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Rumbling   /rˈəmbəlɪŋ/  /rˈəmblɪŋ/   Listen
Rumbling

adjective
1.
Continuous full and low-pitched throbbing sound.  Synonym: grumbling.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Rumbling" Quotes from Famous Books



... mild, the night clear and bright. Cayrol's carriage rolled rapidly along the broad avenue of the park shadowed by tall trees, the lanterns throwing, as they passed, their quivering light on the thickets. The rumbling carriages took the last guests to the railway station. It was past midnight. A nightingale began singing his song of love to ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet

... and the rumbling died away and once more the sea lay calm and still, what do you think the Bluebird saw? The great ocean which had once stretched an unbroken sheet of blue as far as the eye could see was now dotted here and there by islands, big islands and little islands, groups and ...
— The Curious Book of Birds • Abbie Farwell Brown

... mysteriously sprang from the casings. The panels of the door were producing cracks and the cheap door handle flew many ways at once. An empty whisky keg on the stoop boomed out mournfully at intervals and finally rolled down the steps with a rumbling protest. Wisps of smoke slowly climbed up the walls and seemed to be waving defiance to the curling wisps in ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford

... Abbad, "foresaw these catastrophes two or three days in advance. They were sure of their approach when they perceived a hazy atmosphere, the red aspect of the sun, a dull, rumbling, subterranean sound, the stars shining through a kind of mist which made them look larger, the nor'west horizon heavily clouded, a strong-smelling emanation from the sea, a heavy swell with calm weather, and sudden changes of ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk

... rather, when the mellow sunlight streams into the room and, instead of the dull gray buildings opposite, you catch a mental glimpse of green tree-tops waving in the wind, and hear, above the rumbling of the busy 'buses, the buzzes ... the bumbling ... what I mean to say is you ought to sit down calmly and read the book from cover to cover, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 4, 1919. • Various

... and gas in the bowels are indications of overeating. More food is taken than can be digested. A part of it ferments and gas is a product of fermentation. A very small amount of gas in the alimentary tract is natural, but when there is belching or rumbling of gas in the intestines it is a sign of indigestion, which may be so mild that the individual is not aware of it, or it may be so bad that he can think of little else. When there is formation of ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker

... of the public must feel that his clothes will be as good, coming from a wareroom on a third floor at L.30 a year, as from a flashy corner shop which costs L.300. He will feel that to make him buy a new hat when he needs one, it is not necessary that an advertising van should be continually rumbling along the streets. His tea and sugar from the nearest grocer cannot be any better because of there being fifty other grocers within two miles of his residence, and forty of these not required. Yet, by reason of the great competition in ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 445 - Volume 18, New Series, July 10, 1852 • Various

... and cynical view of life was wrong though, for not so very much later the familiar rumbling and shaking, and puffing and rattling, reached their ears once more, and coming, too, ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... closing the register with her foot: "I don't hear any strange, hollow, rumbling, mumbling kind of noise. Do you hear ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... still the rain came down in sluicing torrents that never stayed or slackened. The cracked dirt of the ramada roof dissolved and fell away, and the stick frame leaked like a sieve. The rain wind, howling and rumbling through the framework, hurled the water to the very door where Hardy stood, and as it touched his face, a wild, animal exultation overcame him and he dashed out into the midst of it. God, it was good to feel ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge

... more good nap sure, as I did not exactly like the appearance of things. The general officers were consulting together, and their looks plainly indicated a depressed state of feeling; besides, before we had completed our meal the rumbling of distant cannonading sounded warningly in front, and I closed my eyes and went to sleep to its music. The fact was, the enemy's cavalry, in heavy force, at Appomattox, had disputed our advance—had ...
— Lee's Last Campaign • John C. Gorman

... protracted sounds.] Roll — N. roll &c v.; drumming &c v.; berloque^, bombination^, rumbling; tattoo, drumroll; dingdong; tantara^; rataplan^; whirr; ratatat, ratatat-tat; rubadub; pitapat; quaver, clutter, charivari^, racket; cuckoo; repetition &c 104; peal of bells, devil's tattoo; reverberation &c 408. [sound of railroad train rolling ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... with wild amaze, He fix'd on P——t[32] his quick convulsive gaze. Thus shrunk the trembling thief, when first he saw, Hung high in air, the waving Abershaw.[33] Thus the pale bawd, with agonizing heart, Shrieks when she hears the beadle's rumbling cart. "And oh! what noise," he cries, "what sounds unblest, Presume to break a senior's holy rest?[34] Full well you know, who thus my anger dare, To horse-whips what antipathy I bear. Shall I, in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various

... Island were also reimbursed. [Footnote: L183,649 to Massachusetts; L16,355 to New Hampshire; L28,863 to Connecticut; L6,332 to Rhode Island.] The people of Boston saw twenty-seven of those long, unwieldy trucks which many elders of the place still remember as used in their youth, rumbling up King Street to the treasury, loaded with 217 chests of Spanish dollars, and a hundred barrels of copper coin. A pound sterling was worth eleven pounds of the old-tenor currency of Massachusetts, and thirty shillings of the new-tenor. Those beneficent trucks carried enough ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman

... it had taken its place in his classification of things that appeared terrible but were not terrible. Thus, he had learned not to fear the roar of the wind among the palms when he lay snug on the plantation-house veranda, nor the onslaught of the waves, hissing and rumbling into harmless foam on the ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London

... his feet. The morning had come now, and people had begun to stir. A few market waggons went rumbling by. There were milk-carts in the streets, and sleepy-looking servants in print dresses were showing their heads above the area steps. Douglas moved on with unsteady footsteps. He passed a policeman who looked at him curiously, and ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim

... that?" asked Charlie, as a little spark of light like a glowworm appeared in the distance, and a low rumbling noise met their ears. ...
— Charlie Scott - or, There's Time Enough • Unknown

... something of the calibre of old Ross's, the sexton, burst into horse-merriment. "Why's he sittin' so still, think 'ee? Ho! Ho! See un lickin' his chops—ha! ha!"—and he roared afresh. While from afar you could hear the distant rumbling of 'Enry and ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant

... came a long, fearful cracking noise, and the sound of falling rocks. It was as if the thunder had fallen to the earth and were rumbling round over it. A gigantic wave came roaring against the rocks as if it ...
— The Cave Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... "spectre" of Dulcibel Burton—for it had a scarlet bodice on, just such as Dulcibel nearly always wore. They two—the mare and its rider—went off sailing up into the sky, and disappeared behind a black cloud. And Abigail was almost certain that just as they reached the cloud, there was a low rumbling like thunder. ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson

... this moment a loud, rumbling noise, like distant thunder, came from behind the wall against which the Goblin was leaning, followed by a tremendous sneeze, that fairly shook ...
— Davy and The Goblin - What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' • Charles E. Carryl

... merchant, the farmer, and the mechanic follow them. The long solitude of the centuries is broken by mill-wheels, the buzzing of saws, the stroke of the axe, the blow of the hammer and trowel. The stageman cracks his whip in the passes of the mountains. The click of the telegraph and the rumbling of the printing-press are heard at the head-waters of the Missouri, and borne on the breezes there is the laughter of children and the sweet music of Sabbath hymns, sung by the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various

... the immediate future shall be the twentieth-century Parthenon—a Parthenon not of the great and of the few and of the gods, but of the great many, where, through mighty corridors, day and night, democracy wanders and sleeps and chatters and is sad and lives and dies, streets rumbling below. The hotel—the crowd fireside—being more than any other one thing, perhaps, the thing that this civilization is about, the token of what it loves and of how it lives, is bound to be a masterpiece ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee

... pass to and fro, like a pendulum, and at every thrust given with his feet by the swinging man, the loose blocks of lava and pumice went rumbling and crashing down, sending up whispering echoes and telling of a depth that was ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn

... eleven o'clock at night, and quite dark, except when the lightning came. Then the loud thunder would sound, "just like circus wagons rumbling over a bridge," as Bunny told Sue, to try and make his ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Playing Circus • Laura Lee Hope

... pass through the vault in which the great pendulum was slowly swinging in its ghostly-like tick-tack, tick-tack; while the great ancient clock was keeping time with its sudden and startling movement. The whole scene was almost as uncanny as the witches' cell underneath. There was also a wild rumbling thumping sound overhead. I soon discovered the cause of this, when I entered the flat where the musician was at work. He was seen in violent action, beating or hammering on the keys of a gigantic pianoforte-like ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth

... trained ears for more than one hundred miles across the prairie. Houston, whose senses were keen as the Indians with whom he had long lived knew when he was within reach of the sound; and he rose very early, and with his ear close to the ground waited in intense anxiety for the dull, rumbling murmur which would tell him the Alamo still held out. His companions stood at some distance, still as statues, intently watching him. The sun rose. He had listened in vain; not the faintest sound ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr

... almost driven from their mind the recollection of the vehicle which they had seen in the high-road, but a rumbling sound, as they neared the place where they had last seen it, reminded them of the fact, and they hurried up to the spot from ...
— Dick, Marjorie and Fidge - A Search for the Wonderful Dodo • G. E. Farrow

... gipsy vans jolted along the rough cart-track across the moor. They halted as usual at mid-day—but Tim could not get to speak to the twins at all. And then the caravan started again and went rumbling on till much later than usual, for, as Tim overheard from the gipsies' conversation, they were eager now to get to Crookford, where the fair was to be, as quickly as possible. When they at last stopped ...
— "Us" - An Old Fashioned Story • Mary Louisa S. Molesworth

... from the deeps of a big arm chair, omitted a kind of rumbling affirmative. He was smoking a porcelain pipe enamelled with roses and forget-me-nots. His fat, short fingered hands were spread across the waistcoat of Berlin wool, his chin was sunk and his bearing that of a man who is out ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee

... so rapid, not following each other—but darting down from every quarter at once, that the whole firmament appeared as if on fire, and the thunder rolled along the heavens, now near and loud, then rumbling in the distance. The breeze rose up fresh, and the waves tossed the raft, and washed occasionally even to Amine's feet, as she stood in the ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat

... talked reinforcements were pouring through the town, with great rumbling of artillery and blowing of trumpets. It was a comforting sound, as it presaged some relief for the Belgians ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson

... y^e 1. or 2. of June, was a great & fearfull earthquake; it was in this place heard before it was felte. It came with a rumbling noyse, or low murmure, like unto remoate thunder; it came from y^e norward, & pased southward. As y^e noyse aproched nerer, they earth begane to shake, and came at length with that violence as caused platters, dishes, & such like ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford

... Those rake-hell counsellors were laughing, and bantering, and sparring after their wont. The carriage swayed and jerked, as one got in, and then again as the other followed. The door clapped, and the coach was now jogging and rumbling over the pavement. The Judge was a little bit sulky. He did not care to sit up and open his eyes. Let them suppose he was asleep. He heard them laugh with more malice than good-humour, he thought, as they observed ...
— Green Tea; Mr. Justice Harbottle • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... indignation the theory that men of forty ought to be chloroformed to make room for the younger generation. "But, hang it, one's years have nothing to do with it," he protested; "in my spirit I belong to the younger generation." So, to the rumbling accompaniment of the train, he argued his claims passionately. Had he formed them into a petition he would have prayed, "God, make me young again." It would have been because of Terry ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson

... my horn reassured him; he grew confident. Now he would find the phantom mate that had occasioned so much trouble, and run away with her before the conqueror should return from his chase. He swung along rapidly, rumbling the low call in his throat. Then up on the ridge sounded again the crackle of brush and the roar of a challenge. Rage had not made the victor to forget; indeed, here he was, coming back swiftly for his reward. On the instant ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long

... resolve melted before it. "Best kind of weather," murmured Uncle William, "best kind—" His eye fell on the pile of bricks and he took up one, looking at it affectionately. He laid it in place and patted down the mortar, rumbling to himself. ...
— Uncle William - The Man Who Was Shif'less • Jennette Lee

... now the warm time of the year. One June afternoon, a Saturday when there was a lot of work to get through, Gervaise herself had piled the coke into the stove, around which ten irons were heating, whilst a rumbling sound issued from the chimney. At that hour the sun was shining full on the shop front, and the pavement reflected the heat waves, causing all sorts of quaint shadows to dance over the ceiling, and that ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... misgivings he packed his bag and took the train, calling up again to his mind the picture of Rantoul, with his shabby trousers pulled up, decorating his ankles with lavender and black, roaring all the while with his rumbling laughter. ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson

... tip of one's finger; but cabs and carriages and automobiles, each driver anxious to get out ahead of his neighbor!—not to mention the shouting and the din and discord of horns and whistles and sirens and rumbling engines! ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath

... the landscape. A rumbling, cracking noise is heard among the mountains. Shadows of clouds sweep ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... next room the voices of the four were a steady, rumbling murmur. Now and then the glance of the marshal wandered to the door. When the bandaging was completed, he asked, "Do you know you've started a ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand

... Presently a strange rumbling jar filled his ears. A bend in the road to the west hid the track, but the dazed brain of Dyke Darrel took in the situation nevertheless—a train ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton

... Trinity Gateway he was so pressed to the wall by people who probably were unaware of the patriotic intentions with which he had come that in spite of all his determination he had to give in, and stop while carriages passed in, rumbling beneath the archway. Beside Petya stood a peasant woman, a footman, two tradesmen, and a discharged soldier. After standing some time in the gateway, Petya tried to move forward in front of the others without waiting for all the carriages to pass, and he began ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... horse, And youthful captains on their feet With longing sped their lord to meet, As though the new-come prince had been An exile for long years unseen. Earth beaten in their frantic zeal By clattering hoof and rumbling wheel, Sent forth a deafening noise as loud As heaven when black with many a cloud. Then, with their consorts gathered near, Wild elephants in sudden fear Rushed to a distant wood, and shed An odour ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... mean Princess Mary did not ask, but with an unnoticed glance at little seven-year-old Nicholas, who was sitting in front of her looking with pleasure at the town, she bowed her head and did not raise it again till the heavy coach, rumbling, shaking and swaying, came to a stop. The carriage steps clattered as ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... understand them well enough, for I would have thought exactly the same myself in my childhood. So I try to find a way out by a little free-thinking: 'tis another matter when it's a machine that does the work; no more than when an innocent cart comes rumbling down the road, ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun

... half an hour, the clouds, which seemed previously to have discharged all their moisture, collected into a dense canopy, darkening the whole heaven, and rumbling with thunder, that became every moment louder and heavier. Then came gusts of wind, groaning through the forest, rattling among the dead limbs of the girdled trees, and whistling over the palisades of the fort. These were succeeded by louder peals ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird

... dog pass by, And there are always buzzards in the sky. Sometimes you hear the big cathedral bell, A blindman rings it; and sometimes you hear A rumbling ox-cart that brings wood to sell. Else nothing ever breaks the ancient spell That holds the town asleep, save, once a year, The Easter festival.... I come from there, And when I tire of hoping, and despair Is heavy over me, my thoughts go far, Beyond ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy

... and clinging on True-lovers puffing and blowing and springing on, Dashing and clashing and shying and flying on, Blushing and flushing and wriggling and giggling on, Teasing and pleasing and squeezing and wheezing on, Everlastingly falling and bawling and sprawling on, Tumbling and rumbling and grumbling and stumbling on, Any fine afternoon, About July or June— That's just how the Daughters Come ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... the inner circle and around them all the scouts arose and joined hands to form the outer guard. The lightning became more vivid in its flashes and the mutterings of thunder changed to rumbling and roaring as they stood there. The big drops of rain began to thicken but they paid ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo

... casual acquaintances of a few weeks' standing—gave a sympathetic murmur, and then one of them in a deep, rumbling kind of voice, and without even looking at Barry, inquired if he could "do with a ...
— Edward Barry - South Sea Pearler • Louis Becke

... cut out through the snow, and over this they passed. The snow was soft, and the horses sank deep, so that progress was slow. Nor was the journey without the excitement of apparent danger. At times before them and behind them there would come a low, rumbling sound, and they would see a mass of snow and ice rushing down some neighboring slope. Some of these fell on the road, and more than once they had to quit their sleds and wait for the drivers to get them over the heaps that had ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille

... The water striking the pill caused it to expand. There was a dull rumbling sound and then, with an awful bang, Gustavus Adolphus ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock

... those kingdoms of Japan, were lodged by the king's order in a forsaken house, which was thought to be haunted by evil spirits: the common opinion was not ill grounded, and the Portuguese soon perceived, that their lodging was disturbed. They heard a horrible rumbling all the night; they felt themselves pulled out of their beds, and beaten in their sleep, without seeing any one. One night being awakened, at the cry of one of their servants, and running with their arms towards the place from whence the noise was heard, they found the ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden

... unaccustomed sound or sight in the world about us struck on our taut senses like the trump of doom. A cloud passed over the sun and as the sudden shadow swept across the orchard we turned pale and trembled. A wagon rumbling over a plank bridge in the hollow made Sara Ray start up with a shriek. The slamming of a barn door over at Uncle Roger's caused the cold perspiration to ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... fierce voice, his face inflamed as with sudden wrath. And there he stopped short. The priest was staring at him, and through the open door came Leocadia with a bowl of steaming broth. "We'll talk of this again," he said, and there was a sort of thunder rumbling in the promise. ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini

... car came rumbling out of the tunnel, with its load of cracked rock, they all accompanied it into an adjoining apartment, where it was cast into a metallic shute, through which, they were informed, ...
— The Moon Metal • Garrett P. Serviss

... perfectly serene, a violent detonation was heard in the department of the Lot and Garonne. This was followed by three or four others, and finally by a rolling noise, at first resembling a discharge of musketry, afterward the rumbling of carriages, and lastly that of a large building falling down. Stones were immediately after precipitated to the ground, some of which weighed eighteen pounds, and sunk into a compact soil, to the depth of ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson

... which we were going was on one of these deltas. Hardly had we set foot on shore than a violent earthquake almost threw us to the ground. The shock lasted for at least thirty seconds, then we heard a dull rumbling as of thunder, and saw how all along the coast immense masses of earth fell into the sea from the high cliffs, so that the water boiled and foamed wildly. Then yellow smoke came out of all the bays, and hung in heavy clouds over the devastated ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser

... rumbling sound was heard, increasing rapidly in volume. The floor of the cave vibrated; masses of rock dropped from the walls. The light of the volcano across the valley was suddenly obscured in an immense cloud of black smoke. The twilight within the cave ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various

... Owl in his deep, rumbling voice. He tried to look very severe. But it is hard to look any way except funny with a nightcap ...
— The Tale of Solomon Owl • Arthur Scott Bailey

... this region, when, in pursuance of a treaty, they vacated a portion of the lands lying in the valley of the Little Tennessee River. In 1821 Mr. McDowell commenced farming. During the first season's operations the plowshare, in passing over a certain portion of a field, produced a hollow rumbling sound, and in exploring for the cause the first object met with was a shallow layer of charcoal, beneath which was a slab of burnt clay about 7 feet in length and 4 feet broad, which, in the attempt to remove, broke into several fragments. Nothing beneath this slab was found, but on examining its ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow

... dark, and the gloom at length increased so much, that the speakers could scarcely see each other's faces. The sudden and portentous darkness was accounted for by a vivid flash of lightning, followed by a low growl of thunder rumbling over Whalley Nab. The mother and daughter drew close together, and Mistress Nutter passed her ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... they were not going back to the vessel until the next day. The ghastly quality of the night increased, however. The lightning flared so much and it was so red that it was uncanny, it even had a supernatural tinge, and the sullen rumbling of the distant thunder ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler

... underneath the earth, Matali skilled in guiding the car, sitting fast on the chariot drove it with force; and he dashed on, frightening that city with the rattling of his chariot. And hearing that rattling of the chariot like unto the rumbling of the clouds in the sky, the Danavas, thinking me to be the lord of the celestials, became agitated. And thereupon they all, frightened at heart, stood holding in their hands bows and arrows and swords and javelins and axes and maces and clubs. Then ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... A rumbling noise; then, after it had ceased, the realization that a carriage had driven out of the yard—that was what woke me up. The clock on my bureau said half past ten. For a moment I forgot what that meant; and then sliding out of bed, I tiptoed quickly down the hall. Putting my ear to Auber's door, ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various

... and protracted sounds.] Roll. — N. roll &c. v.; drumming &c. v.; berloque[obs3], bombination[obs3], rumbling; tattoo, drumroll; dingdong; tantara[obs3]; rataplan[obs3]; whirr; ratatat, ratatat- tat; rubadub; pitapat; quaver, clutter, charivari[obs3], racket; cuckoo; repetition &c. 104; peal of bells, devil's tattoo; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... and gloomy, and though it was not yet seven o'clock the lowering clouds had added to the dusk of approaching night. Occasionally, in the distance, could be heard the low rumbling of thunder. ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope

... procession of triumphal cars slowly wended its way, loaded with famous pictures, securely packed, but each bearing its title in monumental inscription. THE TRANSFIGURATION, by RAPHAEL: THE CHRIST, by TITIAN, etc. Then followed the heavy rumbling of massive cars groaning under the weight of sculptures, these too inscribed: THE APOLLO BELVEDERE: THE LAOCOON, etc. Other chariots loaded with trunks containing famous books, precious manuscripts, captured ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey

... I'll watch it! What? You cut me out?" A rumbling laugh comes up from that mighty chest, he beams upon me, and plunges into the galley for ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee

... continued, "there is another evil which, if we had to contend against nothing else, should make us quake for the issue. It is a gangrene preying upon our vitals—an earthquake rumbling under our feet—a mine accumulating material for a national catastrophe. It should make this a day of fasting and prayer, not of boisterous merriment and idle pageantry—a day of great lamentation, not of congratulatory joy. It should spike every cannon, ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke

... the other told him jeeringly to lay the scourge upon his own shoulders and endure the pain, since he had betrayed himself. His mind was like a battle ground, torn, up-heaved, obscured by a frightful murk—he remembered a night in France, a black night of rumbling, crashing terror, when, as now, the whole world rocked and tumbled. Some remnant of self-control induced him to lock his door and pocket the key, for Buddy might come. He probably would look him up, all grins and smirks and giggles, to tell ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach

... shallow sleep he woke up in the morning factitiously refreshed as the train was rumbling slowly over the high-level bridge. The sun blinked full in his eyes when he looked out through the trellis-work of the bridge. Far below, the river was tinged with the pale blue of the sky. Big ships lay in ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett

... in silence moves the mighty stream, The silver-crested waves no murmur make; But far away the avalanches wake The rumbling echoes, dull as in a dream; Their momentary thunders, dying, seem To fall into the stillness, flake by flake, And leave the hollow air with naught to break The frozen ...
— Songs Out of Doors • Henry Van Dyke

... wall of the house twenty feet away was visible, with two or three windows, all tightly shuttered—a deserted and lonely sight. She was just about to close her window when a curious thing happened. The dog beside her uttered a rumbling, half-suppressed growl ...
— The Dragon's Secret • Augusta Huiell Seaman

... still further. Now we were rumbling along at a speed which made conversation easy. The blue eyes gave me ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... as we were all sitting on the ground I felt a sort of moving of the earth under me and heard a rumbling sound that seemed very queer. It seemed there was a motion also to the trees around us. We all started and looked a little frightened, and Skinner said he believed it was an earthquake, for he said he could see the motion in a sort of wave. It was gone ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly

... asked Ileliobas abruptly, as soon as the terrific uproar had subsided into a distant, dull rumbling mingled with the pattering dash ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... clanged somewhere below them, and the next moment there was a rumbling sound as the machinery was started. At the same moment there came the grinding of the anchor chains as they were raised. But the yacht did not move! Even after the anchor was up there was no movement except the throbbing of the whole vessel as the engines raced in the hold! Jeff's face grew ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the March - Bessie King's Test of Friendship • Jane L. Stewart

... the earthquake which breaketh and upbreaketh all that is rotten and hollow; the rolling, rumbling, punitive demolisher of whited sepulchres; the flashing ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche

... three-quarter pounds, is angular in shape, and he supposes that it is but the fragment of a much larger aerolite, since one loud explosion was heard and rumbling sounds, which may have denoted others, were heard ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various

... of their cementing parts, frequently make their appearance in spots where they might have been least expected. My attention has often been excited by the hollow sound which was produced by my casual footsteps, and which showed me that I trod upon the roof of caverns. A mountain-cave and the rumbling of an unseen torrent are appendages of this scene, dear to my youthful imagination. Many of romantic structure were found ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown

... last rumbling sound of the eastern train died away in the streets of Geneva, Nellie Ashton sat weeping in her little room at the seminary. She felt that now she was again alone in the wide, wide world. Eight years before she had in the short space of three weeks followed ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes

... tried the shelter of the solitary thicket in these wilds, but was quickly driven from my position. I next tried the hollow of a sand-hill, but there again I was beaten by the enemy; and before I had screened myself from the gust a quarter of an hour, a low rumbling sound, and the fall of pieces of the hill above, awoke me to the chance of being buried alive. I now disclaimed all shelter, and painfully gained the open country, with no other guide than my ear, which told me that I was leaving the sea ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various

... which a century before had come an Amos, a Hosea, a Micah and an Isaiah. Israel needed judgment and the North again stirred with its possibilities. Who would rise and spell into a clear Word of God the thunder which to all ears was rumbling there? ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith

... when he got home, and was carried up the well-remembered stairs, that there had been the rumbling of a coach for many hours together, while he lay upon the seat, with Florence still beside him, and old Mrs Pipchin sitting opposite. He remembered his old bed too, when they laid him down in it: his aunt, Miss Tox, and Susan: but there was something ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... respect or affection. This was the substance of what he repeated in different forms in reply to his father's angry letters. At length, his invariable determination made way with his father; the paternal thunderings were subdued to a distant rumbling in the sky; and presently the inquiry was broached as to how much fortune Miss Wilkins would have; how much down on her marriage; what were the eventual probabilities. Now this was a point which Mr. Ralph Corbet himself wished to be informed ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell

... heard a rumbling noise, immediately a flash of lightning; this increased so much that though the shutters were closed, and I covered in bed, I could see a blaze of light which continued some time, then louder thunder, so horrible as to throw me into a perspiration, after ...
— A Journey to America in 1834 • Robert Heywood

... voices of these men, rumbling and bellowing in the confined space, produced a wild effect. The whole setting was wild, and for the first time, regarding this strange woman and realizing how incongruous she was in it, I was aware of how much a part of it I was ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London

... Will (who turned very red this time), "that's my way of showing my rage; and I was confoundedly angry with you, cousin! But now 'tis my brother I hate, and that little devil of a Countess—a countess! a pretty countess, indeed!" And with another rumbling cannonade of oaths, Will saluted the reigning ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... was speech? The thunderstorm had passed over their heads and was rumbling over France. Henceforward powerless, they must undergo its consequences and hear its distant echoes without being able to influence the formidable elements that had been let loose ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc

... silent. There was a low, rumbling, awful noise, neither like distant thunder nor the report of cannon—nor, indeed, anything else I ever heard; the earth seemed to sink under our feet, and then as if it were being crushed together—rocks, and earth, and sand, all in one lump by some mighty force. It was very dreadful. Our knees ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston

... answered, "Ketina, Ketina, why shouldn't I know? When the Holy One—blessed be He!—thinks of His children who dwell in sorrowful circumstances among the nations of the earth, He lets fall two tears into the great sea, and His voice is heard from one end of the world to the other, and that is the rumbling noise we hear." Upon which Rav Ketina protested, "The conjurer is a liar, his words are not true; they might have been true, had there been two rumbling noises." The fact was, two such noises were heard, but Rav Ketina would not acknowledge it, lest, by so doing, he should increase ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various

... exiled lover's breast; and Mantua itself must have broken on him in the prospect, with its towers, and walls, and water, pretty much as on a commonplace and matrimonial omnibus. He made the same sharp twists and turns, perhaps, over two rumbling drawbridges; passed through the like long, covered, wooden bridge; and leaving the marshy water behind, approached the ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens

... passes, the train rolls on, the journey is so long, so long and wearisome, there is nothing we can do except listen to the rumbling of the wheels. An engine flares past, it sounds like iron striking iron, and I start, but she does not; she is probably entirely absorbed in thoughts about her friend. ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun

... soon to be dispelled. One night a deep rumbling roar was heard in the jungle through which they were picking their unanimous way. A shudder ran through the slaves. "Simba," they whispered in terror. A little while later there was another rumble, this time much closer. ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon

... undershirts, they worked all through the hot prairie evenings in the oil-smelling, greasy engine-room of the local power-house, in front of the dynamos, which kept evilly throwing out green sparks and rumbling the mystic syllable "Om-m-m-m," to greet their ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis

... useless, his ears were uncommonly acute, and through their instrumentality he became cognisant of a sound. It might have been distant thunder, but was too continuous and regular for that. It might have been the distant rumbling of heavy wagons or artillery over a paved road; but there were neither wagons nor roads in those African wilds. It might have been the prolonged choking of an alligator—it might, in fact, have been anything in a region like ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne

... to the rumbling of waggons. They came in from the plantations where since the early June daybreak Squire Willyams's foresters and gardeners had been cutting young larches, firs, laurels, aucubas. The waggons halted at every door and each householder took as much as he ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... this time, heard nothing of their great rumbling voices, being in as sound a sleep as he ever enjoyed in his life. He awoke early in the morning, and crept out of a shell—but he could hardly believe his eyes, and thought himself still dreaming, when he found himself and his shell on a very high, broad shelf, in a room bigger than any church ...
— The Last of the Huggermuggers • Christopher Pierce Cranch

... I know," cried Dick. "I say, is there anything the matter with him?" he added, for Josh was rumbling with indignation ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn

... position and found it desperate; discussed the immediate future to discover it threatening. Yet the gloom was irradiated by the glowing light of the prospective future; the rumbling of present fears was lost in the tinkling music of their ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson

... again and in an instant was forced to let go, as his assailant kicked with vicious cunning at his groin. Roger drew a great breath, filling his lungs to their utmost capacity, then, venting his loathing rage in a rumbling bellow, he dove in regardless. Straight against the ironlike claws he drove, reckless in the grasp of the anger that had exploded within him at the unfair trick. Up and back he beat the clutching hands, and drove ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen

... his voice rumbling through an echo of the thunder; she heard the sound of his pursuing horse in the rattle of the following rain. Her work was to keep this relentless lone rider away from Pierre; it was as if she strove to keep the ocean tide away ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick

... up his ulster. He would tell them about the cablegram when they were all on board the train. Then he ran out upon the platform just as the engine whistled twice in the final warning that precedes the first rumbling jerk of coupling pins. The others were on board, leaning out from the platform of a Pullman, crying to him to hurry. Quite five minutes elapsed before they were settled in their seats, nor was it until then that Clayton discovered that Tarzan ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... at the end of one of these gloomy caverns, extending several hundred feet into the interior of the mountain, he was surprised to hear a deep rumbling noise, increased in intensity by ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)

... that I landed with my family at Civita Vecchia, on my return for the third time to Rome. Before we could make all our arrangements, it was too late to think of journeying that day towards the dear old city; but the following morning we set forth in a rumbling, yellow post-coach, with three horses, and a shabby, gaudy postilion,—the wheels clattering, the bells on the horses' necks jingling, the cock's-plumes on their heads nodding, and a half-dozen sturdy ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various

... gilt signs. Cries of newsboys—and cheerful, happy cries they were—fell on his ears in sounds so incongruous to his mood that they pierced his soul like hurled javelins of steel. The affairs of the world, once so fascinating, were moving on; a juggernaut of a thousand wheels was rumbling toward him. He drew near his club. On the wide veranda, in easy-chairs, smoking and reading newspapers, sat several of his friends. He started to turn in on the walk which bisected the beautiful greensward, ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben

... fell on us, around us, descending perpendicularly, with a steady force; and the thunder rolled far off, as if coming from under the sea. Sometimes the muffled rumbling stopped, and let us hear plainly the gentle hiss and the patter of the drops falling upon a vast expanse. Suddenly, mingled with a loud detonation right over our heads, a burst of light outlined under ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer

... deeper-toned roar now, and they stood looking up once more, with Saxe troubled by a feeling of awe, as the noise came rumbling and echoing to ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn

... rumbling of the political earthquake that was to shake the country made itself audible beyond denial on that morning of March 27th, when the news spread through England that, in view of the disorganized state of the ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... be a very pronounced cavernous condition in this vicinity. At a number of places, even extending to a distance of 2 miles from Onyx Cave, the passage of a wagon produces a rumbling sound, indicative of a cavity at no great depth. There are also many sink holes, some closed, forming ponds, others with free openings. They are so numerous that no one of them drains any considerable area. The largest of these sinks measures ...
— Archeological Investigations - Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 76 • Gerard Fowke

... knob." There Rowlett halted again and pointed downward. Beneath them spread the valley with the band of the river winding tenuously through the bottoms of the Harper farm. About that green bowl the first voices of the coming storm were already rumbling with ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... about with much unconcern. Shaw chuckled. He flattered himself that he should be the death of some of them, if his own life were only spared a few moments. While he hammered the flint of his fowling-piece with an old jack-knife, he heard a distant rumbling sound, which soon waxed terrible, and caused him to thrust out his head. Thunder and Mars! what should he do? If he ran, it was all up with him, and he was a dead man if he staid where he was. A wild bull of the prairies was cutting up shines at no great distance, tearing up the sod ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various

... alas! how futile is the expectation of man! I had gone to my cabin and thrown myself on the sofa, and fallen into a canine slumber—that is, one eye shut and the other open—when I heard a confused kind of rumbling noise, and soon afterwards the officer of the watch tumbled down the hatchway and called out to me that the ship was aground on the French coast, but that the fog, which had come on about an hour after I quitted the deck, was so dense that the land could not be seen. I had only taken off my coat ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman

... firewood, made a bed on the soft bark, and waited. The first night shift of the week did not start work till one o'clock on Monday morning, and the mine was silent save for the slow puffing of the pumping engine and the deliberate rumbling ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson

... whose genial influence we begin to feel that the worst is over. Unfortunately, however, with the spread of sunshine among us there is the muttering of a storm at our backs: the butler pushes his female assistant aside with deep rumbling growls, and presently explodes with open rage at her stupidity. The diners turn and stare incredulous and amazed. The butler rushes madly from the room. The female assistant, agitated but obstinate, seizes the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various

... drawers, a stand by the bed with a Bible worn to a soft gray and a night lamp on it, some faded photographs tacked to the white walls—this was an odd reception room. She hesitated, and again the faint rumbling sound pointed to some person stirring and she went into the ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon

... last trace of silver to vanish from a high part of the sky above where the sunset had been—and it would not. I would shut my eyes for an age, and then open them again, and the silver was always in the sky. The cars kept rumbling up the hill and bumping down the hill. And there was still that soft, languid feeling over everything. And all the heat of the day remained. Sometimes a waft of hot air moved the white curtains. Margaret ate something off a plate. The servant stole in. ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett

... and young Bawdrey and Captain Travers carried the stricken man up the stairs to his own bed-chamber, his wife flying in advance to see that everything was prepared for him, Cleek, standing all alone beside the shattered cabinet, could hear Mr. Robert Murdock's dismal croakings rumbling steadily out as he mounted ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew

... my slower and larger machine. They had no time to wait for me. They were American boys on their errands of mercy, and the front was calling them. I knew that something must be going on off toward the front lines, for the rumbling of the big guns had been going on for an hour. As these ambulances passed me—more than twenty-five of them passed as silent ships pass in the night—that phrase kept singing: "Traveller, hast thou ever seen so great a ...
— Soldier Silhouettes on our Front • William L. Stidger

... scene after the celebration of Mass. In a hundred portals and alleys, public and private vehicles were awaiting the peal of the unmuffled church bells. The instant this was heard there was a rush in all directions—the clanking of a thousand ponies' feet; the rumbling sound of hundreds of carriages. The mingled shouts of the natives and the Chinese coolies showed with what bated anxiety and forced subjection material interest and the affairs of this life had been held in check and made subservient ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... became deafening: the trampling of feet, the rushing hither and thither, the cries, the imprecations, and from beneath the tribunes in their distant prisons, the roar of caged beasts like the far-off rumbling of thunder. ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... return to the front. There were two days of bustling preparation, and then the troops entrained and were carried back to where the noise of the seventy-fives on the one side and the seventy-sevens on the other, came rumbling and thundering again to their ears, and the pall of smoke along the horizon marked the location of the ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene

... a long, low rumbling sound, apparently moving from east to west, followed by a tipping of the moraine which almost brought the ...
— The Call of the Beaver Patrol - or, A Break in the Glacier • V. T. Sherman

... knew! If only I could tell, before I die, on which of the roads I am traveling to eternity!" was the constant cry of his troubled soul. Once when these words had just escaped his lips, he suddenly heard a strange and rumbling sound that seemed to come from the very heart of the earth, and he felt the ground beneath his feet begin to shake. Unable to understand what had happened, Edwin hastened to the house, but the people there were as mystified as he himself, ...
— The Poorhouse Waif and His Divine Teacher • Isabel C. Byrum

... the great world beyond was fighting through the rumbling centuries over its Christ, its Buddha, its Mahomet, a line of other men plodded the stubborn path to this beloved spot, their shoulders bent beneath their presents, and made their prayer and offered their gifts to the Gilded Man who lived below the waters. A tenth, more often a half, ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... had gone with the suddenness of a cyclone. It went, rumbling up the valley, the dust cloud hovering over it, blotting out its movements. It roared past the Circle L bunkhouses, leaving behind it a number of Circle L cowboys who had been awakened by the thunderous noise. The Circle L men had plunged outside in various stages of undress—all ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer

... Charlotte Bronte paid another visit to London, and later to Scotland, where she found Edinburgh "compared to London like a vivid page of history compared to a dull treatise on political economy; as a lyric, brief, bright, clean, and vital as a flash of lightning, compared to a great rumbling, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... it comes to the bottom it emits a sound as if some one were uttering a loud sigh. The first noise it makes on its being first parted with affects the ear like a subterranean thunder. This rumbling or thundering noise continues for some time, and then decreases as the stone falls against first one hard rock and then another at a greater and a greater depth, and at length, when it has for some time been falling, the noise stops with a kind of whizzing or a hissing murmur. ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz

... carriage," she told herself, as a rumbling of wheels took her attention. "Perhaps the driver will give ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose

... was aware of a throbbing on the night wind, and a faint shrill note that lay deep in the shadows beyond. It was a curious rumbling noise, as though ghosts of the hills on the right were playing bowls with rounded rocks. And the shrilling skirl grew louder as if ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser

... convince him that it was almost futile. The later of the two trains by which Sisily might have fled from Cornwall had reached London and discharged its passengers somewhere about the time that Mr. Peter Portgartha, in the depth of the rumbling wagonette, was paying his tribute to shrinking female modesty as ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees

... Sue slept rather late the next morning, but when they did awaken they heard a queer rumbling on the road beside which their automobile was ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue on an Auto Tour • Laura Lee Hope

... dripping wet rock shutting you in, as it were, all round your back and sides against the ladder—the fathomless darkness beneath—the light flaring immediately above you, as if your head was on fire—the voice of the miner below, rumbling away in dull echoes lower and lower into the bowels of the earth—the consciousness that if the rounds of the ladder broke, you might fall down a thousand feet or so of narrow tunnel in a moment—imagine all this, and you may ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins

... and parched; but even as we walked, a remarkable phenomenon occurred, which told of impending changes. I was oppressed with a sense of coming evil. I listened intently when Yamba requested me to do so, but at first all I could hear was a curious rumbling sound, far away in the distance. This noise gradually increased in volume, and came nearer and nearer, but still I was utterly unable to account for it. I also noticed that the river was becoming strangely agitated, and was swirling along at ever- increasing speed. Suddenly an enormous ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont

... down the street to Mrs. Sproul's as rapidly as possible to be rid of my own company. As I repeated the words that the parson had used to Mr. Jeffries I noticed one great white cloud with a dark center flash fire into another, to a great crashing and rumbling. "I wonder if it is really going to storm," I speculated gloomily, as I turned into the Sproul gate, but the brilliant sunshine seemed to fling me a dazzling denial from every petal of the white clematis that wreathed itself ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess

... of celestial chivalry," as these fighting ancestors of ours used to say. It was wild and stormy, for the summer and autumn had been so wet that the crops were still uncarried through the country. The river below was rushing onward in high flood; here it came tumbling, there it rolled rumbling; here it leapt splashing, there it rushed dashing; like the water at Lodore; and seemed to shake the rocks on which ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake

... them. They were about four feet apart, fastened to thick pieces of timber, and they, too, like everything else, ran on and on, and he mounted and rode along them much puzzled. Presently far ahead of him there was a sudden, unearthly shriek, the rumbling sound of a coming storm, rolling black smoke beyond the crest of a little hill, and a swift huge mass swept into sight and, with another fearful blast, bore straight at him. The old nag snorted with terror, and in terror dashed up the hill, while the boy lay back and pulled helplessly ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.

... on the terrace, dreaming of his club, of the noisy Paris crowd, of the rumbling omnibuses, of the playbill of the little kiosk, of the scent of heated asphalt—and the memory of the least of these enchantments brought infinite peace to his soul. The inhabitant of Paris has one great blessing, which ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... spot till broad daylight and witnessed several eruptions at an interval of twenty or twenty-five minutes. I remarked that the mountain toward the summit forms two cones, one of which vomited fire and smoke, and the other calcined stones and ashes, accompanied by a rumbling noise like thunder. The stones came clattering down the flanks of the mountain and some of them rolled very near us; had we been within the radius formed by the erupted stones we probably should have ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye

... this point to Belgrade presents no particular interest. Half an hour from the city I crossed the celebrated trenches of Marshal Laudohn; and rumbling through a long cavernous gateway, called the Stamboul Kapousi, or gate of Constantinople, again found myself in Belgrade, thankful for the past, and congratulating myself on the circumstances of my trip. I had seen a state of patriarchal manners, the prominent features of which will be at no ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton

... by many gestures of his hands, head, and tail. It was, no doubt, exceedingly eloquent. Similar speeches delivered by other old araguato chiefs, have been compared to the creaking of an ungreased bullock-cart, mingled with the rumbling of ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... them with anything but a shudder), would be multiplied indefinitely by so slow a method of proceeding. Certainly this question of money was a serious one, and it was this that Madelon was revolving, as she sat gazing at the golden sunset sky, when she was startled by a sudden rumbling and tumbling in the corridor; in another moment the door was burst open, and Soeur Lucie and another sister appeared, dragging between them a corded trunk, of the most secular appearance, which had apparently seen many places, for ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter

... stept, Smiling first a little smile, As if he knew what magic slept In his quiet pipe the while; And ere three shrill notes the pipe uttered, You heard as if an army muttered; And the muttering grew to a grumbling, And the grumbling grew to a mighty rumbling, And out of the houses the rats came tumbling,— Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats, Brown rats, black rats, gray rats, tawny rats, Grave old plodders, gay young friskers, Fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins, ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson

... and picking quarrels upon unconscionably slight provocation almost daily. He had even challenged our gunboats, disputing the passage up the river in an artillery duello at the Bluffs, not far above the Landing, whose hoarse, sullen rumbling had reached us where we were resting on that Thursday afternoon, at the distance of thirty miles back toward Nashville. But, then, on how few fields had Southern chivalry ever yet ventured to attack; how seldom, but when fairly cornered, had ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... bass came and lay flat on the pedal; but immediately there arose such a rumbling in the box that all the fishes hastily ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg

... The rumbling of the great hempen cable out through the hawse-pipe served as a signal to some dozen or more of poor scurvy-stricken wretches who lay gasping in their hammocks in the stifling forecastle. They had heard the cry of "Land ho!" some hours before, and had groaned with bitter ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... wailing and gnashing of teeth, the newspaper contents bills, 'The Thrift Frauds. Cross-examination of the accused. Extra special'—blazing fiercely; the charitable appeals for the victims, the grave tones of the dailies rumbling with compassion as if they were the national bowels. All this lasted a whole week of industrious sittings. A pressman whom I knew told me, 'He's an idiot.' Which was possible. Before that I overheard once somebody declaring that he had a criminal ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad

... is like a shell on the shore of a creek, always rumbling with the rumour of the little sea it lives under; and by noon the girls, who had been palpitating with curiosity, thought they knew everything that had happened—how at four in the morning Father Giovanni and Sister Angela had been seen ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine

... opposite effect from what was intended by the redoubtable doctor. The great panic of 1857 had had a very depressing effect on business of every description and it was contended that the passage of this measure would give employment to thousands of people; that the rumbling of the locomotive would soon be heard in every corner of the state, and that the dealer in town lots and broad acres would again be able to complacently inform the newcomer the exact locality where ...
— Reminiscences of Pioneer Days in St. Paul • Frank Moore

... the Thunder-god became, in popular superstition, "St. Ilya" (or Elijah), and the day dedicated to him, July 20th (old style), is called "Ilya the Thunder-bringer." Elijah's fiery chariot, the lightning, rumbling across the sky, brings a thunder-storm on or very near that date; and although Perun's name is forgotten in Russia proper, he still remains, under his new title, the patron of the husbandman, as he was in heathen times. ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood

... their chalet, and then slowly strolled back to the Casino. The terrace was nearly empty; every one had gone to listen to the operetta, the sound of whose contemporary gayety came through the open, hot-looking windows in little thin quavers and catches. The ocean was rumbling just beneath; it made a ruder but richer music. Bernard stood looking at it a moment; then he went down the steps to the beach. The tide was rather low; he walked slowly down to the line of the breaking waves. The sea looked huge and black ...
— Confidence • Henry James

... occupied; the rich foliage of the butter-nut tree that shaded them; the wooded heights above, and the deep-channeled river flowing by; together with a stillness made more thrilling by the sound of the cataract, for a moment rumbling like near-coming thunder, and then dying away into a continuous moan, soft and absolutely musical, whilst afar off its light vapoury masses gently rose and fell, converted by the morning sun into clouds of silver tissue. I have often, amongst other vain wishes, sighed for the possession ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power

... thought, an hour, after which he walked a mile or two, and then broke into a run again. The grass was short; he struck no brush, and the ax did not encumber him. He imagined that dawn must be getting near when a dazzling flash swept the prairie and there was a long reverberatory rumbling overhead. He was almost blinded and bewildered, doubly uncertain where he was going; and then a great stream of white fire fell from the zenith. The thunder that followed was deafening, and for the next few minutes blaze succeeded ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss

... out to make sure no soldiers were attempting the passage, Koolau started back on the run for the caves. All the time the shells were moaning, whining, screaming by, and the valley was rumbling and reverberating with the explosions. As he came in sight of the caves, he saw the two idiots cavorting about, clutching each other's hands with their stumps of fingers. Even as he ran, Koolau saw a spout of black ...
— The House of Pride • Jack London

... that was almost invisible. A deepening and somber gloom spread itself like a veil over the river that only a short time before had reflected the glory of the sun in the faces of dark-visaged men of the Company brigade. And with the gloom came steadily nearer a low rumbling of thunder. ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood

... mood which came near being too much for him, his face cleared and he leaned back, quietly smoking. From the rug rose a muffled rumbling where Mrs Gummidge dozed in peace. The clock ticked sharply. A mouse dropped silently from the window curtain ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers

... wall underneath the station clock, and observed that the 7.30 train from Washington was five minutes late. Accompanied by Jack he walked up and down the platform until the train, with the usual accompaniment of panting steam and clanging bell and rumbling trucks, pulled into the station, and drew up on the third or fourth track from the iron railing. Mr. Clayton stationed himself at the gate nearest the rear end of the train, reasoning that the Congressman would ride in ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt

... Harlowe, to forbid her to correspond with her daughter. Mr. Hickman, she says, is of opinion, 'that she ought not to obey her mother.' How the creeping fellow trims between both! I am afraid, that I must punish him, as well as this virago; and I have a scheme rumbling in my head, that wants but half an hour's musing to bring into form, that will do my business upon both. I cannot bear, that the parental authority should be thus despised, thus trampled under foot. But observe the vixen, ''Tis well he is ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... tell how long—I was suddenly awakened by a roaring, rumbling sound. I instantly seized my gun, sprang to my horse, and hurriedly secreted him in the brush. Then I climbed up the steep side of the bank and cautiously looked over the summit; in the distance I saw a large herd of buffaloes which were being chased and fired ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody

... a distant rumbling as of thunder. "'Tis the Ogre!" cried the Fairy. "We must hasten." Seizing the scissors that lay on the ground where Ethelried had dropped them, she opened and ...
— The Gate of the Giant Scissors • Annie Fellows Johnston

... Adventurer. 'Twas but a small matter prevented me from setting up my Coach, and was only hindered by the fact that the Police Laws of Amsterdam are very strict against Wheeled carriages, allowing only a certain and very small number, lest the rumbling of the Wheels should disturb the good thrifty Burghers at their Accompts. For most vehicles they have what they call a Sley, which is the body of a Coach fastened on to a Sledge with ropes, and drawn by one Horse. A Fellow walks by the side on't, and holds on with one hand to prevent ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala

... Hempstead. The full story of the Porrier's Corner Club, of which Mr. Holliday and myself are the only members, is yet to be told. As far as I was concerned it was love at first sight. This burly soul, rumbling Johnsonianly upon lettered topics, puffing unending Virginia cigarettes, gazing with shy humor through thick-paned spectacles—well, on Friday, June 23, 1916, Bob and I decided to collaborate in writing a farcical novel. ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley



Words linked to "Rumbling" :   grumbling, full, noise



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