, poured another drink, and drank it very slowly. Through the open door came the far-away rattle of wheels. He tossed some money onto the bar, walked to the door, and stood gazing down the trail toward the cloud of grey dust that grew dimmer and dimmer in the distance. At last, it disappeared altogether, ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... at the top of a hundred and seventeen polished wooden steps, and as Betty neared the top flight the sound of talking and laughter came down to her, mixed with the rattle of china and the subdued tinkle of a mandolin. She opened the door—the room seemed full of people, but she only saw two. One was Vernon ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... But her hope was short-lived. The eyelids remained shut, and the child only breathed deeper than before. Nan's own heart seemed to stop in her anxiety for Ruth. Suddenly she sprang to her feet. Surely she had heard the rattle of wheels! Ever so far and indistinct to be sure, but still unmistakably wheels, clattering over some distant cobbles. She raised her voice and shouted; then held her breath to listen. The clatter grew more distinct; it drew nearer and nearer. ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... ascetic said unto him, 'Do thou promptly equip that car of thine with which thou penetratest into hostile cities. Indeed that battle-car of thine, with every weapon, with its standard and flags, its darts and javelins and golden columns and poles, should be made ready. Its rattle resembles the tinkling of bells. It is adorned with numerous arches made of pure gold. It is always furnished with high and excellent weapons numbering by hundreds!' The king said, 'So be it!' and soon caused ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... performances on the tight rope of style, is mere midsummer madness. 'Hold your absurd tongue,' would any of the ministers have said to a friend descanting on Junius as a powerful artist of style— 'do you dream, dotard, that this baby's rattle is the thing that keeps us from sleeping? Our eyes are fixed on something else: that fellow, whoever he is, knows what he ought not to know; he has had his hand in some of our pockets: he's a good locksmith, is that Junius; and before ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... halted, now. A great crane at the bow swung around, and a submarine mine hung poised in the air. Then, with a rattle of chains not audible at the distance, the mine was slowly lowered until it touched ...
— The Submarine Boys for the Flag - Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam • Victor G. Durham
... your bold bearing, Pride in each aspect and strength in each form, Hearts of warm impulse, and souls of high daring, Born in the battle and rear'd in the storm. The red levin flash and the thunder's dread rattle, The rock-riven wave and the war trumpet's breath, The din of the tempest, the yell of the battle, Nerve your steeled bosoms to ...
— The Culprit Fay - and Other Poems • Joseph Rodman Drake
... Corrigan had been preparing me to take the Civil-Service examination, and that afternoon a lesson was due, so I went over to let him see how little I knew. I was in pain and was so blue that I could hardly speak without weeping, so I told the Reverend Father how tired I was of the rattle and bang, of the glare and the soot, the smells and the hurry. I told him what I longed for was the sweet, free open, and that I would like to homestead. That was Saturday evening. He advised me to go straight uptown and put an "ad" in the paper, so as to get it into the Sunday ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... Rattle her chains More musically now than when the hand Of Brissot forged her fetters; or the crew 75 Of Hbert thundered out their blasphemies, And Danton talk'd ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... the marshal never fails to respond, and the cowboy is called upon to surrender. If he complies, which to the credit of his horse-sense he commonly does, he is led into brief captivity to be made loose when cooled. Does he resist arrest, there is an explosive rattle of six shooters, a mad scattering of the careful citizenry out of lines of fire, and a cowboy or marshal is added to the host beyond. At the close of the festival, if the marshal still lives he is congratulated; if the cowboy survives he is lynched; if both fall, they are buried with the honours ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... very bad cyclone suddenly came on us. The sky turned black and blacker, and the clouds looked horribly wicked. Suddenly a terrific gale got up, which caused every window and door to rattle in a most alarming manner, though they had all been as well secured as possible. The dust seemed to filter in just the same, and in five minutes the house was an inch thick in it. We heard a loud bang and then another over our heads, and on looking out of a window we saw ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... the battlefield has been marked. The noise of the cannonading has now decreased to such an extent that for hours at a time nothing is heard but the infrequent boom of one of the heavy guns of the Allies, the occasional rattle of machine guns, and the intermittent fire of snipers on either side. So far as the use of explosives is concerned, the greatest activity is found in local attacks with hand grenades and short-range howitzers. ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... you on that," offered Bruce Townley. "Johnny probably hasn't enough money to buy a tin rattle for your ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... his crutch, got it carefully under his arm and arose. He was not just a rattle-box, a mere word slinger, for he always had something to say worth listening to; talking to a crowd was no great task for him and he had a genius ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... Doctor DePage operate at this hospital. I was put into a uniform, and watched a piece of shell taken from a man's brain and a great blood clot evacuated. Except for the red cross on each window and the rattle of the sash under the guns, I might have been in one of the leading American hospitals and war a century away. There were the same white uniforms on the surgeons; the same white gauze covering their heads and swathing their faces to the eyes; the ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... clang! the massive anvils ring,— Clang! clang! a hundred hammers swing, Like the thunder-rattle of a tropic sky, The mighty blows still multiply: Clang! clang! Say, brothers of the dusky brow, What are your ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... about the decay of a mind which has been driven to death by constant work, but there is a compensating thought to alleviate the sadness. It may rattle and grow loose, like some worn-out engine, where the friction presses; but it will work till it collapses totally, and some of the work achieved is good and permanent. It is bound to be so. Infinitely sadder is the sight of a mind which is falling to pieces by reason of the rust that has eaten ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... dullness of it was transfigured. Each pond with the shadows lying black on its unruffled surface seemed a fairy lake; each gaunt and stunted tree seemed to clothe itself again with rustling leaves. The night was silent; only the rattle of the little train, as it rumbled over bridges which spanned some sluggish brook or with a warning hoot crossed a road—broke the stillness. Great shell-holes filled with rotting debris flashed by, the mouldering ruins of an old chateau frowned down as they twisted and turned through ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... suddenly he heard the sound of a voice, speaking very low, and another voice answered it. At that Georgie's heart sank, for this proved that there must be at least two burglars, and the odds against him were desperate. After that came a low, cruel laugh, the unmistakable sound of the rattle of knives and forks, and the explosive uncorking of a bottle. At that his heart sank even lower yet, for he had read that cool habitual burglars always had supper before they got to work, and therefore he was about to deal with a gang of professionals. ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... say, the Prince (though they did not know he was anything but a true Swineherd)—let no day pass without making something, and one day he made a rattle which, when it was turned round, played all the waltzes, galops, and polkas which had ever been ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... York having by special order directed them to take the assistance of Commissioner Middleton and me, forasmuch as there might be need of advice in what relates to the government of the ships in harbour. And so I did lay the law open to them, and rattle the master-attendants out of their wits almost; and made the trial last till seven at night, not eating a bit all the day; only when he had done examination, and I given my thoughts that the neglect of the gunner of ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... all illustrated by Gard's piano playing, which was cheap and meaningless strumming. He could rattle through a lot of popular tunes and stumble through a few short simple school-girl salon pieces. The Buchers were a real orchestra. With the ladies at the piano, the old Herr at the flute, Ernst at the violin ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... "And it's always the highest style, done to please him, though between you and me it's sorter castin' pearls before swine—this 'Frisco editing—and the public would be just as satisfied with anything I could rattle off that was peart and sassy,—something spicy or personal. I'm willing to climb down and do it, for there's nothin' stuck-up about me, you know; but that darned fool Captain Jim has got the big head about the style of the paper, and darned if I don't think he's afraid if there's ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... a game of backgammon?" I said. "Let us go back; the rattle of the dice will drown ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... in with Demi, soon followed by Ted and Josie, the Professor and his faithful Rob, all anxious to hear more about 'the boys'. The rattle of cups and tongues grew brisk, and the setting sun saw a cheerful company resting in the bright room after the varied labours of ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... last house and streak across the fields, knew that the end of the ride was near. Strength, wind and nerve were gone from Satan; his hoofs pounded the ground with the stamp of a plowhorse; his breath came in wheezes with a rattle toward the end; the tail no longer fluttered out straight behind. Yet when the master leaned and called he found something in his great heart with which to answer. A ghost of his old buoyancy came in his stride, the drooping head ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... counters, nor anything so strenuous as "bumps." The games I mean are those jolly, sociable ones in which everybody in the house can join with an equal chance of distinction, those friendly games which are played with laughter round a fire what time the blizzards rattle against the window-pane. ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne
... these obscure regions of the earth. The war-jackets were made of birds' feathers and wild beasts' skins, or of the barks of trees. Sometimes these garments were liberally decorated with small bells, cowries, and pieces of metal cut from old petroleum and preserved meat tins, which jingle and rattle as the wearer moves. Others were like chain-armour, of which the strips were fastened together by bits of hide or leather. The shields seemed of all sorts of shapes and sizes, some long and narrow, some circular, and some large enough to cover a man completely, and they ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... do with this crazy old rattle-trap?" inquired young Hinman plaintively. "Would one of you boys accept a dollar to drive this over to Fenton, and put the horse up in my father's barn? The trip can be made in two days ...
— The High School Boys' Training Hike • H. Irving Hancock
... master's baby face, as light as thistledowns, and as graceful as the slender plumes they wore in their hats and bonnets. Presently they would weary of dancing, and then the minstrels would be commanded to entertain them. Invariably the flea, who was a rattle-headed fellow, would discourse some ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... dithyrambs. It also published a translation of an Italian cantata entitled, "La Jerogamia di Creta, Inno del Cavaliere Vincenzo Monti," which began thus: "The silence of Olympus is broken up by the noisy neighing of coursers and by the prolonged and disturbing rattle of swift chariots. The Immortals descend to the banks of the Gnossus to celebrate with fitting rites the new marriage of the ruler of the gods." It ended thus: "The waves of two seas, in motion, though no wind blows, roar in terror, and Neptune, alarmed, feels with surprise his trident ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... Daniel Gregory Mason, whose wholesome influence, by the way, is doing as much perhaps for music in America as American music is, amusingly says: "If indeed the land of Lincoln and Emerson has degenerated until nothing remains of it but a 'jerk and rattle,' then we, at least, are free to repudiate this false patriotism of 'my Country right or wrong,' to insist that better than bad music is no music, and to let our beloved art subside finally under the clangor of the subway gongs and automobile horns, dead, but not dishonored." ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... few miles beyond Arrow Hill it ran into the little town of Cheemaun, and on market-days its hard, white surface rang with the beat of hoofs and the rattle of wheels. In the early morning the procession rolled forward, strong and eager for the day's bargaining, and at night it swept back bearing some weary ones, some gleeful over their money-getting, some jealous and ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... that the main line of railroad, running down from Belgrade to Saloniki by way of Nish, passes within a few miles of the Bulgarian frontier, just opposite Sofia. Indeed, from Klisura on the frontier the distant whistle of the locomotives and the rattle of the trains across stretches of trestle work can be heard plainly on still days. From Klisura on the frontier to the railroad is all down hill. Farther south, at Kustendil, the danger was even greater, though the distance from frontier to railroad somewhat more, for at Kustendil was ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... part of his intelligence found leisure to decide that this screwdriver was slightly longer than the one he had used aforetime for a similar purpose—and he unscrewed the solitary screw and raised the lid of the coffin, letting all the screws roll off it with a great rattle.... An overwhelming rush of chloroform vapour escaped.... She lay within, dressed in her black dress, and her dress had been crammed into the coffin hastily, madly, and was thrust down in thick, disorderly folds about her feet, and her hair half covered her face. And her face was slightly ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... them in front of a lighted building in Texas Street with a straggling crowd gathered about the porticoed entrance. As Loring spoke, there was a rattle of snare drums followed by the dum-dum of the bass, and a brass band ramped out the opening measures of ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... Andante in his symphony, thus proving to him that it was really pretty and interesting. He had so little faith in his work, that he considered the only way to avoid the danger of boring people with it was to rattle through it at a disgraceful speed. He really beamed with delight and gratitude when I secured him great applause by taking this very Andante ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... freedom they should again be captured. Then they decided that they must creep down by one of the little tributaries flowing into the Rhine. So they stepped into the little stream and crawled down it, feeling for loose stones that might rattle and attract the ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... his head doubtfully and gave vent to a long-drawn whistle, and Perpetua clasped her hands exclaiming distressfully: "Did I not say so? She takes the fire lighted by shepherds at night to warm their hands for the rising sun—the rattle of chariots for the thunders of the Almighty!—Why, how many thousands have called themselves Paulus! By all the Saints, child, I beseech you keep quiet, and do not try to weave a holiday-robe out of airy mist! ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Jacques—how he must suffer! Hark to that low, sickening thud! 'Tis the accursed soap dropping from his nerveless grasp. Hist to that sound—like unto a death rattle! It is the water gurgling in the tub. And what means that low, poignant, smothered gasp? It is the last convulsive cry of Jacques descending into the depths. All ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... held his hand before me with the first two fingers spread wide apart. "You lost," he said. "How's that, Sour-dough? We stuck him the first rattle out of the box." ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... shouting, the pushing, seemed most irritating. Ill as I was, for a few moments I almost contemplated the idea of turning back toward the virgin forest. The heat was oppressive, the bells of the tramways jangled all the time, the rattle of the mediaeval carriages on the cobble-stones of the pavement ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... for a man whilst making merry than a chair, because it contains the whole body and keeps it from all disturbing motion, so it is best to have the soul perfectly at quiet; or, if that cannot be, we must give it, as to children that will be doing, not a sword or spear, but a rattle or a ball,—in this following the example of the god himself, who puts into the hands of those that are making merry a ferula, the lightest and softest of all weapons, that, when they are most apt to strike, they may hurt least. Over a glass of wine men should make only ridiculous ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... it looked as if the whole place about where the diamond seekers stood, was a mass of fire. Great forked tongues of lightning leaped from the clouds, and seemed to lick the ground. There was a rattle and bang of thunder, like the firing of a battery of guns. Tom and the others felt themselves tingling all over, as if they had hold of an electrical battery, and there was a strong smell of sulphur ...
— Tom Swift Among The Diamond Makers - or The Secret of Phantom Mountain • Victor Appleton
... the voice of the wind!" we say, as the windows rattle and house shakes; the winds as they shout in angry voices, clamoring louder in their fury, are telling of storms at sea, of the battles with the ships and the brave hearts that have gone ...
— Wise or Otherwise • Lydia Leavitt
... down-stairs, and said, ruefully, "I am afraid you do not like my friend Miss Lucas. She is a great rattle, but ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... the toiling city folk, but few there were that heard — The rattle of their busy life had choked the whisper down; And some but caught a fresh-blown breeze with scent of pine that stirred A thought of blue hills far away beyond the smoky town; And others heard the whisper pass, but could not understand The magic of the ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... even voice. 'It was just a little—well—perhaps just a tiny bit ghastly, I thought; but don't tell Bruce. That evening I thought the people weren't quite young enough, and when they played 'Oranges and Lemons, and the Bells of St Clements,' and so on—their bones seemed to—well, sort of rattle, if you know what I mean. But still perhaps it was only my fancy. Mitchell has such very high spirits, you see, and is determined to make everything go. He won't have conventional parties, and insists on plenty of verve; so, of course, one's forced to have it.' He sighed. 'They haven't any ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... beach is whispering as before, but the shrill wail of the curlew is never sounded from knoll to knoll now. The horn lantern is not seen by the roadsides, nor the quick flashlight that signalled the coast was clear; and the rattle of the horses' hoofs on the stones during the mystic night is never now heard. There is nothing to indicate, in fact, that this lonely, superb piece of England was once (not so long ago) a great centre of illicit trading. The smuggler and Revenue man have disappeared, and the ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... Venosta's gramophone played, the Italians encamped near by clustered round the edge of the terrace in obvious enjoyment, and sometimes one or two would dash indignantly down the road to stop limbers and carts, which were making a rattle ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... devised a little "jim" in regard to bayonet work, which I had not heard of being used in war before. When they were in the trenches, and the order was expected to fix bayonets, they had a habit of fixing them, or rather pretending to, with a tremendous rattle, on which signal the Turks would often leave their trenches and run, expecting the bayonet charge; but the Bulgarians still stuck to their trenches, and got ...
— Bulgaria • Frank Fox
... rower's head alone was seen above the tall brown grasses; and then he pulled around the bend and was lost to view behind a mass of flaming woodbine; and still, in the distance, could be heard across the water the rattle of his ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - First published in the "Century Magazine" • Heman White Chaplin
... rang like a rattle of musketry in the heavy air, and the beings on the air ship started back in alarm. But although, like the inhabitants of the dark hemisphere, they were, evidently, unaccustomed to hearing sounds of ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... of the number of rattle and other snakes to be met with on the banks of the lake, but these have been nearly exterminated by the settlers. During my stay in the suburbs I only found a few water-snakes, basking in the sun amongst the wilderness of aquatic plants ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... impatient strides. "Pierre Philibert!" exclaimed he, "where is the poor lad? He must be sought for and saved yet. What demons have assailed him now? Was it the serpent of strong drink, that bites men mad, or the legion of fiends that rattle the dice-box in their ears? Or was it the last temptation, which never fails when all else has been tried in ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... came all too soon, Mr. Wiggett, whose popularity was never for a moment in doubt, developing gifts to which his friend had never even alluded. He sang comic songs in a voice which made the glasses rattle on the shelves, asked some really clever riddles, and wound up with a conjuring trick which consisted in borrowing half a crown from Mr. Ketchmaid and making it pass into the pocket of Mr. Peter Smith. This last was perhaps not quite ...
— Light Freights • W. W. Jacobs
... but he could not be sure, for just at that moment heavy drops began to patter down upon the tiles. The noise rose louder and louder until he could scarce have heard himself speak. Then there was a bright flash and the deep rumble of the thunder mingled with the sharp rattle of the raindrops overhead. He listened for a time to the storm, and then ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... sister gazed with dark, sad eyes into the fire, now burned down to a glowing bed of coals. The silence remained unbroken save for the moan of the rising wind outside, the rattle of hail, and the patter of rain drops on ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... few minutes to live. He had the death-rattle in his throat. Nevertheless, he had strength enough left to tell me his name and to speak a few words; and he died in my arms, not, however, before I learnt from him that M. Jorance and my father had tried to protect him on French territory and that the police had ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... think of sending Jeb on before, in the morning, to tell Rattle-Snake Mike he must act as guide and cook for us while we are on the mountain? He is the cleverest Indian ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... went on again, as if in reply to this, and I heard a rattle of glasses, as if they were pouring drinks. They always had whisky, even when they were behind with ...
— The Case of Jennie Brice • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... sat and looked at him for several moments. Outside, the station now was filled with a hurrying throng on their way to the day's work. Engines were shrieking, bells ringing, the press of footsteps was unceasing. In the dark, ill-ventilated room itself there was the rattle of crockery, the yawning of discontented-looking young women behind the bar, young women with their hair still in curl-papers, as yet unprepared for their weak little assaults upon the good-nature or susceptibility of their customers. A queer ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... "is fond of fishing in muddy waters" — hence it is, I suppose, that that grand demagogue has always been so fond of war — that sunshine and basking time of rogues, which calls them out, thick as May-day sun calls out the rattle-snakes from their ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... part of the morning's battle. I saw the Russians cross and recross the river. I saw their officers cheer and wave them on in the coolest, bravest manner, until they were shot down by scores. I was near enough to hear at times, in the lull of artillery, and above the rattle of the musketry, the excited cheers which told of a daring attack or a successful repulse; and beneath where I stood I could see—what the Russians could not—steadily drawn up, quiet and expectant, the squadrons ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... protested now and then, in a feeble, dozy, high-up "Caw!" When, at intervals, the window trembled, the rusty vane upon the turret-top complained, the clock beneath it recorded that another quarter of an hour was gone, or the fire collapsed and fell in with a rattle. ...
— The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargin • Charles Dickens
... o'clock on a September day, so that the atmosphere was well-brewed to a visible haze. There was deep stillness, broken only by a light rattle, a light chink, a small sweeping sound, and an occasional monotone in French, such as might be expected to issue from an ingeniously constructed automaton. Round two long tables were gathered two serried crowds of human beings, all ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... policemen, in single file, with superb steadiness, running along the knife-edge. At the same instant the rest of the posse opened fire on the thicket. It was madness. Five times Koolau pulled the trigger, so rapidly that his shots constituted a rattle. Changing his position and crouching low under the bullets that were biting and singing through the bushes, he peered out. Four of the police had followed the sheriff. The fifth lay across the knife-edge still alive. ...
— The House of Pride • Jack London
... that long, lonesome, hot day kept soundin' in my ears as if some one was callin' 'em out with the tickin' of the clock. "Bury him"—an' Micah dead only a few hours! I couldn't believe it, an' would stop an' listen for his whistle at the barn, his talk to the horses, his rattle at the pump, his footfall at the door, until, crazy with waitin,' I'd go over to the bed, pull back the sheet, an' in the still face read why I should never hear those happy ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... Atwood to entangle yourself with such people and spoil your prospects for life. Look here, Roger. I'll be frank with you, and then we'll understand each other. You know I've neither chick nor child, and I've turned a good big penny in business. When you first came I thought you were a rattle-pated country boy that wanted a lark in the city, and I took you more to keep you out of mischief than for any other cause. Well, I've watched you closely, and I was mistaken. You've got the stuff in you to make a man, and I see ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... talk hastily on other matters, an art in which he was an adept, for it was his gift to be fluent on anything or nothing. But although Archie had the grace or the timidity to suffer him to rattle on, he was by no means done with the subject. When he came home to dinner, he was greeted with a sly demand, how things were looking "Cauldstaneslap ways." Frank took his first glass of port out after dinner to the toast of Kirstie, and later ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... either worth remark. The man or the hour had not yet come; but some day, I think, a boat shall put off from the Queen's Ferry, fraught with a dear cargo, and some frosty night a horseman, on a tragic errand, rattle with his whip upon the green shutters of the inn ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... mounted the car, proceeded with great haste to the city of the Kurus. The adorable Madhava then, riding on his vehicle, proceeded, and arriving at the city called after the elephant entered it. Causing the city to resound with the rattle of his car-wheels as he entered it, he sent word to Dhritarashtra and then alighted from his vehicle and entered the palace of the old king. He there beheld that best of Rishis, (Dvaipayana) arrived before him. Janardana, embracing the feet of both ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... warning. The writer had counted the rattles on the naval flag, and found them to be exactly thirteen, the number of the colonies. He had also noted that the rattles were independent of one another, and yet most firmly united; and that while one rattle alone is incapable of producing any sound, the ringing of the thirteen together is sufficient to alarm the boldest man living. Whether Franklin wrote this or not, let us at least be thankful that these arguments did not ...
— The Little Book of the Flag • Eva March Tappan
... his gun suddenly and slipped down behind a rock; and his compadres, not knowing from whence the hostile fire came, pushed out their carbines and began to shoot wildly; the deep canyon reverberated to the rattle of thirty-thirtys and the steady crack, crack of the rifle above threw the sheep camp into confusion. There was a shout as Creede dashed recklessly out into the open and the sand leapt up in showers behind him, but Bat Wings was running like the ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... into wild, unearthly, choking laughter, his figure swaying to and fro like a pine in a storm. The laughter, an indescribable and most dreadful sound, became low, choked, a mere rattle in the throat, died into silence, and the laugher crashed to the ground like a pine for which the storm has ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... and wooed, becomes uncertain, treacherous, gloomy, and engulfing. Creeks become rivers, rivers impassable torrents, and marshes bottomless abysses. Pits of quicksand develop in most unexpected places. Driven from smooth lake margins, the trailers' ponies are forced to climb ledges of rock, and to rattle over long slides of shale. In places the threadlike way itself becomes an aqueduct for a rushing ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... glimpse of any faces at the windows. Slowly the twilight crept down as the sun sank behind the high towers of Holdernesse Hall. Then in the gloom we saw the two side-lamps of a trap light up in the stable yard of the inn, and shortly afterwards heard the rattle of hoofs, as it wheeled out into the road and tore off at a furious pace in the ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... you don't go near the theatres now. You give yourself no more concern about a new play, than if you had never had any thing to do with the stage.' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, our tastes greatly alter. The lad does not care for the child's rattle, and the old man does not care for the young man's whore.' GOLDSMITH. 'Nay, Sir, but your Muse was not a whore.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, I do not think she was. But as we advance in the journey of life, we drop some of the things which ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... are the rattle snake, garter Snake a common brown Lizzard. The Season was so far advanced on this side of the Rocky Mountains that but fiew rattle Snakes were Seen, I did not remark one particularly my Self, nor do I know if they are of either of the four ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... whole broadside was poured in, and we could hear the shot rattle and tear along the cutter's deck, and the shrieks and ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... tearing rattle of a machine gun sounded from somewhere high up. Joe knew what it was. Mike's whole scheme had been intended to force all sabotage efforts to take place at a single instant. Part of the preparation was authority for Haney to drag in ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... a momentary roar, and ceased abruptly. The horns of taxi-cabs passing below could be plainly heard, and the drone and rattle of motor-buses. Men who had done good work in other emergencies looked down the gleaming barrels, back to the crowds of women—and had no inspiration, but merely wondered. ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... for a while—their eyes were dazzled; and in the roar and rattle of artillery overhead nothing could be heard of the silent advance of those darkened hulls as they slipped like ghosts through the water. They were as close to the south bank as it was safe to keep, and followed Killick's sloop with as much precision as possible. The strong tide beneath them, and ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... of the can; if decomposition is beginning, the tin will rattle the same as the bottom of your sewing-machine oil can does. If the goods are sound, it will be solid, and there will be ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... Lady of Strawberry. Have I not been on my knees to her these three weeks, and aren't the poor old joints full of rheumatism? A fit took me that I would pay London a visit, that I would go to Vauxhall and Ranelagh. Quoi! May I not have my rattle as well as other elderly babies? Suppose, after being so long virtuous, I take a fancy to cakes and ale, shall your reverence say nay to me? George Selwyn and Tony Storer and your humble servant took boat at Westminster ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... surprising head into the fields beyond, when they begin to fall into line, and the sportsmen doing the same—"one at a time and it will last the longer"—"Tummas" tootles his horn, the hunt is up, and away they all rattle at "Parliament pace," ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... initiations. If nothing is more certain for us than that many persons, within our recollection, couldn't help being rather generally unadmonished and unaware, so nothing is more in the note of peace than that such a perceived state, pushed to a point, makes our scales of judgment but ridiculously rattle. Our admonition, our superior awareness, is of many things—and, among these, of how infinitely, at the worst, they lived, the pale superseded, and how much it was by ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... some passages which the coroner read aloud:—"Do you know anything of Schopenhauer? I mean anything beyond the current misconceptions? I have been making his acquaintance lately. He is an agreeable rattle of a pessimist; his essay on 'The Misery of Mankind' is quite lively reading. At first his assimilation of Christianity and Pessimism (it occurs in his essay on 'Suicide') dazzled me as an audacious paradox. But there is truth in it. Verily the whole creation groaneth and travaileth, and man is ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... another tried to pour brandy between his clenched teeth; and under cover of it I whispered to the man next to me (one of our greatest skeptics, by the way), 'Beauchamp, did you hear anything?' 'Why, yes,' he replied, 'a curious sound, very; a sort of crash or rattle far away in the distance, yet very distinct; if the thing were not utterly impossible, I could have sworn that it was the rattle of musketry.' 'Just my impression,' murmured I; 'but hush! he ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... mentioned entered the room, in the order named; the usual salutations followed, and all took their seats at table. Captain Willoughby was silent and thoughtful at first, leaving his son to rattle on, in a way that betokened care, in his view of the matter, quite as much as it betokened light-heartedness in those of his mother and sisters. The chaplain was rather more communicative than his friend; but he, too, seemed restless, and desirous of arriving at some point that was not likely ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... soldier because he is quartered in a "hut." The word sounds unattractive. But if it is the right kind of hut, he is in the soundest and most sanitary type of temporary hospital that the mind of man has yet devised. The rain-drops may rattle a shade noisily on the roof, the asbestos lining may be devoid of ornamentation, but as he lies in bed and contemplates that unadorned ceiling he is a deal better off than if he were gazing at the elaborate (and dust-harbouring) ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... injustice and of wrong. Others will follow in his footsteps, and battle as faithfully as he for the cause of right, but, alas, none are clad like him in the Milan mail of intellectuality, against which the cloth-yard shafts of foes could rattle but could never pierce. Now, that for him the restless dream of life has closed, I know that every admirer of his genius, no matter of what faith or of no faith at all, will join me in the wish that for him death did not bring oblivion's dreamless sleep, where Lethean waves forever wash the ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... and my Lord F., that was condemned to die yestereven, shall bear the Queen's sword this morrow. Pshaw! I am tired of it. 'Tis a game of tables [backgammon], with players that have no skill, and care for nought saving to rattle ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... reckless hour, it occurred to poor Corvick to take his young bride a drive. He had no command of that business: this had been brought home to me of old in a little tour we had once made together in a dogcart. In a dogcart he perched his companion for a rattle over Devonshire hills, on one of the likeliest of which he brought his horse, who, it was true, had bolted, down with such violence that the occupants of the cart were hurled forward and that he fell horribly on his head. He was killed on the spot; ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James
... opened, over a bridge, upon the park. The yard clock was striking the hour of ten; so was the big bell in the palace bell-tower; and, farther off, the belfries of the town. About the stable all else was silent but the stamping of stalled horses and the rattle of halters. Otto dismounted; and as he did so a memory came back to him: a whisper of dishonest grooms and stolen corn, once heard, long forgotten, and now recurring in the nick of opportunity. He crossed the bridge, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the agony of defeat and the humiliation of reconstruction. After nineteen years, the Academy still bore the scars of war on its battered front. Once it had watched the spectre of famine stalk over the grass-grown pavement, and had heard the rattle of musketry and the roar of cannon borne on the southern breeze that now wafted the sounds of the saw and the hammer from an adjacent street. Once it had seen the flight of refugees, the overflow of the wounded from hospitals and churches, ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... fishes of the Baltic. They talk of such like things among themselves: the sleigh-drivers round their charcoal fire, the field-workers going and coming in the grey dawn, the factory workers, their whispers deadened by the rattle of the looms. ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... her bonnet and shawl, and sat down beside him and began to rattle away like a happy girl, telling him all the little incidents of her morning's drive—whom she had seen, what she had purchased, and how excited everybody was on the subject of her ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... mentioned to you so often, is become my property. I dug it out of its winter dormitory in March last, when it was enough awakened to express its resentments by hissing, and, packing it in a box with earth, carried it eighty miles in post-chaises. The rattle and hurry of the journey so perfectly roused it that, when I turned it out on a border, it walked twice down to the bottom of my garden; however, in the evening, the weather being cold, it buried itself in the loose mould, and ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 • Gilbert White
... all,' said he. 'Why should we want books when we have the men themselves to tell their tales to us? Would you give a rap to possess a set of Shakespeare if William himself would sit down and rattle off the whole business to you any time you chose to ask him to do it? Would you follow Scott's printed narratives through their devious and tedious periods if Sir Walter in spirit would come to you on demand, and tell you all the old stories over again in a tenth part ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... who were all getting an education, commenced to work the ground and collect cattle and horses. This commenced to interest grandpa a little, although he wouldn't help, and he used to sit on the back porch and look over the farm and watch his children, and just rattle right ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb
... as close to falling into this category as anyone since they do spend a lot of time looking around the sky. But even those who can rattle off the names and locations of stars, planets and constellations don't know about a few relatively ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... he said, applying himself once more to a thunderous assault on the door, but to no avail. A silence hung about the place, broken only by the roar and rattle ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham
... along over the roads for so many hours,—the rattle of the stage-coach had filled her ears for so long,—that now, suddenly still and quiet, she felt half stunned. She stood with a kind of dreamy feeling, looking after the departing stage-coach. In it there were three people whose faces she ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... Flanders and Brabant, with a herd of bakers, brewers, and butchers, were congregated by express order of Parma. In the little church itself the main workshop was established, and all day long, week after week, month after month, the sound of saw and hammer, adze and plane, the rattle of machinery, the cry of sentinels, the cheers of mariners, resounded, where but lately had been heard nothing save the drowsy homily and the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... his will; but as the servants were all in attendance at supper he could not get any body to witness it; and for this he was obliged to wait till a very late hour, when all the company at last departed. The rattle of carriages at length died away; and when all was silence, just as he was about to ring for his witnesses, he heard Lady Sarah's step coming along the corridor towards the study: he went out immediately to meet her, drew her arm within his affectionately, and ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... my bed was taken out, and put into the Chinese paper room, one of the maids who helped to move it, sat on the pot and piddled; I heard the rattle, and as far as I can recollect it was the first time I noticed anything of the sort, tho I recollect well seeing women putting on their stockings and feeling the thigh of one of them just above her knee. I was kneeling on the floor at the time, and had a trumpet, which ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... our own room to watch and think. Never to my dying day shall I ever forget those long hours of midnight stillness, broken only by the distant rattle of the rifles in the direction of Phoenix Park, where the two forces had by this time come ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard
... I tell you this they learned — Always at night when they returned To the lonely house from far away, To lamps unlighted and fire gone gray, They learned to rattle the lock and key To give whatever might chance to be Warning and time to be off in flight: And preferring the out- to the in-door night, They learned to leave the house-door wide Until they had ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... had scarcely come to an end when there arose a loud rustling of leaves among the trees in the garden and round about the house, a blast of hot wind poured in through the open doors and windows, violently slamming the former and causing the latter to rattle furiously; and I had barely time to rush and close them all when a terrific squall came roaring down upon the bungalow. This squall was only the precursor of several that followed each other at rapidly decreasing intervals until ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... disagreeably near to the outposts of the 'boys in blue,' as Grant's men were called. Having arrived very late in the evening at our destination, we bivouacked under the trees close to the headquarters of the general commanding, who was away at the front, and not expected back till the next evening. The rattle of musketry and the boom of heavy guns all through the night reminded us of our vicinity to the theatre of war, and somewhat disturbed our rest. But if we were a little nervous, we took care not to show it. In the morning we started in our waggons, and, after travelling a few miles ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... silver-gray, making a grand rattle among the plates and glasses, "some wine! some water! some ink! an omelette! a writing-pad! a filet ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... Mass and Matins for the dead were said over him, earth was thrown upon his foot, and then he was taken to a hovel on waste land where he was to be buried at the last. Here he found a parti-coloured robe, a coat, two shirts, a rattle, knife, staff, copper girdle, bed, table, and lamp, a chair, chest, pail, cask and funnel, and this was his portion for ever. He was not before 1179 allowed even a leprous priest to say Mass for ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... dice in it in his right hand, and in the act of shaking it caught the fair dice in his hand, and unperceived shifted the box empty to his left, from which he dropped the false dice into the box, which he began to rattle, called his main seven, and threw. Having won his stake he repeated it as often as he thought proper. He then caught the false dice in the same way, shifted the empty box again, and threw till he threw out, still calling the same main, by ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... him some pap. He lacks soothing, Madam; and having been brought so low as to seek it, poor fool, at the hands of the evillest-smelling weed ever was plucked off a dunghill, I am moved to crave your Ladyship's kindliness for him. Here's his rattle,"—and Aunt Temperance held forth the silver pipe,—"which lacks but the bells to be as rare a fool's staff as I have seen of a summer day.—Get thee in, thou poor dizard dolt! [Note 1] to think that I should have to call ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... whole streets were deserted, the houses empty, the doors and windows knocked in; while the foul fever-laden breeze came sighing over from Vera Cruz, and nothing was to be heard but the melancholy rattle of the corpse-carts as they proceeded slowly through the streets with their load of coffins. It was high time to be off, when the yellow fever, the deadly vomito, had thus made its triumphant entry, and was ruling and ravaging like ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... met, and it was all for mercy's sake. When the reapers in harvest time saw a figure whirling past in a cloud of dust, or the family at the foot of Glen Urtach, gathered round the fire on a winter's night, heard the rattle of a horse's hoofs on the road, or the shepherds, out after the sheep, traced a black speck moving across the snow to the upper glen, they knew it was the doctor, and, without being conscious of ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... the stamp of the dancers, the clink of glasses and the ice in pitchers, the rattle of dice, the slap of cards and currency, the announcements of the dealers, the clap-trap of barkers and monte spielers, the general chatter of voices, one such as I, a newcomer, scarcely knew which way ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... not only a situation appalling in its immediate realization, but one of even more terrifying possibilities for the near future. For through the haze of the smoke-clouds from burning towns and above the rattle of the machine guns in Dinant and Louvain could be seen the hovering specter of starvation and heard the wailing of hungry children. And how the specter was to be made to pass and the children to hush their cries was soon the problem of ...
— Herbert Hoover - The Man and His Work • Vernon Kellogg
... relieved, could with gratitude have embraced her: and Mortimer, very certain that such rattle was all her own, promised the utmost submission to her orders, and begged her further directions, declaring that he could not, at least, desire ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... had all his life been an early riser, and necessarily an early waker. But early as he woke on the next morning—and although there was an excuse for not prolonging sleep in the constant whirr and rattle of the "donkey" engine winches of the great ship—he met the eyes of Adam fixed on him from his berth. His grand-nephew had given him the sofa, occupying the lower berth himself. The old man, despite his great strength and normal activity, was ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... and, though the two smallest were asleep almost at once, the others turned and twisted a little, as almost every one does in a strange bed. But, finally, even Rose and Russ, in their rooms, were in Slumberland, lulled by the whistle of the wind and the rattle of ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandpa Ford's • Laura Lee Hope
... counts in your nation—no offence, I hope—that can say a bolder word. As for your lambskin net, I know nothing of the matter; but I will toss up with you for a guinea, cross or pile, as the saying is; or, if there's such a thing in this country as a box and dice, I love to hear the bones rattle sometimes." ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... expired in her throat in a kind of toneless rattle. She walked up and down a few times in the room. Then she placed herself straight before Dionysia, and, looking fixedly into ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... that a man must be very cautious how he values himself, and equally conscientious to give a true report, be it better or worse, impartially. If I thought myself perfectly good and wise, I would rattle it out to some purpose. To speak less of one's self than what one really is is folly, not modesty; and to take that for current pay which is under a man's value is pusillanimity and cowardice, according to, Aristotle. No virtue assists itself with falsehood; truth is never matter of ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... she added, as her nephew, fumbling with a box of matches, opened it upside down and let them all fall with a rattle on to the ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... had not gone to bed until two o'clock in the morning. She had carried a chair into the room veranda and had watched and listened until the night silences had lengthened and only occasionally she heard a voice or the rattle of rickshaw wheels ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... a solemn and majestic manner. We cannot expect such big wheels to hurry themselves. Under the bridge, puffing a little more quickly, then we rattle through Westbourne Park and by Wormwood Scrubs. Puff-puffing much more quickly now, but not quite so loudly, as the driver has pulled the lever back and the steam goes up with less force through the chimney: working quietly. Away, away, on our iron steed ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... leaped the low sill, and came toward me. I stooped and began to tie up some fallen carnations; he stooped and helped me, saying all the while I know not what, only that it seemed to me the most beautiful language I ever heard. Then we walked up and down the long peach walk until I heard the rattle of father's wagon. ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... him even while they brought homesick memories of his own native Virginia. It was a relief to get away from the towering mountains, the eternal blue of unclouded skies, the parched, arid miles of unclothed mesa, the clang and rattle of ore cars and the incessant grinding of quartz mills. Yes, it was decidedly pleasant to have a whole summer—if he wanted it—in which to go where he liked, do what he liked. One might do much worse, he reflected, than find some such spot ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... ruin. What a notable instance that was of my capacity for resolution! On the occasion in question I had lost everything—everything; yet, just as I was leaving the Casino, I heard another gulden give a rattle in my pocket! "Perhaps I shall need it for a meal," I thought to myself; but a hundred paces further on, I changed my mind, and returned. That gulden I staked upon manque—and there is something in the feeling that, though one is alone, and in a foreign land, and far from one's own home ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... dashes off in all haste, whips crack, wheels fly, and shouting, racing and singing along all the roads, the country-folk rattle away to their homes. Our two turn their wheels towards the Manor-house, ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... moment high over the other voices, sounded the thrilling, throbbing notes of the cardinal, broken suddenly and drowned by the roll of the flicker, the wild, weird cry of the great-crested flycatcher, or the rapid, hay-rake rattle ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... but—woe is me!—there are other senses besides sight, and my unfortunate nostrils drank in a most foetid polecatty odour, ever increasing as he drew nearer and nearer. Room to sit there was none; but, at the blast of the tube, the rattle over the pitty pavement soon shook the obnoxious animal down between us, squeezing the poisonous exhalation out of him at each successive jolt. As dawn rose, we saw he was a German, and doubtless the poor fellow was very hard-up for money, and had been feeding for some time past on putrid ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... playing with a gun. You see, I had graduated on Lewis Wentz's steamer and a twenty-mile clip didn't feaze me any, though there were times when I'd forget which things to pull, and this always seemed to rattle his little nerves. It was strange, however, what a coward I was when I first went out by myself. There was no devil left in me at all, and I was certainly the crawly-crawliest bubbler you ever saw, and I teetered at street-car crossings ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... myself, as is plain to be seen; for Ive drunk the Onondaga water a hundred times, while Ive been watching the deer- licks, when the fever-an-agy seeds was to be seen in it as plain and as plenty as you can see the rattle snakes on old Crumhorn. But then I never expected to hold out forever; though theres them living who have seen the German flats a wilderness; ay! and them thats larned, and acquainted with religion, too; ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... rose and went to the window. His action caused a brief silence, and all heard the clatter of a horse's feet and the quick rattle of a sword ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... for about half an hour, when Eliot's sewing suddenly slid from her lap to the floor, and a queer rattle in her throat made every one look up in alarm. At first they thought that she must be having some kind of a fit. Her hands were thrown up, her mouth dropped open, there was a look of wild terror in her ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... Recollecting my friend's former republicanism, I smiled at this piece of furniture; but before I had time to carry my observations any farther, a heavy rolling sound of carriage-wheels, that caused the windows to rattle and seemed to shake the whole edifice of the sub-prefecture, called my attention to the court without. Its iron gates were flung open, and in rolled, with a great deal of din, a chariot escorted by a brace of gendarmes, sword ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... drew forth the letters of Winsley and Lady Vargrave. Maltravers took them, but it was some moments before he could dare to read. He supported himself with difficulty from falling to the ground; there was a gurgle in his throat like the sound of the death-rattle; at last he read, and dropped ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... That one in which Adam names the animals is so delightfully naive that it ought to be reproduced as a nursery wall-paper. The creatures pass in review in four processions, and Adam must have had to be uncommonly quick to make up his mind first and then rattle out their resultant names in the time. The main procession is that of the larger quadrupeds, headed by the unicorn in single glory; and the moment chosen by the artist is that in which the elephant, having just heard his name (for the first time) ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... luminous in robes of pure white linen; these were the initiates; and they were followed by the prelates of the sacred mysteries; and behind them all walked the high priest, bearing in his right hand the mystic rattle of Isis, and in his left hand the crown of roses. By divine intervention, the crowd parted and made a way for me; and when I came to the priest he held out the roses, and I ate them, and was changed into a man. The people raised their hands ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... we heard the rattle of the lantern, and then Randall's voice. "I was only jollying you." No answer, but still the lantern rattled. "I'm willing to do my share of the work." Still no answer. "Oh, well," said Randall finally, "if you feel that way about it, give me the lantern. I'll clean it." We heard the corporal's ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... hither and thither in the dry and empty garret of their brains, till they are sick of the sight and sound of it, and to be rid of the thought of it, declare it to be no living truth but only a lifeless truism! Yet in their brain that truism must rattle until they shift it to its rightful quarters in their heart, where it will rattle no longer but take root and be a strength and loveliness. Is a truth to cease to be uttered because no better form than that of some divine truism—say of St. John ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... which he tried to prove that the wizard was an impostor. This lets us into the secret of many of De Foe's apparitions. They are the ghosts that frighten villagers as they cross commons late at night, or that rattle chains and display lights in haunted houses. Sometimes they have vexed knavish attorneys by discovering long-hidden deeds. Sometimes they have enticed highwaymen into dark corners of woods, and there the wretched criminal finds in their bags (for ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... The brain within was well developed with healthy exercise. It filled its case, and did not rattle like a withered kernel, or sound soft like a rotten one. It was a vigorous, muscular brain. The owner felt that he could trust it for an effort, as he could his lungs for a shout, his legs for a leap, or his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... A rattle of loose stones upon the opposite side of a ravine suddenly attracted my attention; and two moving objects at about 230 yards halted, and faced us in the usual manner of inquiry when wild animals ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... events like these, so fascinating and so fearful, sent the adults, as well as children to bed with blood chilled, every sense alert with fear, ready to see a ghost in every slip of moonshine, and trace to malign origin every sound breaking the stillness—the rattle of a shutter, the creak of a door, the moan of the winds or the cries of the birds and beasts of the night. For more than a century later, the belief in witchcraft kept a strong hold on the popular mind and had a marked influence on ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various
... Middlerib felt ashamed of her feeble screams when Mr. Middlerib threw up both arms and, with a howl that made the windows rattle, roared: ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... of old, who once proudly to battle Led their vassals from Europe to Palestine's plain; The escutcheon and shield, which with ev'ry blast rattle, Are the only sad ...
— Fugitive Pieces • George Gordon Noel Byron
... around, while she was speaking, and was once more looking up the street; but the dark-haired girl had neither flinched nor wavered. She had only sent a curious, inquiring glance in the direction of the shouts and the rattle and the cloud of dust that ...
— Crowded Out o' Crofield - or, The Boy who made his Way • William O. Stoddard
... your round of pleasures, praise the sound of popping corks, Where the orchestra is playing to the rattle of the forks; And your after-opera dinner you may think superbly fine, But that can't compare, I'm certain, to the joy that's always mine When I reach my little dwelling—source, of all sincere delight— And I prowl around the pantry in the waning ...
— Just Folks • Edgar A. Guest
... of my stuff for safe keeping. As I was busy at the office during the day, I did the most of this packing in the evenings. In the course of this work I came to the little cabinet of which I have spoken, and threw it open in order to stuff it with cotton, so that the contents would not rattle about when moved." ...
— Anting-Anting Stories - And other Strange Tales of the Filipinos • Sargent Kayme
... we place it on the blaze. As night gathers without, the gale rises. It is a season of uneasy winds, and of strange, rainless storms, which perplex the fishermen, and indicate rough weather out at sea. As the house trembles and the windows rattle, we turn towards the fire with a feeling of safety. Representing the fiercest of all dangers, it yet expresses security ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... connected with it, take part. All the people who can by any possibility attend, assemble, a procession is formed, and then the most extraordinary mixture of costumes, the noises produced by numerous tom-toms, horns made from elephants' tusks, and the still ruder, if possible, rattle of two pieces of wood, or common metal, which the women beat together to a tune similar to what in Ireland is known as the Kentish fire. The constant firing of musketry, and the obscene dances performed by the two sexes form one of the most debasing and ...
— The Ethnology of the British Colonies and Dependencies • Robert Gordon Latham
... enough, during my stay in England, have I listened to these gruff or broken voices; or perhaps gone to my window when I lay sleepless, and watched the old gentleman hobble by upon the causeway with his cape and his cap, his hanger and his rattle. It was ever a thought with me how differently that cry would re-echo in the chamber of lovers, beside the bed of death, or in the condemned cell. I might be said to hear it that night myself in the condemned cell! ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... carefully in the mouth of the pot; and when she got home she shut all the doors and windows, and took away the cloth, and turned the pot upside down upon her hearthstone. What was her surprise to find that, instead of the deadly snake which she expected to see fall out of it, there fell out with a rattle and a clang a most magnificent necklace ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... the folding-doors in the lobby, and in a stentorian voice shouted some word, which Ellerey did not catch. Its effect was magical. Immediately there arose a loud hum of voices, the clinking and clatter of innumerable glasses and plates, and the rattle of dice and dominoes. Then Theodor let the door swing to again, muffling the sounds of this living hive, and led the way into a small bare room at ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... specific statutes were against them, the impelling forces of economic development and the power of might were wholly on their side. The competitive system was already doomed; the middle class was too blind to realize that what seemed to be victory was the rattle of the slow death struggle. At first, the great capitalists made no attempt to have these laws altered or repealed. They adopted a slyer and more circuitous mode of warfare. They simply evaded them. As fast as one trust was dissolved by court decision, it nominally ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... Beenie undesired had kindled there, startled her: the room looked unnatural, uncanny, because it was cheerful. She stood for a moment on the hearth, and in sad, dreamy mood listened to the howling swoops of the wind, making the house quiver and shake. Now and then would come a greater gust, and rattle the window as if in fierce anger at its exclusion, then go shrieking and wailing through the dark heaven. Mechanically she took her New Testament, and, seating herself in a low chair by the fire, tried ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... kept near each other. Upsets were therefore only the occasion for a hearty laugh; for it took but a few minutes to right the canoe, bale it out, and proceed on their way. Occasionally they had unpleasant visitors at their camp, and altogether they killed ten or twelve rattle-snakes. In some of the valleys they found the remains of the dwellings of a people far anterior to the present Indian races. Some of these ruins appeared to have been communal houses. At other points they saw cliff-dwellings in ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... corps, with the front sent from Warsaw. They awaited us impatiently; because young soldiers have an elevated opinion of the power of artillery, and it worried them very much that on the eve of the expected battle they had no cannons. Having heard the rattle of cannon wheels, the whole camp lost possession of itself in joy: "our artillery approaches! Long live the artillery!" they called from all sides and ran to meet us, and placed us in the ...
— My First Battle • Adam Mickiewicz
... until I was black in the face, I asked Mr. Antwerp at least to put the young man on the second trick, so that in a measure I could have him under my eye. But no, nothing but the third trick would satisfy him, so on the third trick the rattle-brained chap ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... treaties, and forms offensive and defensive alliances. But what a bubble all this World is to him whose eyes have at last been opened to see the hollowness and the heartlessness of it all! For all its pursuits and all its possessions, from a child's rattle to a king's sceptre, all is one great bubble. Wealth, fame, place, power; art, science, letters; politics, churches, sacraments, and scriptures—all are so many bubbles in Madam Bubble's World. This wicked enchantress, ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... Bear. "If I were going to run a race with Grandpa Tortoise, I should go this way until I reached the goal!" And Little Bear pranced up and down the room until he made even the porridge bowls rattle in the cupboard. "I guess I should know enough to know that Grandpa Tortoise would keep stepping ahead and stepping ahead and get to the goal in time! You would not catch me taking any naps if I started out to run a race ...
— Little Bear at Work and at Play • Frances Margaret Fox
... says the Apostle; into an unwholesome bubble of self-complacency that will one day be pricked and disappear, but 'love buildeth up'—a steadfast, slowly-rising, solid fabric. There be two kinds of knowledge: the mere rattle of notions in a man's brain, like the seeds of a withered poppy-head; very many, very dry, very hard; that will make a noise when you shake them. And there is another kind of knowledge which goes deep down into the heart, and is the only knowledge worth ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... snatched away the brandy bottle as I spoke, and was in the drawing-room with it in an instant. As I suppose, Mrs. Baggs tried to follow me, for I heard the door rattle, as if she had got out of her chair, and suddenly slipped back into it again. I felt certain of her deciding to help us, if she was only sober enough to reflect on what I had said to her. The journey to Scotland was a tedious, ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... happened that among my new acquaintances was a careless, rattle-brained youth known as Toby Robinson, who in spite of some histrionic ability was constantly losing his job and always in debt. He was a smooth-faced, rather stout, good-natured-looking person, of the sort who is never ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... again," Mr. von Inwald panted. We heard the rattle of bottles as they put down the basket, and the next instant Thoburn's fat hand was resting on the rail of the fence over our heads. I could feel Miss Patty trembling ...
— Where There's A Will • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... bustle, the loud shouting, the pushing, seemed most irritating. Ill as I was, for a few moments I almost contemplated the idea of turning back toward the virgin forest. The heat was oppressive, the bells of the tramways jangled all the time, the rattle of the mediaeval carriages on the cobble-stones of ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... relative was a member of his family. She happened to be present when the above spicy conversation took place. As soon as he had retired, she broke out with—"Humph! just like him; any thing to be contrary. But I wouldn't live in this old rattle-trap of a place another year for any man that ever stepped into shoe-leather. No, indeed, not I. Out of repair from top to bottom; not a single convenience, so to speak; walls cracked, paper soiled, and paint yellow ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur
... the number of rattle and other snakes to be met with on the banks of the lake, but these have been nearly exterminated by the settlers. During my stay in the suburbs I only found a few water-snakes, basking in the sun amongst the wilderness ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... the enemy must be dislodged at any price, but they can form no definite ideas; they merely grip their rifles and go on mechanically. The word is given—the dark lines dash forward; the firing from the wood breaks out in a crash of fury—there is a long harsh rattle, then a chance crack like a thunder-clap, and then a whirring like the spinning of some demoniac mill. Curses ring out amid a low sound of hard breathing; the ranks are gapped here and there as a man wriggles away like a wounded rabbit, or another bounds ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... with you on that subject, and we will let it pass" he would say, with a smile, and then he would start some other topic, and rattle on delightfully in his easy, ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... the music of the shells on the beach is whispering as before, but the shrill wail of the curlew is never sounded from knoll to knoll now. The horn lantern is not seen by the roadsides, nor the quick flashlight that signalled the coast was clear; and the rattle of the horses' hoofs on the stones during the mystic night is never now heard. There is nothing to indicate, in fact, that this lonely, superb piece of England was once (not so long ago) a great centre of illicit trading. The smuggler and Revenue man have disappeared, and the scenes of their ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... delicious coo in her voice, the very love coo; it cannot be imitated any more than the death-rattle, and exalted and inspired by her promise of herself, of all herself, I spoke in praise of the eighteenth century, saying that it had loved antiquity better than the nineteenth, and had reproduced ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... words)—and with the same kind of fury that had seized me in Mr. Chiffinch's rooms. I saw red, as the saying is; and it was not likely that a deaf old woman would stop me. She fluttered the door passionately; and then, as I pushed on it, she cried out. There was a great rattle of footsteps, and as I came into the little paved entrance, a heavy bald fellow ran out of the room where I had seen the light—(which was the porter's parlour)—in his ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... prudently refrained from experimenting on her own account, but now she took up her spoon, and there was a breathless silence in the room while she lifted it to her lips. It fell back on the plate with a rattle and clang, and an agonised glance roamed round the table from one ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... trained themselves in the use of wings, but he did not believe that any ordinary fish such as a chub or a pike or a sunny would care to leave its natural element to take up with the birds. Perry Thomas began to cough. That cough is always like a snake's warning rattle. Before he had time to strike, I blocked the discussion by promising that if the company suspended judgment I would in the near future prove the accuracy of my statements on flying fishes by the encyclopaedia. This promise met with general approval, so I hurried over the sea to ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... head rose, and for a little his old vigor and menacing voice returned to him. "He has run me through with the blade of remorse and put upon me the chains of infirmity," he complained, an ominous, croaking rattle in his throat. "To-day, to-day, my wrath shall descend upon him and my gratitude upon you! These forty years have I been seeking a man of honor. At last, at last, here is the greatest of men! I, Herod, surnamed the Great, king of Judea, conqueror of hosts, ...
— Vergilius - A Tale of the Coming of Christ • Irving Bacheller
... Alas, no rattle of coin repaid them. Absent-minded Ernest had entirely forgotten that his father had taken the contents to the savings bank for him the preceding month, and that he had not been able to save up ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... her again. She returned with as many more. He thought to himself, "I must find out the way of making these heads." Cunning and curiosity prompted him to make the discovery. But he deemed it necessary to deceive his grandmother in so doing. "Noko," said he, "while I take my drum and rattle, and sing my war-songs, go and try to get me some larger heads for my arrows, for those you brought me are all of the same size. Go and see whether the old man cannot make some a little larger." He followed her as she went, keeping at a distance, and saw the old artificer at work, and so discovered ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... has come prepared to witness, there is not a sign. The games strike the bystander as singularly dull and uninteresting; one wearies of the perpetual deal and turn-up of the cards at rouge-et-noir, of the rattle of the ball as it dances into its pigeonhole at roulette, of the monotonous chant of "Make your game, gentlemen," or "The game is made." The croupiers rake in their gains or poke out the winnings with the passive regularity of machines; the gamblers sit round the table with the vacant solemnity ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... us first put away the idols in our hearts, through the preaching of the Divine Word, before we begin to rattle on the outside. Pictures are the staves of the weak, which we dare not take away, until we have given them strength to walk without. Paul too did not assail the gods and statues of the Athenians, but strove to erect in their hearts a temple ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... wan light of dawn struggling through her half drawn blinds found Arethusa thus, still wakeful, and still miserably thoughtful; but a little while after she had heard the first milkman's cart rattle past in the street, she fell into a troubled slumber of vague, unpleasant dreams that made her toss and mutter in her sleep. They were Dreams of Miss Eliza's fury in a personified form, and of ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... bold young fir-seeds know them, and rattle impatient in their cones. "Blow stronger, blow fiercer, slow air-mothers, and shake us from our prisons of dead wood, that we may fly and spin away north-eastward, each on his horny wing. Help us but to touch the moorland yonder, and we will take good care of ourselves henceforth; we will ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... from the boat's shadow, and twice, as Blix gave him his head, the reel sang and hummed like a watch-man's rattle. But the third time he came to the surface and turned slowly on his side, the white belly and one red fin out of the water, the gills opening and shutting. He was tired out. A third time Blix drew him gently to the boat's side. Condy reached out and down into the water till his very shoulder ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... the hall, and the same in the living-rooms, where no lights gleamed. From somewhere upstairs came a sound as if somebody was gently filing some soft metal. The noise ceased presently to be followed by the rattle of a typewriter, or so it seemed. The two adventurers stood in the darkness of the dining-room listening; it seemed to them as if that rattle was getting closer. Field flashed a light into the room, but it was quite empty; ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... became very rapid, and the enemy were close to the frigate; for not only round-shot flew on board, but the rattle of musketry was heard, and bullets came pattering through the ports. Such a game could not be played without loss. Fore and aft the men were struck down,— some never to rise again; cut in two, or with their heads knocked off. Others were carried below; and others, binding up their ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... at the thought of passing my home. As we neared it, my knees trembled, and I heard some one call at the window; but I turned my head toward the "Red Ox," and the rattle of the drums ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... second, and carefully following that flustered fowl's course with the point of his gun, pulled the trigger just as it skimmed, low down, with an agitated squawk, between his butt and mine. I heard the shot rattle through the heather, and two pellets hit on my ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... the men and women of a later day to understand Jesse Bentley. In the last fifty years a vast change has taken place in the lives of our people. A revolution has in fact taken place. The coming of industrialism, attended by all the roar and rattle of affairs, the shrill cries of millions of new voices that have come among us from overseas, the going and coming of trains, the growth of cities, the building of the inter-urban car lines that weave in and out of towns and past ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... silent, it stands like a sentient thing, and broods with blind eyes upon ages forgotten; when these grey stones still echoed neigh of horse and bay of hound, rattle of steel, blare of trump, and bustle of ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... Thanks, sister, thanks! the men have bled, Their wives and their children faint for bread. I stood in a swampy field of battle; 30 With bones and skulls I made a rattle, To frighten the wolf and carrion-crow And the homeless dog—but they would not go. So off I flew: for how could I bear To see them gorge their dainty fare? 35 I heard a groan and a peevish squall, And through the chink ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... white creatur' a-standin' over him, and he thought 't was a ghost. 'T was higher up on the bank than him, and it kind of moved along down's if 't was coming right on to him, and he got on to his knees and begun to say his Ten Commandments fast's he could rattle 'em out. He got 'em mixed up, and when the boys heard his teeth a-chattering, they began to laugh and he up an' cleared. Dunnell's boys had been down the road a piece and was just coming home, an' 't was their old white hoss that had got out of the barn, it bein' such ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... middle of the night the hapless Bega was aroused by the sharp rattle of the curtain rings pulled violently along the rods. He sat up in bed, in the mechanical trepidation which we all feel on waking with such a start. He saw standing before him a Spaniard wrapped in a cloak, who fixed on him the same burning gaze that ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... shudder and extended his hands to the closed right hand of the dying man. Carefully he removed from between the fingers three tufts of thick brown hair, coarse and crude of texture. There was a rattle in ...
— The Mind Master • Arthur J. Burks
... of delight and triumph, or, when anything singular came into view, loud laughter at the wit and irony of some jester. Added to these there were the clatter of hoofs and the roll of wheels, the whinnying of horses, the shouts of command, the rattle of drums, the blare of trumpets, and the shrill pipe of flutes, without a moment's pause. It was a wild and ear-splitting tumult; to Melissa, however, neither painful nor pleasing, for the one idea, that she must speak with the great physician, silenced every other. But suddenly ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... running down from Belgrade to Saloniki by way of Nish, passes within a few miles of the Bulgarian frontier, just opposite Sofia. Indeed, from Klisura on the frontier the distant whistle of the locomotives and the rattle of the trains across stretches of trestle work can be heard plainly on still days. From Klisura on the frontier to the railroad is all down hill. Farther south, at Kustendil, the danger was even greater, though the distance from frontier to railroad somewhat more, for at Kustendil was the terminus ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... keeping up smiles with Lord Mountclere, the rattle and shaking, and the general excitements of the chase across the water and along the rail, a face in which she saw a dim reflex of her mother's was soothing in the extreme, and Ethelberta went up to the staircase with a feeling of expansive thankfulness. Cornelia paused ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... saddle him myself and everything. And I want you to get me some jingling silver spurs like Mig has got, with chains that hang away down and rattle when you walk." The Kid lifted one small foot and laid a grimy finger in front of his heel by way ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... had about as much responsibility for Marmion as Sir Walter himself. "You will expect," he wrote to the same lady, who was personally unknown to him at that time, "to see a person who had dedicated himself to literary pursuits, and you will find me a rattle-skulled, half-lawyer, half-sportsman, through whose head a regiment of horse has been exercising since he was five years old."[17] And what Scott himself felt in relation to the martial elements of ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... another thing. I leave that to your sanctimonious beggars. But, hunt a woman! Hang it, sir, I'm not a cad!" and bringing his hand down with a rattle, he added: "This is a subject that ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... horrid battle Than its cause of crime and wrong; Sing great life-deeds! the death-rattle Is ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... your quarreling," commanded Bertha Brown, sternly. "Now I've been learning something worth while. I know the saloon deck from the promenade deck, and I can rattle off 'fore' and 'aft' and 'port' and 'starboard' as if ...
— The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch • Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter
... his cap, and ran out of the house. With rapid, unsteady steps, he walked about the town, walked on and on, and found himself at the city gates. Suddenly there was the rattle of wheels, the tramp of horses along the street.... Some one called him by name. He raised his head and saw a big, old-fashioned wagonette. In the wagonette facing him sat Mr. Bublitsyn between two young ladies, the daughters of Mr. Tiutiurov. Both the girls were dressed ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... a currier, named Moulins, who had taken refuge in one of these shot-riddled cellars, saw through the cellar air-hole a passer-by, who had been wounded in the thigh by a bullet, sit down on the pavement with the death rattle in his throat, and lean against a shop. Some soldiers who heard this rattle ran up and finished off the wounded ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... after the discovery of one Time and one Space, is probably the concept of permanently existing things. When a rattle first drops out of the hand of a baby, he does not look to see where it has gone. Non-perception he accepts as annihilation until he finds a better belief. That our perceptions mean BEINGS, rattles that are there whether we hold them in ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... that they had not done so I took to be a sign of pretty thorough demoralisation on their part I conducted my examination of the ground with the utmost circumspection; for I knew not at what moment a volley might rattle out at me from one or another of the large clumps of ornamental shrubs that were scattered about here and there upon the lawns, or the still larger masses of bamboo, palmetto, and other wild vegetation ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... a rattle. A puzzled expression passed over Johnny's face. The same song was repeated over and over ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell
... the floor, his ear caught the rattle of gravel on the window. The room was half lighted by a ruddy glow, and looking out he saw Sure Pop standing ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey
... moved down the room, past the first tables, and, as she walked, the muffled, characteristic sounds she began to hear seemed but to punctuate and emphasize the silence, like echoes in a cave: a faint rattle of rakes, like the rustle of leaves, and a delicate chink-chink of gold, like the chirping of young birds just ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... his head, he looked at the sea, and beheld there Dimly the shadowy form of the Mayflower riding at anchor, Rocked on the rising tide, and ready to sail on the morrow; Heard the voices of men through the mist, the rattle of cordage 370 Thrown on the deck, the shouts of the mate, and the sailors' "Ay, ay, Sir!" Clear and distinct, but not loud, in the dripping air of the twilight. Still for a moment he stood, and listened, and stared at the vessel, Then went hurriedly on, as one who, ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson
... and warm, for the south wind rose at midnight. At four o clock a shower made the shingles over Chad rattle sharply, but without wakening the lad, and then the rain ceased; and when Chad climbed stiffly from his loft—the world was drenched and still, and the dawn was warm, for spring had come that morning, and Chad trudged ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... with the House there was no special appearance of activity; but Silverbridge could see that there was more than wonted animation. That the Treasury bench should be full at this time was a thing of custom. A whole broadside of questions would be fired off, one after another, like a rattle of musketry down the ranks, when as nearly as possible the report of each gun is made to follow close upon that of the gun before,—with this exception, that in such case each little sound is intended to ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... the grapeshot may rattle, Or the full thunder-cloud over you burst, Stand like a rock—and the storm or the battle Little shall harm you, though doing their worst. Never give up!—if adversity presses, Providence wisely has mingled the cup; And the best counsel, in all your distresses, Is the stout ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... evidently the largest party we could hope to surprise, and we accordingly lay for it. When about 300 yards away, the "brethren" stopped rather suspiciously. This was too much for some man on the east side, who let fly, and the air was rent by the rattle as we emptied our magazines, killing five of this special scouting party and two from other groups further out on either side. We continued to fire at the scouts as they galloped back, dropping two more, and also at the column which was about a mile away, but afforded a splendid ...
— The Defence of Duffer's Drift • Ernest Dunlop Swinton
... him hundreds of dollars. One night at a resort called Cedar Point he got into a fight and ran amuck like a wild thing. With his fist he broke a large mirror in the wash-room of a hotel and later went about smashing windows and breaking chairs in dance halls for the joy of hearing the glass rattle on the floor and seeing the terror in the eyes of clerks, who had come from Sandusky to spend the evening at the resort ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... lyres and timbrels blended with those of conch-shells and antelope horns. Sighs and laughter and curses and weeping mingled with the wild strains of Homeric song and mystic rites of Chaldea and Babylon, and the sacred chant of Isis. The Voodoo danced to the rattle of shells and antelope hoofs before the shrines of Ethiopia's dark woman, crowned with the sickle moon, and vast multitudes knelt and lay prostrate before the car of Juggernaut and the passing image of Pracriti of Asia, the many-breasted, the ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... counts. To be here watching the mottled wet green walls of our tent, the glistening wet bamboos, the bedraggled sopping socks and loose articles dangling in the middle, the saddened countenances of my companions—to hear the everlasting patter of the falling snow and the ceaseless rattle of the fluttering canvas—to feel the wet clinging dampness of clothes and everything touched, and to know that without there is but a blank wall of white on every side—these are the physical surroundings. Add the stress of sighted ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... case of enterprising parish constable in North Hunts. P.C., a supporter of Her Majesty's Government, resented Liberal candidate presenting himself before constituency. Determined he should not be heard. Brought down enormous rattle; swung it about throughout candidate's speech. JOSEPH GILLIS pricked up his ears. What a notion this would be for adaptation to Parliamentary usage! Suppose he had rattle and swung it whilst SAUNDERSON or JOHNSTON were speaking? Will consult ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 3, 1887 • Various
... female, by his more strongly- pronounced tints; thus the black zigzag band on the back of the male English viper is more distinctly defined than in the female. The difference is much plainer in the rattle-snakes of N. America, the male of which, as the keeper in the Zoological Gardens shewed me, can at once be distinguished from the female by having more lurid yellow about its whole body. In S. Africa ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... to comply with the invitation; but, with a thrill of horror, he started back, as he listened to the death-rattle in the throat of the rebel, and saw his eyes fixed and lustreless in death. It was an awful scene to the inexperienced youth. Though he had seen hundreds fall in the battle of that day, death had not seemed so ghastly and horrible to him as ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... the regions where the pine-plumed forest grows Shall arise the tawny legions with their lances and their bows; And again the shouts of battle shall resound along the plain, Bows shall twang and quivers rattle, women ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... buzzing, and belts droning overhead. Yvon could not talk at all here, and I not too much; only Ham's great voice and his father's (old Mr. Belfort was Ham over again, gray under the powder, instead of pink and brown) could roar on quietly, if I may so express it, rising high above the rattle and clack of the machinery, and yet peaceful as the stream outside that turned the great wheels and set the whole thing flying. So, as he could not live long without talking, Yvon loved best the loft above, where the corn was stored, both in bags and unground, and where the big blowers were, and ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... them possessors of divine things betimes. It is "deadly barbarous and uncouth" to "put grubs and worms" into little children's minds, to teach them to say this house is mine, this bauble is a jewel, this gew-gaw is a fine thing, this rattle makes music, when they ought to be made instead to see the spiritual glory of the earth and sky, the beauty of life, the sweetness and nobility of Nature, and to live joyously, like birds, in union and communion with God. I am sure, he concludes, that barbarous people ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... and the armory of its jaws was more appalling. With a stealthy but clumsy-looking waddle, which was nevertheless soundless as a shadow, and his huge tail curled upwards that it might not drag and rattle the stones, he crept down until he was within some fifty feet or more of ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... or into the black, cold water of the pools. The hoofs of the horses and the spurs of the men clanked against the stones; now and then one of the heavily laden packhorses stumbled and was sworn at, and once a warning rattle, issuing from a rank growth of fern on the hillside, caused a momentary commotion. There was no more laughter, or whistling, or calling from the van to the rear guard. The way was arduous, and every man must watch his footsteps; moreover, the last rays of the sun were ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... wonderful waste of time, and money!" cried the Colonel. "You rattle the keys, as blundering soldiers when commanded to fire: no taste, feeling, ...
— The Boarding School • Unknown
... whether locusts will devastate the land; whether the fruits will drop from the trees unripe; whether boils will afflict men; whether wars will prevail, or diseases or plagues among men and cattle; whether good is resolved upon in heaven, or evil; whether blood will flow, and the death-rattle of the slain be heard in the city. And now, Adam, come and give heed unto what I shall tell thee regarding the manner of this book and ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... leaving the skin white. The girl's lips were red, the pulse was regular and natural, and her strength and appetite like that of a person in health. The only morbid symptom was a dry cough, but without mucous rattle or any deficiency of the sound of the chest or alteration of the natural beat of the heart. The catamenia had never failed. She had been engaged as a laundress for the past two years. From the time she began this ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... Jacques chattered—and he did so rattle along that it was quite impossible for anyone to get in a word—there was a movement outside which was ominous had Allen ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan
... Woodsville Junction After eleven o'clock at night. Too tired To think of sitting such an ordeal out, He turned to the hotel to find a bed. "No room," the night clerk said. "Unless——" Woodsville's a place of shrieks and wandering lamps And cars that shook and rattle—and one hotel. "You say 'unless.'" "Unless you wouldn't mind Sharing a room with someone else." "Who is it?" "A man." "So I should hope. What kind of man?" "I know him: he's all right. A man's a man. Separate beds of course you understand." The night clerk blinked his eyes and ...
— North of Boston • Robert Frost
... was heralded by a note from Mr. Bainrothe, full of his characteristic, guileful sophistry and cool impertinence. It ran as follows (I still possess this billet with others of his inditing—along with a snake's rattle): ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... half of it's true," says the lady, "the first news should come to me is that I'm a widow; for 'tis impossible it should happen as you say with a husband that hasn't one penny-piece to rattle on ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... till the Park was left behind, till crescents gave way to squares, and squares to streets. He passed an occasional policeman and slunk away from the penetrating bull's-eye. He heard now and then the far-off rattle of a cab, the shrill cry of a whistle, the howl of a butler summoning a vehicle, the coo of a cook bidding good-night to the young tradesman whom she loved before the area gate. And all these familiar London sounds struck strangely on his ear. When ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... ducked back for he did not trust his guest. He was the man, beyond a doubt, who had shot him from the ridge; and such a man would shoot again. So he dropped down and lay silent, listening to the rattle of the huge chain and the vicious clash of the trap, and the Indian ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... see him rattle out of the yard and pass over the crest of the hill. Then with a strange sense of comfort and companionship she went back to her aunt's room. She sat there until dusk, watching the sleeping woman upon ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... was a treasure chest, and these buttons were Spanish doubloons. Sometimes we trickled them just for the cool feel of it, the sound of the rattle, the sensation of plunging fingers into the oddly liquid mass. There were great steel buttons, little pearl buttons, white bone buttons, black suspender buttons, cloth buttons, silk buttons, crocheted buttons, elongated crystal buttons (which we held ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... home an' goin' ter de neighbor's house. Dey make me stay dar in de house wid 'em ter tote dere brandy frum de cellar, an' ter make 'em some mint jelup. Well, on de secon' night dar come de wust storm I'se eber seed. De lightnin' flash, de thunder roll, an' de house shook an' rattle lak a earthquake had ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various
... also. Rough and torn uniforms, bandaged arms and legs; some limping and supported by others, some dragging their muskets after them, others without muskets, others using them as crutches. Variety of uniforms, cavalry, infantry, etc.; flags draggled on the ground, the rattle of near musketry and roar of cannon continue; two or three wounded fugitives drop down beside the hedge. BENSON staggers in and drops upon rock or stump near post. Artillerists, rough, torn and wounded, drag and force ...
— Shenandoah - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Bronson Howard
... in a solemn and majestic manner. We cannot expect such big wheels to hurry themselves. Under the bridge, puffing a little more quickly, then we rattle through Westbourne Park and by Wormwood Scrubs. Puff-puffing much more quickly now, but not quite so loudly, as the driver has pulled the lever back and the steam goes up with less force through the chimney: working quietly. Away, ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... shut up!"—was Mr. Simlins' remark in answer to this statement; and flinging down his stick on the kitchen floor with a rattle, he strode to the front door and opened it, having had the precaution to take a candle ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... differently if she had been for him? An indefinite envy rose in Paul Overt's heart as he took his way on foot alone; a feeling addressed alike strangely enough, to each of the occupants of the hansom. How much he should like to rattle about London with such a girl! How much he should like to go and look ...
— The Lesson of the Master • Henry James
... of an axe, that one of my companions was near, and called out to him, to let him know what I had fallen upon. He took it very lightly, and as he seemed inclined to laugh at me for being afraid, I determined to keep my place. I knew that so long as I could hear the rattle, I was safe, for these snakes never make a noise when they are in motion. Accordingly, I kept at my work, and the noise which I made with cutting and breaking the trees kept him in alarm; so that I had the rattle to show me his whereabouts. Once ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... store world with a sense of kingly superiority. He listened indulgently to the idle chatter of the shop girls, the rattle of the cash boxes, and smiled at the seriousness with which this business of selling was pressed. What a tremendous ado they made of living, with year after year, month after month, day after day, looming endlessly before them! Not an act which they performed, even to the tying up of a ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... friend proposes a trip on a Bosphorus steamer up as far as the entrance to the Black Sea. The steamers are profusely decorated with gaycolored flags, and at certain hours all war-ships anchored in the Bosphorus, as well as the forts and arsenals, fire salutes, the roar and rattle of the great guns echoing among the hills of Europe and Asia, that here confront each other, with but a thousand yards of dancing blue waters between them. All along either lovely shore villages and splendid country-seats of wealthy pashas and Constantinople ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... air-brakes, the steam heat, the electric lights and annunciators, the vestibuled cars, and other delightful novelties I had just been admiring, almost anything seemed likely in the way of railway conveniences. Accordingly, when the boy proceeded to rattle off a list of the latest novels, I stopped him with the name of one which I had heard favorable mention of, and told him ...
— With The Eyes Shut - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... they indulge in fulsome compliment, they whisper soft nonsense which they would be sincerely ashamed to utter in the presence of their own sex, they act as if they were amusing babies, rather than conversing with intelligent human beings. Their own notion seems to be to shake the rattle-box, and awaken a laugh. I am not a baby, nor am I ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... by and by, and the day went after her, and the lights sprung up again, and the Express whirled in full sight of the Fairy Palace over the arches near: little felt amid the jarring of the machinery, and scarcely heard above its crash and rattle. Long before then his thoughts had gone back to the dreary room above the little shop, and to the shameful figure heavy on the bed, ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... this, where there are words omitted, faults committed, and the devil knows what. As to the dedication, I cut out the parenthesis of Mr.[9], but not another word shall move unless for a better. Mr. Moore has seen, and decidedly preferred the part your Tory bile sickens at. If every syllable were a rattle-snake, or every letter a pestilence, they should not be expunged. Let those who cannot swallow chew the expressions on Ireland; or should even Mr. Croker array himself in all his terrors them, I care for none of you, except Gifford; and ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... his ferocious appearance. From a business point of view, the Venetian Bravi were children in his hands; but when they came quite near to him, one on each side, and spoke slowly and clearly in their determined way, the tremendous Markos felt his bravery shrink within him till it seemed to rattle like a dry pea shaken in a steel cuirass, and the amount of money he actually advanced on the ring was considerable; he even consented to let Gambardella seal the six jars of Samos wine, which formed part ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... now decided that the boy was their enemy, and no sooner had he touched the ground than a shower of stones and sticks rained about him. Not one reached his body, however, for the Garment of Repulsion stopped their flight and returned them to rattle with more or less force against those who had thrown them—"like regular ...
— The Master Key - An Electrical Fairy Tale • L. Frank Baum
... fascinating and so fearful, sent the adults, as well as children to bed with blood chilled, every sense alert with fear, ready to see a ghost in every slip of moonshine, and trace to malign origin every sound breaking the stillness—the rattle of a shutter, the creak of a door, the moan of the winds or the cries of the birds and beasts of the night. For more than a century later, the belief in witchcraft kept a strong hold on the popular mind and had a marked influence on ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various
... few—as may happen to have lingered at the Opera far into the morning of the Sabbath; an excellent contrivance for poising the balance between God and Mammon, and illustrating the ease with which a man's duties to both, may be accommodated and adjusted. How the carriages rattle up, and deposit their richly- dressed burdens beneath the lofty portico! The powdered footmen glide along the aisle, place the richly-bound prayer-books on the pew desks, slam the doors, and hurry away, leaving the fashionable members of the congregation to inspect each ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... then, I'll rattle thee to pieces in a dicebox, Or grind thee in a coffee mill to powder, For thou must sup with Pluto:—so, make ready! Whilst I, with this good smallsword for a lancet, Let thy starved spirit out (for blood thou hast none), And nail thee to the wall, where ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... night they set out, and stealthily crept towards the Federal camp at Cedar Creek. Every care was taken so that no sound should be made. The men were even ordered to leave their canteens behind, lest they should rattle against their rifles. Not a word was spoken as the great column crept onward, climbing up and down steep hillsides, fording streams, pushing through thickly growing brushwood. At length before sunrise, without alarm or hindrance of any kind the ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... rocks, now like the surf again, receding, growling, menacing. The cold had become intense, a bitter piercing cold which strained and snapped at joist and beam and turned the slush of yesterday to flint. From the street below every sound broke sharp and metallic—the clatter of sabots, the rattle of shutters or the rare sound of a human voice. The air was heavy, weighted with the black cold as with a pall. To breathe was painful, to ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... aimlessly, hopelessly, without consecutive idea, coherent thought or plan of action; without the faintest inspiration or suggestion of escape from his bewildering torment, without—he had begun to fear—even the power to conceive or the will to execute; when a wild idea flashed upon him with the rattle of his buggy wheels. And even as Demorest disappeared into the hotel, he had conceived his plan and executed it. He crossed the street swiftly, leaped into his buggy, lifted the reins and brought ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... their companions; but, disregarding them, he pressed on in his new enterprise. In wading a small stream, one of the men was carried off by an alligator, and a day or so after, another was bitten and killed by a rattle-snake. Terror seized upon his men, and all their persuasions proving fruitless, they determined to assassinate him and return. They did so, only to find the colony dispersed and nowhere to be found. After many hazardous adventures ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... the slight heave of the swell which, stealing along through the blackness, would occasionally take her under the counter and give her a gentle lift that would cause all her spars to creak and her canvas to rustle with a pattering of reef-points, a jerk and rattle of hemp and chain sheets, and a faint click of cabin doors upon their hooks, the whole accompanied, perhaps, with a discordant bang of the wheel chains to the kick of the rudder as the black water swirled and gurgled round it. In the midst of it all there ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... the royal salute, for which each regiment had been prepared. As the last word left the king's lips, every one of the thirty thousand men present in that great place began to rattle his kerry against the surface of his ox-hide shield. At first the sound produced resembled that of the murmur of the sea; but by slow and just degrees it grew louder and ever louder, till the roar of it was like the deepest voice of ...
— The Wizard • H. Rider Haggard
... of an entirely different type. Big, husky, happy-go-lucky—a poor student but a right jolly companion; a fellow who could pitch into any kind of sport and play an uncommonly good game at almost anything. More than that, he could rattle off ragtime untiringly and his nimble fingers could catch up on the piano any tune he heard whistled. What wonder he speedily became the idol of Colversham? He was a born leader, tactfully marshaling at will the boys who were his ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... Dales to impart the astounding fact that I was bankrupt. One usually speaks of financial reverses as "crashing about" one's head. My wind-up did not even possess that poor dignity; for there was not enough left even to rattle, let alone crash. ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... was, indeed, very popular in Chowringee and around its vicinity, and her Bungalow was a constant lounge for the gallants of all services. Horace was no niggard in his hospitality, but preferred the ease and comfort of his own sanctum to the gay rattle that was continually going on in his pretty little wife's drawing room or verandahs. And Arthur was again, for a fourth time since his arrival in the country, in Calcutta. He had contrived to get ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... pipe to battle, Sword and shield their war-call rattle. Up! brave men, up! the faint heart here Finds courage when the danger's near. Up! brave men, up! with Olaf on! With heart and hand a field is won. One viking cheer!—then, stead of words, We'll ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... of lightning so vivid that it seemed as if a bright day had been created and extinguished in a moment, leaving the darkness ten times more oppressive. It was followed instantaneously by a crash and a prolonged rattle, that sounded as if a universe of solid worlds were rushing into contact overhead and bursting into atoms. The flash was so far useful to the fugitives, that it enabled them to observe a many-stemmed tree with dense and heavy foliage, under which they darted. They were just in time, ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... letter to my last flirt. The Portsmouth mail was to start at eight. I had an hour to spare, and sallied into the street. I met an honest-faced old acquaintance as much at a loss as myself to slay the hour. We were driven by a shower into shelter. The rattle of dice was heard within a green-baize-covered door. We could not stay for ever shivering on the outside. Fortune favoured me; in half an hour I was master of a thousand pounds; it would have been obvious folly and ingratitude to check the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 337, October 25, 1828. • Various
... OGNEV remembers how on that August evening he opened the glass door with a rattle and went out on to the verandah. He was wearing a light Inverness cape and a wide-brimmed straw hat, the very one that was lying with his top-boots in the dust under his bed. In one hand he had a big bundle of books and notebooks, in the ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Then for the first time thrilled in Mr. Bernard's ears the dreadful sound that nothing which breathes, be it man or brute, can hear unmoved,—the long, loud, stinging whirr, as the huge, thick-bodied reptile shook his many-jointed rattle and flung his jaw back for the fatal stroke. His eyes were drawn as with magnets toward the circles of flame. His ears rung as in the overture to the swooning dream of chloroform. Nature was before man with her anesthetics: the cat's first shake stupefies the mouse; the ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... boom off there, nevertheless; sending a sound through all hearts. And the tocsins discourse stern music; and Henriot with his Armed Force has enveloped us! And Section succeeds Section, the livelong day; demanding with Cambyses'-oratory, with the rattle of muskets, That traitors, Twenty-two or more, be punished; that the Commission of Twelve be irrecoverably broken. The heart of the Gironde dies within it; distant are the Seventy-two respectable Departments, this fiery Municipality is near! Barrere is ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... encouraging shouts and more or less decent jokes of the men idling over the bulwarks. There she sold her wares to those men that spoke so loud and carried themselves so free. There was a throng, a constant coming and going; calls interchanged, orders given and executed with shouts; the rattle of blocks, the flinging about of coils of rope. She sat out of the way under the shade of the awning, with her tray before her, the veil drawn well over her face, feeling shy amongst so many men. She smiled at all buyers, ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... feet struck the floor, his ear caught the rattle of gravel on the window. The room was half lighted by a ruddy glow, and looking out he saw Sure ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey
... him that it was the only way in which he could become fashionable and acquainted with 'the best men.' He knew just enough of the affair not to be ridiculous; and, for the rest, with a great deal of rattle and apparent heedlessness of speech and deed, he was really an extremely selfish and sufficiently shrewd person, who never compromised himself. It is astonishing with what dexterity Guy Flouncey could extricate himself ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... that yere word, Gearge," said he. "There's lots of Mo's, but it bean't among 'em. Here they be. Words of two syllables; M, Ma, Me, Mi; here they be, Mo." And Abel began to rattle off the familiar column at a good rate, George looking earnestly over his shoulder, and following the boy's finger as it moved rapidly down the page. "Mocking, Modern, Mohawk, Molar, Molly, Moment, Money, Moping, ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... close to Helene, full of joy at the prospect of not being undressed at once. She was in ecstasies over her embroidered purple gown and green silk petticoat; and she shook her head to rattle the pendants hanging from the long pins thrust through her hair. At last there burst from her lips a rush of hasty words. Despite her seeming demureness, she had seen everything, heard everything, and remembered ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... raizens— Und I buy a leedle drum Dot I vant to hear 'im rattle Ven der Gristmas morning come! Und a leedle shmall tin rooster Dot vould crow so loud und fine Ven he sqveeze 'im in der morning, Dot leedle boy ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... confidence slip. This steam-calliope age reflects the human-mind struggle for something other than its own unsatisfying ideas. It turns to thrills; it expresses its restlessness and dissatisfaction with itself by futurist and cubist art, so-called; by the rattle and vibration of machinery; by flaring billboards that insult every sense of the artistic; and by the murk and muck of yellow journalism, with its hideous colored supplements and spine-thrilling tales. So much for the reader. But the publisher himself—well, ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... about two hours. We lost a great deal of companionship when the late public-houses turned their lamps out, and when the potmen thrust the last brawling drunkards into the street; but stray vehicles and stray people were left us, after that. If we were very lucky, a policeman's rattle sprang and a fray turned up; but, in general, surprisingly little of this diversion was provided. Except in the Haymarket, which is the worst kept part of London, and about Kent-street in the Borough, and along a portion ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... guarantee that Evan would not get a furlough and come there too? Mrs. Reverdy's words seemed to have some ultimate design, which they had not indeed declared; they had the air of somewhat different from mere aimless rattle or mischievous gossip. Suppose Evan were to ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... with a strong sense of turning away from the sun, I carried that look in my bosom like a caress. The girl in pink was an arch, ogling person, with a good deal of eyes and teeth, and a great play of shoulders and rattle of conversation. There could be no doubt, from Mr. Ronald's attitude, that he worshipped the very chair she sat on. But I was quite ruthless. I laid my hand on his shoulder, as he was stooping over her like a ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and more enamoured of his work, and of the sweet peace of the countryside, he became more and more averse to visiting London. But he was forced to do this at intervals. One hot summer day he went thus reluctantly to town; the rattle of the train, the heated crowd of passengers, the warm mephitic air that blew into the carriage from the stifling, smoke-grimed tunnel—all these seemed to him insupportably disgusting. But the sight, the sound, the very smell of London ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... was at the top of a hundred and seventeen polished wooden steps, and as Betty neared the top flight the sound of talking and laughter came down to her, mixed with the rattle of china and the subdued tinkle of a mandolin. She opened the door—the room seemed full of people, but she only saw two. One was Vernon ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... Madame sent for a priest. The priest came, and administered extreme unction. Monsieur made a sign to show that he understood. An hour afterwards he pressed the hand of his sister, Madame Surville. Since eleven o'clock the death rattle has been in his throat, and he can see nothing. He will not last out the night. If you wish it, Monsieur, I will call M. Surville, who has not yet gone ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... weaker as the true humour of the project developed in his mind. He came at last to realise that Medcroft was in earnest, and that the situation was as serious as he pictured it. The Englishman's plea was unusual, but it was not as rattle-brained as it had seemed at the outset. Brock was beginning to see the possibilities that the ruse contained; to say the least, he would be running little or no risk in the event of its miscarriage. In spite of possible unpleasant consequences, there were the elements ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... it is doubtless wisest to have some of their central folds made with movable slats, but they give a charming sense of security and seclusion when the wintry blasts roar around our castle. On the other hand, the light outside blinds, that shake and rattle and bang when the stormy winds "do blow, do blow," are a fair substitute for the cooling shade of forest-trees. You may have learned that life is a succession of compromises. Building in New England certainly is. No sooner ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner
... importantly delayed invasion of Belgium. And this invasion resulted in producing very promptly not only a situation appalling in its immediate realization, but one of even more terrifying possibilities for the near future. For through the haze of the smoke-clouds from burning towns and above the rattle of the machine guns in Dinant and Louvain could be seen the hovering specter of starvation and heard the wailing of hungry children. And how the specter was to be made to pass and the children to hush their cries was soon the problem ...
— Herbert Hoover - The Man and His Work • Vernon Kellogg
... to argue against her insanity, I was planning how I could reach something to wrap about her, without quitting my hold of herself (for I could not trust her alone by the gaping lattice), when, to my consternation, I heard the rattle of the door-handle, and Mr. Linton entered. He had only then come from the library; and, in passing through the lobby, had noticed our talking and been attracted by curiosity, or fear, to examine what it ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... silence, broken only by the sound of the dasher thumping against the bottom of the churn, and the rattle of the dishes. ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... you understand, his name was really something else. This Rake was a mean rascal; but he was never punished, because he was careful. See if he doesn't get to be a cardinal, or pope! You ought to hear him quote from the Vulgate. He could rattle away for three hours and never made a ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... the wheels squeaking indignantly at the encounter, and then with a terrifying expression he gave the steering-gear a final wrench and deposited self and car approximately in front of the Happer steps. There was a heaving sound, a death-rattle, followed by a short silence; and then the air was rent by ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... a grand rattle among the plates and glasses, "some wine! some water! some ink! an omelette! a writing-pad! a filet ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... another from the effects of seasickness. Old Neptune had evidently made up his mind to show us both sides of his character and he shook us about on that return voyage very much as though we were but small particles of shot in a rattle-box. ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... was blood in the secret at the very last! He arrived at Fleurieres almost in a state of elation; he had satisfied himself, logically, that in the presence of his threat of exposure they would, as he mentally phrased it, rattle down like unwound buckets. He remembered indeed that he must first catch his hare—first ascertain what there was to expose; but after that, why shouldn't his happiness be as good as new again? Mother and son would drop their lovely victim in terror and take to hiding, and ...
— The American • Henry James
... Agamemnon, Homer and Gladstone before Dr. Schliemann's Troy; the yearlings in the meadow alternately gaze and graze; the guinea-fowl now and then honors the shout over a good shot with its harsh but well-meant rattle; the rifle speaks at measured intervals; the prizes thin off to the remainder gobbler; and so, with the quiet characteristic of rifle-matches, the evening draws toward the dew. The smoke-whitened guns are carefully ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... which the rapid scratching of the pen upon the paper, and the vague, ceaseless hum of the great city coming through the open window, only seemed to render apparent; occasionally the clang of a church clock, the sudden rattle of wheels rising like hollow thunder and dying away into remote distance, a far-off cry, and then a silence more profound by contrast. Madelon, sitting in her dark corner, began to recover herself; in truth, it was the greatest possible relief to have Graham in the room with her, bringing ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... beginning to paint the clouds with leprous hues, and the great ring grew wider and wider, he looked at the mainsail, and wished the trouble over. At midnight there came a sigh; then a rattle of blocks, and then a big, silent wave came pouring along. Something was astir somewhere, and before long the Esperanza's crew knew what was the matter. The last glare of wild-fire flushed the sky, and then down came the breeze. The Esperanza was as stiff as ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... of their lodgings, accompanied sometimes by their hale and square-built spouses, and saunter stiffly along the Arno, or take their way to the public galleries and museums. Their massive, clean, and brightly-polished carriages also begin to rattle through the streets, setting out on excursions to some part of the environs of Florence—to Fiesole, to the Pratolino, to the Bello Sguardo, to the Poggio Imperiale. Sights of a different kind now present themselves. Sometimes ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... himself failing on the sand, grew alive to the augmented movement of the avalanche. It had begun to slide, to heave and bulge and crack. Dust rose in clouds from all around. The sand appeared to open and let him sink to his knees. The rattle of gravel was drowned in a soft roar. Then he shot down swiftly, holding the lassoes, keeping himself erect, and riding as if in a boat. He felt the successive steps of the slope, and then the long incline below, and then ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... long whistle, louder and harsher this time, and followed by a splintering crash and rattle. The groups in the doorways flicked out of sight; the people in the open half halted and turned to hurry on, or in some cases, without looking round, ran hurriedly to cover. Stones and little fragments of debris ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... no time. A single leap carried him into his saddle and he was off over the sand with a sharp rattle of the beating hoofs. ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... begin to rattle and break into pieces as the wind blows against them. Although they keep their greenness, they act like the driest leaves ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... has clutched him. He jiggles his trousered shillings. He treads the gutter. He squints upon the rack. He lights upon a treasure. He plucks it forth. He is unresolved whether to buy it or to spend the extra shilling on his dinner. Now all you cooks together, to save your business, rattle your pans to rouse him! If within these ancient buildings there are onions ready peeled—quick!—throw them in the skillet that the whiff may come beneath his nose! Chance trembles and casts its vote—eenie meenie—down goes the shilling—he has bought the book. Tonight he will spread it beneath ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... me. Do as I tell you. That's your business." After which he marched out, and the rattle of his motor car ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... assailant were clumsily, assuredly, clambering out of ambush, and he shifted silently into position, rifle set down, both guns ready. There came a strange thrashing sound, a groan of mortal anguish, silence. If this was a trick it was a crude one. Sandy waited. That groan, half sigh, half rattle, could not be mistaken. He half circled the boulder, gliding up a flattened traverse, and saw, lying outspread over a low bough of the withered tree, face to the moon, gun away from the curling ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... see my little cousin Alice. She is just three years old, and I love her dearly. She has many things to play with. She has a ball, a rattle, and a horse; and she had a nice wax doll given her last Christmas, but as she got the paint off its face by kissing, it is laid by till she is bigger. We played she was my baby, and I dressed her up and took her to walk; after that we played have tea, and then I rocked her to sleep, and she looked ...
— The Tiny Story Book. • Anonymous
... here he was, now, painfully walking beneath the burden of that same Punch's temple, and bearing it bodily upon his shoulders on a sultry day and along a dusty road. In place of enlivening his patron with a constant fire of wit or the cheerful rattle of his quarter-staff on the heads of his relations and acquaintance, here was that beaming Punch utterly devoid of spine, all slack and drooping in a dark box, with his legs doubled up round his neck, and not one of his social ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... where the Sparrow-hawk lay. She was coaling when he discovered her, and knowing that all hands would be busy, he sat down on the black scaffold-like dock and watched from a distance as truck after truck was tilted over, sending its load of coal into the shoot, down which it ran with a rattle on to the ship's deck. The trawler's men, black as niggers, shovelled the coal quickly into the hold. Fortunately the greater portion of the load had been taken aboard before Charlie arrived, and after waiting for about half an hour, he saw the last truck-load shot down. He knew then that ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... out across the oil-lamp footlights upon those hard-faced, bearded men, those gaudily attired women, thus held and controlled by perfectly depleted emotion, the vast audience so silent that the click of the wheel, the rattle of ivory chips in the rooms beyond, became plainly audible. There was inspiration in it likewise, and never before did Beth Norvell more clearly exhibit her native power, her spark of ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... where a fella named Zianow killed his wife by pouring little pieces of hot lead into her ear, and he would have escaped, but he sold the body to the old county hospital for practicin' purposes, and while they was monkeying with the skull they heard something rattle and when they investigated it was several pieces of lead inside rattling around. So they arrested Zianow and got him to confess the whole thing, and he was sent up for life, because it turned out ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... physician, uncoiling and springing his rattle. "How then does it happen that when we remove the symptoms, the ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... aggravating all other maladies, the long suffering of a persistent vitality amidst pain and which refuses to succumb, the final death-rattle in a ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Dhananjaya shooting his arrows and committing havoc around, picking off heads from bodies with his arrowy showers! Even now I behold the arrowy conflagration, blazing all around, issuing from the Gandiva, consuming in battle the ranks of my sons. Even now it seemeth to me that, struck with panic at the rattle of Savyasachin's car, my vast army consisting of diverse forces is running away in all directions. As a tremendous conflagration, wandering in all directions, of swelling flames and urged by the wind, consumeth ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... tinker, with a prolonged rattle in that said Ar-r, which was not without great significance. "But you sees the real gentleman, who han't got his bread to get, can hafford to 'spise his c'racter in the world. A poor tinker must be timbersome and nice ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... I began to have a feeling that I must hold on to all my movable possessions, to keep them from getting away. After this unaccountable state of things had existed for a while, there came, one day, a terrible shock, which threatened to crack the moon's skull and rattle its fragments down upon my head. This was followed at intervals by similar or lighter shocks, and it was all so exceedingly unusual that I became very curious to know what was happening. Then all was quiet for ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... hoarse cry of utter terror—a cry more animal-like than human. He heard the cry break off abruptly in something that was like a cough and a whine together, and he heard the sound of a heavy body falling with a loose rattle upon the floor. ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... There was a rattle of the dried leaves in the jungle back of the spring. Something very hard hit Nero in the side, ...
— Nero, the Circus Lion - His Many Adventures • Richard Barnum
... the narrow square of the execution yard the members of one of the most powerful and sanguinary of conspiracies; here was the man who for years had passed through the streets of Dublin and the towns of Ireland amid the rattle of cavalcade, as necessary for his protection against popular hate as the troops that protect the person of the Czar in the streets of Poland. Here was, indeed, a man not of words but of deeds; one who spoke not mere phrases coined from the ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... struggle, sleeper, and snore me the song of life in the making, Sneeze me a universe full of star-dust, Snore me back to the days when I was a Cave Man, and with my bare hands slew the walrus, for I am Virile! Snore the death-rattle of the walrus, O struggling sleeper, snore! Snore ...
— Hermione and Her Little Group of Serious Thinkers • Don Marquis
... by contraries, child. Oh, fie; what, we must not love one another now. Pshaw, that would be a foolish thing indeed. Fie, fie, you're a woman now, and must think of a new man every morning and forget him every night. No, no, to marry is to be a child again, and play with the same rattle always. Oh, fie, ...
— Love for Love • William Congreve
... waved his right hand three times towards heaven, each time throwing open his palm outwards and upwards. At the close of the third wafture, a roar as of thunder broke and rolled about the place, making the huge hall tremble, and the windows rattle and shake fearfully. Some thought it was thunder, others thought it more like the consecutive discharge of great guns. It grew darker, and through the dim stained window many saw a dense black smoke rising from the stone-court, at sight of which they trembled yet more, ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... on that subject, and we will let it pass" he would say, with a smile, and then he would start some other topic, and rattle on delightfully in his easy, ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... of painting there,' replied Arthur, whose modesty forbade him to answer the question directly. 'I saw some lovely landscapes, and there were some babies' frocks,' he added satirically. 'In one of these pictures I saw a rattle ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... the street. Again the ranks parted and closed again, this time to admit three carriages driven rapidly. As they came to a stop the muskets all around the square leaped to the "present." So disconcerting was this sudden slap and rattle of arms after the tenseness of the last half hour, that men dodged back as though from a blow. With admirable precision, Olney's men, obeying a series of commands, moved forward from the gun to form a hollow square around the carriages. Only the man with the ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... chastening trial with the resignation I have described. But when, two years afterwards, my eye fell by accident upon the name of Sobieski in one of the public papers, I could not withdraw it; my sight was fascinated as if by a rattle-snake. In one column I read how bravely the palatine fell, and in the next the dreadful fate of his daughter. She was revenged!" cried Sir Robert, eagerly grasping the hand of Thaddeus, who could not restrain the groan that burst from his breast. "For nearly three months I was deprived ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... sufficient. 'Knowledge puffeth up,' says the Apostle; into an unwholesome bubble of self-complacency that will one day be pricked and disappear, but 'love buildeth up'—a steadfast, slowly-rising, solid fabric. There be two kinds of knowledge: the mere rattle of notions in a man's brain, like the seeds of a withered poppy-head; very many, very dry, very hard; that will make a noise when you shake them. And there is another kind of knowledge which goes deep down into the heart, and is the only knowledge worth calling by the name; and that knowledge is ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... in the door, a friendly retriever scurry upstairs to fetch my slippers; and I would sit down with the "Vicomte" for a long, silent, solitary lamp-lit evening by the fire. And yet I know not why I call it silent, when it was enlivened with such a clatter of horse-shoes, and such a rattle of musketry, and such a stir of talk; or why I call those evenings solitary in which I gained so many friends. I would rise from my book and pull the blind aside, and see the snow and the glittering hollies chequer a Scottish garden, and the winter moonlight brighten ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... embarrassed him, and then the sheath of his sword, which got between his legs as he was running. The sword in his hand itself became too heavy, and he threw it after the sheath. The white horse began to rattle in its throat; D'Artagnan gained upon him. From a trot the exhausted animal sunk to a staggering walk—the foam from his mouth was mixed with blood. D'Artagnan made a desperate effort, sprang towards Fouquet, and seized him by the leg, saying in a broken, breathless voice, "I arrest ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... his eyes around that chamber. His search was not in vain. He almost trampled upon the thing that lay at his feet,—a wooden rattle, the toy older than the Egyptian pyramids. He seized it, shook it as a warrior his sword. He scanned it eagerly. Upon the handle were letters carved, but there was a mist before his eyes which took long to pass away. Then he read the rude inscription: ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... to write out this list, and together they pored over the names, crossing out such as were absolutely above suspicion. When they had reached the end of the list, but two names remained uncrossed. One was that of a rattle-pated youth who had come in the wake of a highly reputed connection of theirs, and the other that of an American tourist who gave all the evidences of great wealth and had presented letters to leading men in London which had insured him attentions not usually accorded to foreigners. ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... been navigating in a sort of somnambulistic trance in the neighbourhood of the lift, now threw back the cage with a rattle. ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... more in my own room—my room, with its cabinets of shells and mosses, that I had collected when a boy in my various trips to the seashore, all religiously left arranged as I had left them, its guns, fishing-rods, stuffed rabbits and birds, its preserved rattle-snakes and cases of insects, all of which had stood for so long a time in their respective places that they had become a part of the room—in the still hush of the night the divine image of my most beautiful stage-coach companion ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... and sewing. Sometimes she hums a little tune which I never confess to hearing, lest I miss some of the unconscious cadences. Let the wind blow outside and the snow drift in piles around the doorway and the blinds rattle—I have before me a whole long ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... he put it all out of mind, and again returned to his problem. He lay beside the brook and pondered, and finally fell asleep in the hot air, which increased in venom, until the rattle of thunder awoke him. It was very dark—a strange, livid darkness. "A thunder-storm," he muttered, and then he thought of his new clothes—what a misfortune it would be to have them soaked. He arose and pushed through the thicket around him into a cart path, and it was then that ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Waiting so anxious, the dark tide's abating! Waiting all breathless, in agonized anguish, Living by heart-throbs that spring up—then languish; Catching each sound that comes back from the battle, Dark shrieks and groans and the lonely death rattle, Imaging visions of feverish thirsting— Hearts in ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... long night for Philip, and a restless one. At any other time the swing of the cars would have lulled him to sleep, and the rattle and clank of wheels and rails, the roar of the whirling iron would have only been cheerful reminders of swift and safe travel. Now they were voices of warning and taunting; and instead of going rapidly the train seemed to crawl at a snail's pace. And it not only crawled, but it frequently ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 7. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... open. A powerful neck had tossed the bars from their sockets. This was the rattle I had heard, as Death came out of that stall, huge and terrible, to rear above the unconscious ...
— Blister Jones • John Taintor Foote
... which had been fixed slightly open. Mrs Clowes's gaze, penetrating now and then the slit, could see the gleam of her lamp's ray on a horse's flank. The only sounds were the hoof-falls of the horse, the crunching of the wheels on the wet road, the occasional rattle of a vessel in the racks when the van happened to descend violently into a rut, and the steady murmur of Mrs Clowes's voice rehearsing the grandiloquence of the part ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... pleasurable sensations which may be repeated by the proper stimulation. Besides the hunger-satisfaction that it brings, the act of sucking is pleasurable in itself, and so the baby begins to suck his thumb or his quilts or his rattle. Later, this impulse to stimulate the nerves about the mouth finds its satisfaction in kissing, and still later it plays a definite part in the wooing process; but at first the child is self-sufficient and finds his ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... of lurid clouds came rolling up, and a crackling, like the rattle of musketry, resounded through the air. This was produced by a series of electrical con- cussions, in which volleys of hailstones were discharged from the cloud-batteries above. In fact, as the storm-sheet came in contact with ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... higher register; but inside conversational limits, if such a term may be used, there is no fiber so delightful, so purely musical. Suppose the word "velvet" applied to a sound. That voice came soothingly and delightfully upon the ear of Donnegan, from which the roar and rattle of the empty freight train had not quite departed. ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... and debilitated. It is accompanied with a persistent cough, which in some cases is husky, smothered, or muffled, while in others it is hard and clear. A whitish matter, which may be curdled, is discharged from the nose. If the ear is placed against the chest behind the shoulder blade, the rattle of the air passing through the mucus can ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... stone, man? Why, the dread and horror of death itself, the thoughts of the man who stands in the keen morning air on the black platform, bound, the bell tolling in his ears, and waits for the harsh rattle of the bolt, are as nothing compared to this. I will not read it; I should ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... kitchen, surprising a mouse that had stolen forth domestically. The door being shut and fastened cautiously, the key in Link's pocket, they drifted through the swing door, as air might have circulated, identifying the mouse's scuttle, the rattle of a rat among the loose coal in the cellar bin, the throaty chirp of a cricket outside in the grass, and ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... slender rust-eaten nail, had been wrought into a fantastic shape. As they drove through the gateway, a green lizard scampered down from the top of one of the posts, where he had been sunning himself, and a rattlesnake lying in the path lazily uncoiled his motley brown length, and sounding his rattle, wriggled slowly off into the rank grass and weeds that bordered the ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... said Mrs. Maynard, cheerfully, and sitting down at the piano, she began to rattle off ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells
... a flagrant example of what is nothing less than spiritual miscegenation—that's it!—why didn't I think of that phrase before—spiritual miscegenation. A rattle-brained boy, with the connivance of a common magistrate, effects a certain kind of alliance with a person inferior to him in every point of view—birth, breeding, station, culture, wealth—a person, moreover, who will doubtless be ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... stay longer in the saddle, and had a firmer grip with his knees than any one I ever met, and it was all for mercy's sake. When the reapers in harvest time saw a figure whirling past in a cloud of dust, or the family at the foot of Glen Urtach, gathered round the fire on a winter's night, heard the rattle of a horse's hoofs on the road, or the shepherds, out after the sheep, traced a black speck moving across the snow to the upper glen, they knew it was the doctor, and, without being conscious of it, ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... accepted me, and here I am, eternally tied to this accurst insignia, if I'm to keep my promise! Isn't that a sacrifice, friend H.? There's no course open to me. The poor girl is madly in love. She called me a "rattle!" As a gentleman, I ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... rocked stationary on that sea of moonbeams, I pondered over that twilight of the heroic world. In the soft rattle of the water on the hull I seemed to hear the rattle of all that armor, of all those swords swinging rusty on the walls, neglected by the degenerate sons of the great champions of old. I had long been in search of a theme which I called the theme of the "Prowess ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... whistle, on his fingers, an invigorating reel, And could imitate a piper on the handles of the wheel; He could play in double octaves, too, all up and down the rail, Or rattle off a rondo on the bottom ...
— The Admiral's Caravan • Charles E. Carryl
... great noise and rattle as the gangplank was pulled up, and a moment later the great ship began to draw away ever so slowly and majestically, and the great whistle shrieked a blatant blast of farewell to the shouting, cheering, ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... does rumble like the dickens. Some of the bass notes make the house buzz like an ocean-steamer blowing off steam." It was a picturesque description, for I had noticed at times that when the organ was being made to shriek fortissimo every bit of panelling in the house seemed to rattle, and if a huge boiler of some sort suffering from internal disturbance had been growling down in the cellar, the result would have ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... extended to the visiting team, and the duties of an umpire are sometimes accompanied by real danger.[14] Several features of the play seem distinctly unsportsmanlike. Thus, it is the regular duty of one of the batting team, when not in himself, to try to "rattle" the pitcher or fielder by yells and shouts just as he is about to "pitch" or "catch" or "touch." It is not considered dishonourable for one of the waiting strikers to pretend to be the player really at a base and run from base to base just outside ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... of a great action as any man I ever knew, promised me that he would answer for Brigalier, councillor in the Court of Aids, captain in his quarter, and very powerful among the people, but told me at the same time that he must not know a word of the matter, because he was a mere rattle, not to ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... were set and the vessel leaned to starboard, and then the rattle of ropes began again and the crashing of the blocks as she leaned over to port. Such surges, you have no idea, Evelyn, threatening the brig, but slipping under the keel, lifting her to the crest of the wave. Caught by ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... grummets shipping over a single stout pin, instead of in the usual rowlocks, and since much care had been used to render the grummets tight-fitting, while the leathers had been well greased, there was none of the usual rattle of oars in rowlocks,—a sound which in quiet weather may often be heard at an almost incredible distance,—nor, thanks to the greasing of the leathers, was there any creaking or grinding of the oars against the pins; ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... him, fascinated. He had expected words—primitive words, perhaps resembling the click-speech of Earth's stone-age survivals, but words of some sort. Webber hooted. It was a soft reassuring sound, repeated over and over, but it was not a word. The rattle of stones diminished, then stopped. Webber continued to make his hooting call. Presently it was answered. Webber turned and nodded at Paula, smiling. He reached into the plastic container and drew forth a handful ...
— The Stars, My Brothers • Edmond Hamilton
... away, but, aside from these, all other sounds were the happy noises of families at the end of a day. From every house they floated out to him, the clamor of children, the deep laughter of a man, the loud rattle ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... went at it and once more Tom was struck in the shoulder. Then Lew Flapp aimed for Tom's face, but the latter ducked and, recovering, hit the big boy a heavy blow in the chin that made his teeth rattle and sent him staggering over the side of an upturned boat and flat ...
— The Rover Boys in Camp - or, The Rivals of Pine Island • Edward Stratemeyer
... appreciation of my honourable discomfort, she laughed; and as her cheeks cooled she laughed the more, tossing back her pretty head while her mirth, now uncontrolled, rippled forth till the wild birds, excited, joined in with restless chirping, and a squirrel sprung his elfin rattle overhead. ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... directly asking how it was done, he preferred—just like Manabozho—to deceive his grandmother to come at the knowledge he desired, by a trick. "Noko," said he, "while I take my drum and rattle, and sing my war-songs, do you go and try to get me some larger heads, for these you have brought me are all of the same size. Go and see whether the old man is not willing to ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... extravasated blood was gradually increasing in size. A deep sigh broke from her lips. She leaned against one of the columns of the bed, and gazed, through the holes in her mask, upon the harrowing spectacle before her. A hoarse harsh sigh passed like a death rattle through the comte's clenched teeth. The masked lady seized his left hand, which felt as scorching as burning coals. But at the very moment she placed her icy hand upon it, the action of the cold was such that De Guiche opened his eyes, and by a look ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... part of the way downstairs and listened again. The rattle of gold reached his ears. In another moment the light was put out, and again he distinctly heard the breathing of two men, but no sound of a door being opened or shut. The two men went downstairs, the faint sounds growing ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... critters once get loose enough to play they rattle to pieces mighty fast," said the mate. "But this is ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... not try it," protested Mr. Macey. "Just listen to how strong the wind is at this height. I'm afraid you'll be dashed down to the ground. Gracious! Hear the flagstaff rattle." ...
— The High School Captain of the Team - Dick & Co. Leading the Athletic Vanguard • H. Irving Hancock
... pinning his plaid together at the throat, when the wind came with a sudden howl, rushed down the chimney, and drove the level smoke into the middle of the room. It could not shake the cottage—it was too lowly: neither could it rattle its windows—they were not made to open; but it bellowed over it like a wave over a rock, and as in contempt blew its ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... trivial adventures since leaving the British front. Of France I hope to say more in the future, and so I will pass at a bound to Padua, where it appeared that the Austrian front had politely advanced to meet me, for I was wakened betimes in the morning by the dropping of bombs, the rattle of anti-aircraft guns, and the distant rat-tat-tat of a maxim high up in the air. I heard when I came down later that the intruder had been driven away and that little damage had been done. The work of the Austrian aeroplanes is, however, very aggressive ...
— A Visit to Three Fronts • Arthur Conan Doyle
... shall never forget how spacious and how eminently habitable it looked as we drew near. The carriage entry was lighted up, not by intention, but from the mere superfluity of fire and candle in the house. A rattle of many dishes came to our ears; we sighted a great field of tablecloth; the kitchen glowed like a forge and smelt like a garden ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... really enchanting To listen and look at the rout; We're all of us puffing, and panting, And raving, and running about; Here Kitty and Adelaide bustle; There Andrew and Anthony bawl; Flutes murmur, chains rattle, robes rustle, In chorus, at ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... was dying. That loud, awful death-rattle was his last life- struggle. The valet de chambre in order to prevent her from hearing that awful sound, with his hands closed the ears of his mistress, who, petrified with horror, was looking at ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... air was sweet with the smell of the mown hay, and from the Broad Pasture there came the rattle and throb of ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... lake rolling and tumbling from hill to hill, and could outline the forest opposing its rugged weight to the tempest. Under the successive attacks of the gale, the loosened old joints of the house creaked their protests at the blizzard's roughness. The shrieking of the wind, the sharp rattle of the storm-driven snow against the glass, everything in the wild night without, responded to the conflict in ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... ankle which made her long to lie still and rest. She tried to sleep, and after long waiting had just arrived at that happy stage when thoughts grow misty, and a gentle prickling feeling creeps up from the toes to the brain, when a patriotic barrel- organ began to rattle out the strains of "Rule, Britannia" from the end of the road, and the chance was gone. Then Whitey read aloud for an hour, but the book had come to a dull, uneventful stage, ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Many of these were weavers, and in those days the weaver carried on his craft at home. I can see distinctly the little stone cottages in the narrow wynds off South Street, which I was wont to visit; I can recall the whirr and rattle of the loom "ben the house," and picture to myself the grave elderly man who on my entrance would rise from the rickety machine in front of which he was seated, and, after refreshing himself with a pinch of snuff, adjust his horn-rimmed spectacles and stare, with a seriousness which to me was ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... of fate, drew a tenderfoot horse. Tunemah was a big fool gray that was constitutionally rattle-brained. He meant well enough, but he didn't know anything. When he came to a bad place in the trail, he took one good look—and rushed it. Constantly we expected him to come to grief. It wore on the Tenderfoot's nerves. Tunemah was always trying to wander off ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... will drop from the trees unripe; whether boils will afflict men; whether wars will prevail, or diseases or plagues among men and cattle; whether good is resolved upon in heaven, or evil; whether blood will flow, and the death-rattle of the slain be heard in the city. And now, Adam, come and give heed unto what I shall tell thee regarding the manner of this book and ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... in the cannonading made it possible to distinguish the heavy rattle of rifle and machine gun fire, and it seemed to me to be ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... over his yawl and picked up the shore beyond. Back of the searchlight lifted the red, green, and white triangle of running lights laid dead for him. It sheered a little. The brilliant ray blinked out. He saw a dim bulk, a pale glimmer through cabin windows, heard the murmur of voices and the rattle of anchor chain running through hawse pipe. Then he closed ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... creditable but by no means brilliant record. He was elected President by a small majority, and enraged the many enemies of James G. Blaine by selecting that astute politician as his secretary of state. One of these, a rattle-brained New Yorker named Charles J. Guiteau, approached the President on July 2, 1881, as he was waiting at a railroad station in Washington, about to start on a journey, and shot him through the body. Death followed, after a ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... An occasional shell whizzed by or over, reminding us that we were rapidly approaching the "debatable ground." Soon we began to hear a most ominous sound which we had never before heard, except in the far distance at South Mountain, namely, the rattle of musketry. It had none of the deafening bluster of the cannonading so terrifying to new troops, but to those who had once experienced its effect, it was infinitely more to be dreaded. The fatalities ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... known, that, some time ago, a person with a title[106] was pleased, in two great assemblies, to rattle bitterly somebody without a name, under the injurious appellations of a Tory, a Jacobite, an enemy to King George, and a libeller of the government; which character," the Dean said that, "many people thought was applied to him. But he was unwilling to be of that opinion, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... Miss Bawn, for if he was dead the banshee would have cried. And the dead coach would have driven up with a rattle and stopped at our door. It never has, Miss Bawn. What you've heard has never stopped at our doors. To hear wheels in the distance is nothing. As for the cryin' in the shrubbery, that is another story. Some day I may ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan
... happily styled "the devil's fiddle," or "the chicken-box," whose simplest form is an emptied tomato-can, with a string passed through the end and pulled with the rosined fingers. Now, that a man may be pleased with a rattle, even if it be only a car-rattle, is conceivable, but it is hard to understand how he can retain a relish for the squeal of a locomotive-whistle. The practice of summoning workmen to factories by this shrill monitor, of using it to announce the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... give up, though the grape-shot may rattle, Or the full thunder-cloud over you burst; Stand like a rock, and the storm or the battle Little shall harm you, though doing ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... slept on. Gulls mewed overhead; a rattle of cranes sounded from the quays, and a conversation—mostly in hoarse roars—took place between the boatswain in the bows and an elderly man ashore, but he remained undisturbed. Then he sprang up so suddenly that he nearly knocked his chair over, and the captain, turning ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs
... facing one another in the silent, half-darkened room, Mannering trying to bring himself into accord with half-admitted but repugnant convictions, she watching him hopelessly, the tinkle of a hansom bell sounded outside. The sudden stopping of a horse, the rattle of a latchkey, and she was in the room. Mannering rose to his feet ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... left hand, the caster took the box with the fair dice in it in his right hand, and in the act of shaking it caught the fair dice in his hand, and unperceived shifted the box empty to his left, from which he dropped the false dice into the box, which he began to rattle, called his main seven, and threw. Having won his stake he repeated it as often as he thought proper. He then caught the false dice in the same way, shifted the empty box again, and threw till he threw out, still calling the same main, by which artifice ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... heart was quite gone in despair, and all trouble shrank into a trifle, I heard a loud shout, and the trample of feet, and the rattle of arms, and the clash of horses. Contriving to twist myself a little, I saw that the band of the Doones were mounting a saddle-backed bridge in a deep wooded glen, with a roaring water under them. On the crown of the bridge a vast man stood, such ...
— Slain By The Doones • R. D. Blackmore
... for presently they heard her running down, after which a fresh rattle began at the obstinate bolt. But still the door did not open, and at length Mrs. Worrett put her lips to ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge
... he proposed that I should rattle round the park with him. I acceded, and we set off in a handsome open carriage, with four greys, ridden by postilions at a rapid pace. As we were whirling along, he observed, "In town we must of course drive but a pair, but in the country ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... be managed, I could get great things done in the matter of fish culture and fish diseases at South Kensington, if poor dear X.'s rattle trappery could be turned to proper account, without in any way interfering with the ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... a falling-out, like that of a die from the dice-box; and coincidence signifies one falling-out on the top of another, the concurrent happening of two or more chances which resemble or somehow fit into each other. If you rattle six dice in a box and throw them, and they turn up at haphazard—say, two aces, a deuce, two fours, and a six—there is nothing remarkable in this falling out. But if they all turn up sixes, you at once suspect that the dice are cogged; and if that be not so—if there be no sufficient cause behind ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... at last," Jack exclaimed as the rattle of musketry sounded loud and continuous. "I wondered when they ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... tide, the paper-carrier went by whistling, and the rolled-up Advocate thumped the front door. Babbitt roused, his stomach constricted with alarm. As he relaxed, he was pierced by the familiar and irritating rattle of some one cranking a Ford: snap-ah-ah, snap-ah-ah, snap-ah-ah. Himself a pious motorist, Babbitt cranked with the unseen driver, with him waited through taut hours for the roar of the starting engine, with him agonized as the roar ceased and again began the infernal patient snap-ah-ah—a round, ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... showed Tom that the door was unlatched, and with the rain now descending in torrents, he hesitated no longer, but stepped within. There was a rush of wind, a rattle of shutters, a deafening peal of thunder as if close at hand, and with a crash ...
— The Dare Boys of 1776 • Stephen Angus Cox
... end of an hour you come to Annecy and rattle through its old crooked lanes, built solidly up with curious old houses that are a dream of the Middle Ages, and presently you come to the main object of your trip—Lake Annecy. It is a revelation. ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... which stood just inside the room. Nearer and nearer and nearer came the echoing footsteps. There was a strange coughing and shuffling and mumbling outside. My heart beat with expectation and fear. A quick step now close, close beside the door, a noisy rattle of the handle, and the door flies open with a bang. Recovering my courage with an effort, I take a cautious peep out. In the middle of the room in front of my father stands the Sand-man, the bright light of the lamp falling full upon his face. The Sand-man, the terrible Sand-man, is ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... I'm thinkin', ye rattle-pate, to risk y'r precious noodle here to-night," he whispered, coming forward and fussing about me with all the maternal anxiety of a hen ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
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