"Clatter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... anchor-chains, demurred; but a word and a gesture from the Sahib who had turned the hose on a drunken man convinced them that the two would not be in the way. A clatter of steel against steel presently followed, the windlass whined and rattled, and Elsa saw the anchor rise slowly from the deeps, bringing up a blur of muddy water; and blobs of pale clay dripped from the anchor-flukes. A moment after she felt the old ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... a low whistle, answered instantly by another, just as the main party was nearing the corner by the church of San Piero. That was the last the two loiterers remembered, for at the next instant they lay in a heap upon the halberds, which had fallen upon the pavement with a tremendous clatter. A couple of well-delivered blows with a stout stick had thoroughly stunned them almost at the same instant. It would be some time before ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... one grows tired at length of the noise and clatter of machinery; and it was with a feeling of relief that we mounted to the packing-room, where all was so light, cheerful, and orderly, as to prove that the good management everywhere perceptible had here put on its pleasantest expression. The most perfect cleanliness prevails. The ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461 - Volume 18, New Series, October 30, 1852 • Various
... way from Frankfort to Halle, in a "nich rauchen" car, too, a jolly old gentleman, whose joyous and abundant German sounded to me like the clatter of a thousand of brick, wound up a kind of promiscuous avalanche of declamation by pulling a matchbox from his pocket, and proceeding deliberately to light his pipe. The tobacco was detestable. Now, if a man must smoke, I think he is ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... his little strength to it this morning and drew it down, carefully, without much clatter, on the hearth. Then he thought how it would turn red under those ashes, where the big coals were, and how it would shine and sparkle when he pulled it out again, like the red-hot, hissing iron Jack-the-Giant-Killer struck into the one-eyed monster's eye. So he shoved it in; and forgot it there, ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... the boards were collected for the stage. Agamemnon and Solomon John gave themselves to the work, and John Osborne helped zealously. He said the Pan-Elocutionists would lend a scene also. There was a great clatter of bandboxes, and piles of shawls in corners, and such a piece of work in getting up the curtain! In the midst of it came in the little boys, shouting, "All the tickets are sold, at ...
— The Peterkin Papers • Lucretia P Hale
... replacing of them after the breakfast and dinner is served. The smaller ones, which are for game, dessert, or for hot cakes at breakfast, can be tucked under the edges of the plate, and the large ones, for the meat and vegetables, are placed outside of them. Be very careful not to clatter your knives and forks upon your plates, but use them without noise. When passing the plate for a second helping, lay them together at one side of the plate, with handles to the right. When you are helped to anything, do not wait until the rest of the company are provided, as it is not considered ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette
... the next step. Paddock used to arrive punctually at 7.30 and let himself in with a latch-key. But about twenty minutes to seven, as I knew from bitter experience, the milkman turned up with a great clatter of cans, and deposited my share outside my door. I had seen that milkman sometimes when I had gone out for an early ride. He was a young man about my own height, with an ill-nourished moustache, and he wore a white overall. On him I ...
— The Thirty-nine Steps • John Buchan
... well be imagined that the animals were less convinced of the necessity of this performance than their masters. Wonderful was the clatter and confusion, horrible the uproar raised behind to make the poor things proceed at all, desperate the shout when some half- frantic creature kicked or attempted a charge wild the glee when a persecuted goat or sheep took heart of grace, and ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in a vinegar bottle. Now, one day when Mr. Vinegar was from home and Mrs. Vinegar, who was a very good housewife, was busily sweeping her house, an unlucky thump of the broom brought the whole house clitter-clatter about her ears. In a paroxysm of grief she rushed forth to meet her husband. On seeing him she exclaimed, "Oh, Mr. Vinegar, Mr. Vinegar, we are ruined, we are ruined: I have knocked the house down, and ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... contralto was rather deepened. One and all wished to "do something"—anything "to help"—and one and all rebelled that the colonel had begged them to remain within doors. There was an occasional quick step on the veranda, or the clatter of a hoof on the parade, a continued but subdued murmur from the whitewashed barracks, but everywhere a ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... working his way in this fashion toward the edge of the water when he heard a clatter of wings and the next moment a flock of mallards rushed in swift flight over his head. He impulsively threw up his gun to fire but some instinct checked him. He was in a country of dangerous enemies and the thought of bears still loomed large in his mind. An instant's ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... 'neath the foam of old lace, A half-languid smile upon each listless face,— A dreaming of roses and rose-leaf shades,— A medley of modern and Grecian maids. Such clatter and clink One scarcely can think Till he spies a shy nook where he lonely can sink,— For how can a bachelor be at his ease With such chatter and ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... evening to undertake the rendering of a work which, unfortunately, can only be butchered on a piano. Of all Wagner's music the Walkueren Ride is least adapted to our homely instrument. Nevertheless the wild clatter, the exciting crepitation of the treble, the thunderous booming of the bass, and above all the tremendous crash with which it ends, always stimulates me to fresh mental effort. I saw plainly, as I listened, that my surmise was correct. ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... noise like a clatter of old iron was heard on the Place; it was the "Hirondelle" coming in, and he remained with his forehead against the windowpane, watching all the passengers get out, one after the other. Felicite put down a mattress for him in the drawing-room. ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... at the early table-d'hote, where a number of the officers of the garrison, with some other regular diners, whom we learnt to recognize in time as the town bailiff, the apothecary and the advocate, were despatching, in the midst of great clatter and bustle, the inevitable kalbsfleisch ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... eyes to heaven, she vows that Harry knows nothing of the truth and fidelity of women; it is his sex, on the contrary, which proverbially is faithless, and which delights to play with poor female hearts. A scuffle ensues; a clatter is heard among the knives and forks of the dessert; a glass tumbles over and breaks. An "Oh!" escapes from the innocent lips of Maria, The disturbance has been caused by the broad cuff of Mr. Warrington's coat, which has been stretched across the table to seize ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... almost together. Smith had dropped the cane, and now held his pistol in his hand. Together we fired into the chasm of the corridor, and in the flash, saw Van Roon hurling himself down the stairs. He went silently in his stockinged feet, and our own clatter was drowned by the awful booming of the thunder which ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... passed in answering the buxom woman's questions, and odd times such occasional ones as were slipped in by Mistress Madison; and then, suddenly there came the clatter of men's feet overhead, and, later, the thud of something being cast down upon the deck, and so we knew that the reeds had come. At that, Mistress Madison cried out that we should go and watch the men try them upon the weed; for that if they proved of use in easing ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... dreadful to say! He came where the railroad was just in his way— And alas! and alack! He tripped on the track And then with a terrible, sudden ker-thwack! Triangular Tommy sprawled flat on his back— And the train came along with a crash, and a crack, A din, and a clatter, a clang, and a clack, A toot, and a boom, and a roar, and a hiss, And chopped him up all into pieces like this— If you cut out papers just like them, why, then, If you try, you can put ...
— The Jingle Book • Carolyn Wells
... chastiser of foes, viz., prince Pratarddana to march against the sons of Vitahavya and slay them in battle. Endued with great powers. Pratarddana, that subjugator of hostile cities speedily crossed Ganga on his car and proceeded against the city of the Vitahavyas. Hearing the clatter produced by the wheels of his car, the sons of Vitahavya, riding on their own cars that looked like fortified citadels and that were capable of destroying hostile vehicles, issued out of their city. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... availed him nothing. A lifted foot struck an empty soap box with a clatter to wake the seven sleepers. Instantly he knew it had been put there for him to stumble over. A strong searchlight flooded the stairs and focused on him. He caught a momentary glimpse of a featureless face standing ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... comparatively easy, later on, to go into particulars with Isa. With the roar and clatter growing hourly more deafening in the tavern, Isa and Joyce, sitting on the back porch under the calm stars, spoke freely to ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... beiden Neffen, oder der Onkel aus Boston' (The Two Nephews, or the Uncle from Boston), which had gone most successfully, and now Zelter held up his hand as a signal that he had something important to say. All eyes were turned to him, and the clatter of tongues ceased in a moment. The old musician's face was lighted up by a most unusual expression. His grumpiness had cleared away, and a look of benevolence beamed from his eyes, in which ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... upflung billowing clouds of thick dust. So far the noise was only and all of guns and shell fire, but now from far out on one of the flanks a new note began to weave itself into the uproar—the sharper crackle and clatter ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... reached the door, Leneli sat down on the step, and Mother Adolf put the baby in her arms and went at once into the quiet house. Then there was a sound of quick steps about the kitchen, a rattling of the stove, and a clatter of tins which must have pleased the cuckoo, and soon she reappeared in the door with a bowl and ...
— The Swiss Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... crags, which would be reasonably certain to be free from picnic parties. It would be agreeable also to sleep in a chamber far from town noises and grimes, with few honks from late excursionists and but little early morning clatter from a diminished staff. And the river boats ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... hear the cry of 'Fire!' which rang out from the house, and they were still sitting undisturbed while men ran with hose and buckets, and a clamour arose in the stable-yard for more water, and a clatter of horses' hoofs could be heard as a groom galloped off for the nearest fire-engine. The yew-hedged garden where they sat was distant a long way from the house, and it was not until a heavy cloud of smoke rose up against the sky ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... other day. We'd planned a great home-comin'. No long trombone we had to play, No fine, heroic drummin'. With two sticks and a milk-can Borne Put up a martial clatter, While Carter blew a bullock-horn Says Tom Devine, with healthy scorn; "Gorstruth! ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson
... "roab'd in flames and amber light," but covered all in a rainy mist, which the wind mingled with salt spray torn from the tops of the waves. Every now and then the wind blew a blastful of larger drops against the window of my study with an angry clatter and clash, as if daring me to go out and meet its ire. The earth was very dreary, for there were no shadows anywhere. The sun was hustled away by the crowding vapours; and earth, sea, and sky were possessed by a gray spirit that ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... smashed aie! aie! clatter! clatter! screams of infantine rage and feminine remonstrance, feet pattering, and a general hullabaloo, cut the soft recital in two. The ladies clasped hands, ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... and clatter, and an inhuman abandonment of consideration not easy to be understood in these days, the carriage dashed through streets and swept round corners, with women screaming before it, and men clutching each ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... ran to the gate, and the troopers were there — The jingle of hobbles came faint on the air — Then loudly she screamed: it was only to drown The treacherous clatter of slip-rails let down. But troopers are sharp, and she saw at a glance That someone was ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... yet with a certain mourn-fulness—were scarcely out of his lips, than he had quitted the room. They soon heard the clatter of his horse along the avenue. Major Harper was gone out into the busy world again. He never set foot in quiet ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... land my first salmon, weight unknown, on an eight-ounce rod. I heard California, at my ear it seemed, gasping: "He's a fighter from Fightersville, sure!" as his fish made a fresh break across the stream. I saw Portland fall off a log fence, break the overhanging bank, and clatter down to the pebbles all sand and landing net, and I dropped on a log ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... big, rough fellow and the daintily bred girl had found an acquaintance in common? There seemed to be a gulf between them as wide as the world, yet evidently they had hit upon some subject which interested them both. Through the clatter of dishes Max caught words, or fragments of sentences, all spoken in French. The man had a common accent, but the girl's was charming. She had a peculiarly sweet, soft voice, that somehow matched the sweetness and softness of the long, straight-lashed eyes under the low, level brows, ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... of kitchen inferno, above which, in a beehive of little brightly lit rooms, disheveled men sit and scribble. There is a throbbing of telephones and a clicking of telegraph needles, a rushing of messengers, a running to and fro of heated men, clutching proofs and copy. Then begins a clatter roar of machinery catching the infection, going faster and faster, and whizzing and banging,—engineers, who have never had time to wash since their birth, flying about with oil-cans, while paper runs off its rolls with a shudder of haste. The proprietor you must ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... is—was—so crazy about. I jerked off the light, and crouched way back in a corner of the closet. A velvet evening wrap fell down over my head, and I was nearly smothering, but I was afraid to try to dislodge it for fear a hanger would fall to the floor and make an awful clatter. And then—and then—" She shuddered, and clung to ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... from the cities mingled with moon-faced but astute countrymen who manipulated votes amongst farms and villages; fat or cadaverous, Irish, German or American, all bore in common a certain indefinable stamp. Having eaten my breakfast in a large dining-room that resounded with the clatter of dishes, I directed my steps to the apartment occupied from year to year by Colonel Paul Barney, generalissimo of the Railroad on the legislative battlefield,—a position that demanded a ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... pretty impressions,—as the old filbert-trees that fringed the orchard, the wall-flowers, which our guide called the blood-warriors, on the ruined coping, a flight of pigeons turning with a sharp clatter in the air. At last he left us to go about his little business; and we, sitting on a broken mounting-block in the sunshine, gazed lazily and contentedly ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... arroyo the faint clatter of shod hoofs came from above. He drew close to a cutbank, leaning his shoulder against it easily. With a slither of sand, the first horse took the pitch, legs angled awkwardly as he worked down. The second rider followed, the ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... bleezing finely, {148c} Wi' reaming swats, that drank divinely; {148d} And at his elbow, Souter Johnny, His ancient, trusty, drouthy crony; Tam lo'ed him like a vera brither - They had been fou for weeks thegither! The night drave on wi' sangs and clatter, And aye the ale was growing better: The landlady and Tam grew gracious, Wi' favours secret, sweet, and precious; The Souter tauld his queerest stories, The landlord's laugh was ready chorus: The storm without might rair and rustle - Tam didna mind ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... there was no shock of lance on shield, no crash and clang of armour that 'could be heard at a mile's distance,' as in the days of Ivanhoe. There was only the sharp rattle of fencing-sticks against each other and the masks, the clatter of eighty-eight hooves on hard ground; a lively confusion of horses and men, advancing, backing, 'turning on a sixpence' to meet a sudden attack; voices, Indian and English, shouting or cheering; and the intermittent call of the umpire declaring ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... slipped in at the side door and up the back stair. It was the day the Misses Armstrong entertained the whist club, and a clatter of teacups and a hum of voices told her the guests were not yet gone. She removed her hat, and smoothed her hair absently; her thoughts were down on Willow Lane busy with the complex problem of the Perkins family. The windows were opened, and the sound of swishing skirts and laughing voices came ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... as yo' may as well leave th' engineer be," Joan would say dryly. "Yo' will na fear him much, an' yo'll tire yo'rsens wi' yo're clatter. I donna see the good o' barkin' so ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... there are enough on either side to devastate the land and rob us of comfort and peace. One wakes in the middle of the night, at the clatter of horses riding by like the wind, and wonders whether it's friend or foe, and trembles till they're out of hearing, for fear the door is to be broken in or the house fired. And the sound of shots in the night, and the distant glare of flames when some poor ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... mother filled a basket with all manner of food, and poured wine in a goat-skin bottle. Olive oil also she gave her, that Nausicaa and her maidens might anoint themselves after the bath. And Nausicaa took the reins, and touched the mules with the whip. Then was there a clatter of hoofs, and the mules went on with their load, nor did they ...
— The Story Of The Odyssey • The Rev. Alfred J. Church
... from his heavy sleep much later than usual to hear the clatter of dishes in the next room. Going and coming rose a rather metallic voice humming an old-time chanson of the Quartier. He had never heard Mlle. Fouchette sing before; yet it was ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... it is true, by the destruction of his country's capital; but he was delighted and moved with the pathos of his own words to such a degree that his eyes filled with tears on a sudden. At last he dropped the lute to his feet with a clatter, and, wrapping himself in the "syrma," stood as if petrified, like one of those statues of Niobe which ornamented the courtyard ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... of the darkness and at that instant I made a discovery. Leith was not alone. Keeping time with the clatter of the shoes was a softer tattoo that told me that a barefooted runner was racing beside the man we ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... was replied to, more faintly, by several others. Then came the clatter of some sort of utensils, and sundry other noises which spoke loudly of humans. Rolla froze in her tracks, and her teeth ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... tracing his way with his finger along the top line of the distemper that runs round the wall. He stops under the window, and, picking up the lid of one of the tins, peers into it. It has grown very nearly dark. Suddenly the lid falls out of his hand with a clatter—the only sound that has broken the silence—and he stands staring intently at the wall where the stuff of the shirt is hanging rather white in the darkness—he seems to be seeing somebody or something there. There is a sharp tap and click; the cell ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... wheelbarrow of ore out to the tunnel's mouth, heard a howl and broke into a run with his load, bursting out into the sunlight with a clatter and upsetting the barrow ten feet short of the regular dumping place. Marie was frantically trying to untie the rope, and was having trouble because Lovin Child was in one of his worst kicking-and-squirming tantrums. Cash rushed in and snatched ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... head down, and ran from his shoulders. The clatter, clatter, jingle, jingle, on the hard road came to him through the still frost on a level with his left ear. It was terrible, but he held on, dodging under the hedges to be out of sight, and the sound lessened, and by-and-by, the road having wound about, ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... experience had made her eyes shine like stars. She saw only the magnolia tree shaped like a heart, the terrace edged with low shrubbery, and beyond the faint gleam that was the river. For her the dish-washing clatter of the kitchen was stilled, the noises from the bar were lost in the ripple of the river; the scent of the grass killed the odor of stale beer that wafted out through the open windows. The unshaded glare of the lights behind ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... news that he was elected consul for the fifth time, and they delivered him letters to this effect. This cause of great rejoicing being added to the celebration of the victory, the army transported with delight sent forth one universal shout, accompanied with the noise and clatter of their arms, and the officers crowned Marius afresh with a wreath of bay, on which he set fire to the heap, and ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... bed, heavy, unrefreshed, and with a splitting headache. The clock on the mantelpiece was striking three o'clock; from below I could hear the clatter of vehicles in the courtyard, and the distant roar of traffic from the streets beyond. Slowly I realized that it was three o'clock in the afternoon; the events of the night before re-formed themselves in my mind. I rang the bell for the valet and ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and even the solitary keepers who were left in charge died unaccountably. This was because the ghost of the tortured one pervaded its damp rooms and breathed blights and curses on the occupants. Its appearance was always heralded by a clatter of hoofs on the stone bridge leading into the court. The on-rush of spectre horses is variously explained, some believing that the dead man is leading an assault on the fort, others wondering if ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... the old Arizona, the marvel of her day, was proportionately stronger, handier, better equipped, than this triumph of modern naval architecture, the loss of which, in common parlance, will remain the sensation of this year. The clatter of the presses has been worthy of the tonnage, of the preliminary paeans of triumph round that vanished hull, of the reckless statements, and elaborate descriptions of its ornate splendour. A great babble of news (and what sort of news too, good heavens!) and eager comment has arisen ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... subdued clatter of dinnerware and the buzz of conversation was dying out; the soft music that drifted down from the overhead sound outlets seemed louder as the competing noises diminished. The feast was drawing to a close, and Dallona of Hadron fidgeted nervously ...
— Last Enemy • Henry Beam Piper
... in the battle—between 3000 and 4000 in number, including the generals Damasippus, Carrinas, and the severely-wounded Pontius— were by Sulla's orders on the third day after the battle brought to the Villa Publica in the Campus Martius and there massacred to the last man, so that the clatter of arms and the groans of the dying were distinctly heard in the neighbouring temple of Bellona, where Sulla was just holding a meeting of the senate. It was a ghastly execution, and it ought not to be excused; but it is not right to forget that those very men who perished there had fallen ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... turning to re-enter my library I should see something which would make my brain throb madly and my pulses start. I did not therefore instantly turn, but let the wind blow the door to with a loud clatter, while I walked quickly into my dining -room and drained a glass of cooking-sherry to the dregs. I do not introduce the cooking-sherry here for the purpose of eliciting a laugh from the reader, but in order to be faithful to life as we live it. All our other sherry had been used by ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... wraith, the hall was empty when P. Sybarite entered it. But it echoed with sounds of rowdy revelry from the room in back: mechanical clatter of galled and spavined piano, despondent growling of a broken-winded 'cello, nervous giggling and moaning of an excoriated violin—the three wringing from the score of O You Beautiful Doll an entirely adequate accompaniment to the perfunctory ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... guard with a clatter of sabres, then two heralds, and finally Her Majesty Hedwige, Queen of Hesse-Weimar, who proceeded to the ...
— A Royal Prisoner • Pierre Souvestre
... street Thornton heard the clatter of horses' hoofs coming on rapidly. He paid no attention until they were close to him, so close that from the corner of his eye he caught the flutter of a woman's skirt. Then he knew who it was before she passed on. One was Pollard looking white and sick; the other, rosy cheeked and bright ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... interrupted by the clatter of feet on the gallery stairs, and heads began to appear over the wooden parapet. Several junior counsel filed into the seats in front of us; Mr. Lawley and his clerk entered the attorney's bench; the ushers took their stand below the jury-box; ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... kitchen was heard, succeeded by a violent clatter of slip-shod shoes through the entry; for Martha, since the late burglary, being haunted in idea by shabby looking gentlemen with pistols in their pockets, and dark lanterns under their arms, even in broad daylight, was on the look-out for emergencies, and had every thing ready for speedy ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... reached my friend's, the aforesaid examining magistrate, we found a numerous company; from the anteroom we could hear bursts of laughter, noisy conversation, accompanied by the clatter of plate and crockery, which was being placed upon the table. I was a little excited; I knew that I was the youngest of the party, and I was afraid of appearing awkward on that night of revelry. I said to myself: "Old boy, you must face the music, do the grand, and take your liquor like a little ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... the dim archway of his ancestral palace. The great carriage rolled out, and the guard of mounted gendarmes, which the Cardinal had insisted upon sending with the young couple, half out of compliment, half for safety, fell in behind, and trotted down the narrow street, with a deafening clatter of ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... compartments were; he was forced to rely on what he could hear. The engine rooms were easily identified. In one area he heard the banging of pots and pans, the steaming of kettles ... obviously the galley. He found the control area. He could hear the clatter of typing instruments, the click-click-click of the computers working out the orbits and trajectories for the scout-ships as they moved out from the orbit-ship or came back in. In another compartment he heard a dispatcher ...
— Gold in the Sky • Alan Edward Nourse
... this about?" he asked, and as he spoke he passed on through the hall to his own room at the back of the house. There were of course many evidences on all sides of the party,—the strange servants, the dishes going in and out, the clatter of glasses, and the smell of viands. "You've got a dinner-party," he said. "Had you not better go back ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... courtyard. It was very quiet and very dull, nothing moving anywhere; no one crossed the square, sunny space, paved with little stones, and adorned with the usual round-topped trees, in green boxes. Inside the house there was an occasional clatter of plates and dishes, or the resonant nasal cry of "Auguste," or "Henri," from one or other of the servants, but that was all. Madelon found it too tiresome; the porte-cochere stood half open, ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... above the mountain tops, the mist beginning to lift. It lay heavily, however, over the deep woods and the bottom lands of the South Fork, through which ran the Luray road, and on the South Fork itself.—Clatter, clatter! Shots and cries! Shouting the alarm as they came, splashing through the ford, stopping on the hither bank for one scattering volley back into the woolly veil, came Confederate infantry pickets and vedettes. "Yankee cavalry! Look out! Look out! Yankees!" In the mist the foremost ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... disturbed this martial ceremony. Suddenly an unknown young man approached the Imperial gallery, and shouted: "Down with the Emperor! Liberty or death!" This ardent Republican was at once arrested. His voice had been lost in the music and clatter of arms. ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... of a little quiet now and then," said the woman; "the children will not let the baby sleep at times with their clatter. Are you going?" ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... insurrection were taken to the church and whispered to the members of the National Guard and the government, who slipped quietly out. The pastor, oblivious to this circumstance, went on with his sermon, but uneasiness arose in the congregation, and when at last the clatter of cavalry and the roll of artillery were heard passing the church all order was at an end. The worshippers rushed into the street in a mass, the preacher following. Within ten minutes a state of peace had been changed into one ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... was tremendous was evinced by the squib-like action of his pipe, as it flew into the air, and the stumbling clatter of his feet, as he rushed blindly from the spot. Little Pax rolled on the grass in indescribable ecstasies for a few seconds, then crept through the hole, and ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... There was a clatter down the stairs, and Sally, rushing through the passage, threw herself on to her friend. They began fooling, in reminiscence of a melodrama they had lately ...
— Liza of Lambeth • W. Somerset Maugham
... bunches of bananas and the tiny oranges spread out upon the ground? There was the pink pavilion where that enterprising Chinaman, Ah Gong, conducted his indifferent restaurant. After these many days I can still hear the clatter of the plates, the jingle of the knives and forks, placed on the tables by the Chinese waiters. There was the crowd on the veranda waiting for the second table, opening their correspondence as they waited. And what an indescribable ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... attached to each other in consequence. They had no opportunity, during the forenoon, to converse with each other concerning the manner of their having entered the factory. But as soon as the rattling machinery silenced its clatter for the dinner hour, the subject was talked over until both fairly ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... the clatter of a displaced stone again, and this time it was so distinct and near that it puzzled him. The wild creatures of the waste were, he knew, always alert, and their perception of an approaching danger was wonderful. It seemed strange, since he had heard it, that the beast he was creeping ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... and did not concern Julia; she took the tray of cups and went. But near the door there was an iron tripod lying on the floor; she caught her foot in it, stumbled and fell headlong, dropping tray and cups with a great clatter. ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... in quick, Patrick," she cried, as she dashed through the door. "Happy New Year, Billy! I've brought you a New Year's present. I said I must be the one to bring it, and papa is coming over in a few minutes to teach you to use it." And, with a clatter and a bang, she cast a pair of crutches on the floor ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray
... in silence. From behind them there came the rattle of billiard-balls and careless clatter of voices. Before them was a pall-like darkness and ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... they were the handsomest pair he had seen since he had left home. Then he took the reins and swung himself up on to his seat, actively, for a man of his age and weight. Mrs. Clinton climbed up more slowly to her place by his side, Cicely sat behind, and with a jingle and clatter the equipage rolled down the road, while the groom touched his hat and went back to the station omnibus in which Mrs. Clinton's maid was establishing herself in the midst of a collection of wraps and little bags. For, ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... energy. Sheridan, "with a terrible daring which knew no pause, no rest," hung on his flanks. Food now failed the Confederates and they could get only the young shoots of trees to eat. If they sought a moment's repose, they were awakened by the clatter of pursuing cavalry. Lee, like a hunted fox, turned hither and thither; but at last Sheridan planted himself squarely across the front. Lee ordered a charge. His half-starved troops, with a rallying of their old courage, obeyed. But the cavalry moving aside, as a curtain is drawn, ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... escape from Johanna Klack we were in smooth water, and I would rather endure the clatter of her tongue than the roaring waves and the howling of ...
— Voyages and Travels of Count Funnibos and Baron Stilkin • William H. G. Kingston
... the net being dragged under water altogether by the weight of the fish in a great haul. The little boats, a crowd of which are in attendance, now dart out, surrounding the net on all sides, and the boatmen beating their oars on the sides of the boats, create such a clatter as to frighten, the fish into the circumference of the big net. This is now being dragged slowly to shore by strong and willing arms. The women and children watch eagerly on the bank. At length the glittering haul is pulled up high ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... crimson. If you really want a place where you need not be constantly rubbing elbows with the rest of the world; where you can cultivate something more ambitious than window boxes or an eight by ten pocket-handkerchief garden; where subways and street clatter can be forgotten; your black column will be far longer than the one in red. But if nothing feels so good to your foot as smooth unyielding pavements; if the multicolored electric sign of a moving ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... still more flushed and she flung up her head as she crossed the room, then put down the tray with a considerable clatter. But the clatter was unintentional—though Miss Ethel would not have believed this—and was due to a small piece of needlework on the table which caused the cup and glass to stand unevenly on the tray. Caroline heard the sharp indrawing of Miss Ethel's ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... In another moment the barrel on which Russ sat fell apart, and with a clatter and clash of staves he toppled in on Laddie. Then the chairs, behind the barrel, where Rose, Vi and Margy and Mun were sitting, toppled over. In another instant the whole steamboat load of children was all upset in the middle of the playroom floor, having made a crash that sounded ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandma Bell's • Laura Lee Hope
... be true, for the din was distracting —though the family, one and all, seemed filled with joy; and the more the clock "buckled down to her work" as the Colonel expressed it, and the more insupportable the clatter became, the more enchanted they all appeared to be. When there was silence, Mrs Sellers lifted upon Washington a face that beamed with a childlike pride, ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 1. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... flying through the air in a final and reckless profusion, and as the last car rolled away the laughter and shouting ceased, and all was hushed in the expectation of the day's last sight. Again, the clatter of hoofs and scabbards, as the dragoons cleared the way; twenty thousand heads and necks craning to look northward, as the people pushed back to the side pavements; silence, and the inevitable yellow dog that haunts all race-courses, scampering over the white ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... second charge, when they advanced farther and were briskly engaged in the midst of the enemy's squadrons, by a method of fighting new to them, they were thrown into dismay. A number of the enemy, mounted on chariots and cars, made towards them with such a prodigious clatter from the trampling of the cattle and rolling of wheels, as affrighted the horses of the Romans, unaccustomed to such tumultuous operations. By this means the victorious cavalry were dispersed, through a panic, and men and horses, in their headlong ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... and stood uneasily listening in the passage until she heard the clatter of hoofs in the paved patio, and knew that he had ordered his horse. Then she turned back relieved to ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... nothing except admiration for the rare imaginative faculty which enabled a quiet man of letters to deal so finely and faithfully, with such reserve and discrimination, with a subject that might easily have been spoiled by the noisy clatter and coarse colouring of the inferior artist. His full length portrait of Marlborough has been too often quoted to be reproduced here—'impassible before victory, before danger, before defeat; the splendid ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... And ye clatter, giant puppet troops, Marshalled in your proudly childish groups, Like the juggler on the opera scene?— Though the sound may please the vulgar ear, Yet the skilful, filled with sadness, jeer Powers ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... fine company of gentlefolks, men with powdered wigs and ladies with elegant toilettes, Maimon started back with a painful shock. An under-consciousness of mud-stained boots and a clumsily cut overcoat, mixed itself painfully with this impression of pretty, scented women, and the clatter of tongues and coffee-cups. He stood rooted to the threshold in a sudden bitter realization that the great world cared nothing about metaphysics. Ease, fine furniture, a position in the world—these were the things that counted. Why had all his genius brought him none of these ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... scene, little calculated to cheer him. The river was just below; and from this window he could gaze down upon the rushing current as it swept around the bend further up and came striking against this projection with a force all its own. The rain was falling still; steadily, blindingly, with wild clatter against the shingled roof so close above their heads. It coursed in little swift rivulets down the furrows of the almost perpendicular banks. It mingled in a demon dance with the dull, red water. There was ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... from guessing that soon, almost as soon as yonder receding clatter of hoofs should pass into silence, the venomous thing from which he had lifted his heel would coil and strike, and that another back, a little one that had never felt the burden of a sin or a task, or aught heavier than ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... noise of singers in the ships, Sounds of threat and sounds of fear, Blasts of hammer and steel and iron, The scream of syren, the wail of hooter, The clangour of angry bells, The boom of guns, the clatter of factories, The panic of ...
— Song Book of Quong Lee of Limehouse • Thomas Burke
... minutes Black Jim, roused by vigorous kicks, was silently but briskly hitching in his team, Manuelito silently but suddenly buckling the harness about his mules. Irish Kate, aroused by the clatter, had poked her head from underneath the canvas to inquire what was the matter, and, at a few words from the captain, had shrunk in again, stricken with fear, but ...
— Sunset Pass - or Running the Gauntlet Through Apache Land • Charles King
... doubt had his reasons for looking sharply about him, soon learnt to distinguish the pony's trot and the clatter of the little chaise at the corner of the street. Whenever the sound reached his ears, he would immediately lay down his pen and fall to rubbing his hands ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... wind was raging altogether too strong; for the windows shook with a terrible clatter, and the man telling the tale had hurriedly ended to go and see ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... outcries were loud of anger, alarm; or pain; while on the other side of the street arose shouts 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, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... at his words, the long, even reverberations changed to a quick, harsh, discordant clatter ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... broker out into the passage with his right. Two movements of this angry Hercules, and the man was literally whirled out of sight with a rapidity and swiftness almost ludicrous; it was like a trick in a pantomime. A clatter on the stairs betrayed that he had gone down the first few steps in a wholesale and irregular manner, though he had just ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... one side, and held counsel together, waiting for the meal to be over to make their several reports, they could not catch so much as the caw of a crow inside the rooms. Neither did the clatter of bowls and chopsticks reach their ears. But presently, they discerned a maid raise the frame of the portiere as high as she could, and two other girls bring the table out. In the tea-room, three maids waited with three ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... conscience and a sound digestion, there is no earthly anguish short of the toothache, strong enough to keep a man awake two nights in succession. So sound were his balmy slumbers in his airy chamber, that not even the loud clatter of Sir Norman's horse's hoofs proved strong enough to arouse him; and that young gentleman, after glancing at him, made ap his mind to try to find out for himself before arousing him to ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... quick thrust of the arm for a platter of beef and potatoes, that stood, untouched, on the table ... someone coughed. We had thought we were alone. Nippers jerked back. The tin came down with a clatter, first to the bench, then to the floor. A big friendly potato rolled under to where we were. We seized on it, divided ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... carriages, removing to Theobalds on the Sabbath, occasioned a great clatter and noise in the time of divine service. The lord-mayor commanded them to be stopped, and the officers of the carriages, returning to the king, made violent complaints. The king, in a rage, swore he thought there had been no more kings in England than himself; ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... it and to shake it I do. It is often I gave myself a promise the time there will be no sound from it, I will give in to nourish myself, I will rise out of misery. But every time I will try it, I will hear a little clatter that tells me there is some space left; some small little hole ...
— New Irish Comedies • Lady Augusta Gregory
... me." "For me." "For me." She heard that echo of her thought through all the clamour of the streets, the shrill cries, the clatter of hoofs, the rattling of wheels over the cobble stones. She heard it as she climbed the stairs to her room. When she had taken off her hat and coat she poured some eau-de-cologne with water into a cup and ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... and, clashing heavily against the wall, sent an echo reeling along the corridor; then came a clatter of rustling feet, a voice cried out excitedly: "Come on! come on! He's had to kill the old fool to get it!" and Cleek had just time to tear loose from the shape with which he was battling, and dodge out of the way when the man Merode lurched into the room, ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... count, moving half-way to the window, and then askant for his hat. The clatter of the horses' hoofs sent him dashing through the doorway, at which place his daughter stood with his hat extended. He thanked and blessed her for the kindly attention, and in terror lest the signorina should think evil of him as 'one of the generation of the hasty,' ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... would have outlived a long journey is uncertain for the rubber boot proved to be not only too large but treacherously leaky. Notwithstanding the fact, however, he was a sufficiently good sport to make the best of his unfortunate bargain and clatter up the long, dim flights that led to the Harlings' suite with as much ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... about the first meal in the vast dining-hall of this hotel. The floor was of marble—scrupulously clean—and the Javanese waiters were dressed in a uniform of white trimmed with red, presenting a pleasing contrast to the slipshod dirty "boy" of an ordinary hotel, whose habit it is to clatter round flapping your face and brushing your food with his long, unclean, hanging sleeves. Though in the native states from whence X. came it is no uncommon thing to see Malays wait at table, yet in Singapore, with ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... round the corner there was a glimpse of three men stripped to the waist to be seen. Had they seen me? I waited in some suspense for a few seconds pressed my glasses back into their case, and gripped my rifle. My anxiety was soon set at rest, for with a clatter, which seemed ten times greater than it really was, the men set quickly to work on a structure. They were building something, and now was my chance. Getting to the corner again I peered cautiously around, and there but seventy or eighty feet from where I lay three strapping fellows were ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... was conferring earnestly over the menu with madame la proprietaire. The others were ordering aperitifs of a waiter. Through the clatter of tongues that filled the cafe one caught the phrase "veeskysoda" uttered by the monsieur in tweeds. Then the tall man consulted the beautiful lady as to her preference, and Duchemin caught the words "madame la comtesse" spoken in the rasping ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... was a clatter and a rattle in the street below. Looking down I saw a stately carriage and pair, the brilliant lamps gleaming on the glossy haunches of the noble chestnuts. A footman opened the door, and a small, stout man in a shaggy astrakhan overcoat descended. A minute later he ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... door for a dreary journey home to Richmond. His hat was on, and the gas turned off. The blind of the window overlooking the alley was not drawn down; and with the light from beneath, which shone over the ceiling of the room, came, in place of the usual babble, only the reduced clatter and quick speech which were the result of necessity rather ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... to ask her to let him walk part of the way home with her. He might have this last pleasure since he was coming here no more, at least not in the old way. But, as though her words had been a challenge, there was a clatter of wheels and horses in the narrow ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... what a tumult of joy there was in that room! I stood close to the closed door and listened. There was the hurry-scurry of many feet, little and big, as they set the table; the quick commands; the clatter of plates and knives and forks; the constant chatter; the sounds of helping each other and of eating; and then Christina, her mouth, it seemed to me, partly filled with bread and butter, began to give her father some specimens of the cadenzas ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... Rabbit wuz fixin' fer ter call on Miss Coon, he heerd a monstrus fuss en clatter up de big road, en 'mos' 'fo' he could fix his years fer ter lissen, Brer Wolf run in de do'. De little Rabbits dey went inter dere hole in de cellar, dey did, like blowin' out a cannle. Brer Wolf Wuz far'ly kivver'd wid mud, en mighty nigh ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... when they sells pulque, aims to dispose of it two glasses at a clatter. It gives their conceit a chance to spread itse'f an' show. The pulque is in a tub down back of the bar. This yere vain Mexican seizes two glasses between his first an' second fingers, an' with a finger in each glass. Then he ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... parrots, the chattering of the monkeys, the bumping of the boats against each other, the clatter of the oars, the angry outcries of the boatmen, in Spanish and broken English, whenever a monkey or a parrot fell overboard, or a fruit basket got upset, made a deafening uproar. An English man-of-war, anchored close by, was similarly beset; and a mischievous sailor had just ...
— Harper's Young People, April 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... because the hens didn't lay, because the butter wouldn't come, because the old cat had kittens, because they came too soon for dinner, because they were a minute late—before they talk about the worry of a scolding wife. Why Mr. President, I'd rather hear the clatter of hammers and stones and twenty tin pans, and nine brass kettles, than the din, din, din of the tongue of a scolding woman; yes, sir, I would. To my mind, Mr. President, a smoky chimney is no more to ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... of the musket; but in his haste tumbled down the attic stairs, losing his grasp of the musket, which fell down with a clatter. ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... the clatter of arms and the clatter of raiders were ended; railroads were built, and emigration poured in from all States and nations, among which were many Disciples of Christ, who should have been builded into ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... "Our people all went over to Holland, where the Dutch folk live and the little Dutch children clatter about with their wooden shoes. There thou wast born, Remember, and my own children, and there we ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... know how much my speaking out against Klu Klux had to do with arresting the outlawry that made the roads rattle with the clatter of the hoofs of horses at midnight raids, but I do know young Byron was the last man hanged by the Klu Klux in Madison county, and may I not hope the unpremeditated protest made in that Sunday evening address, helped in some measure to bring about the transformation, ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... came face to face with the Judge and marshal, who cried out upon seeing them, but as they reined in, out from the stairs beside them a man shot amid clatter and uproar. ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... the dishes she had used, saw that the pantry was in its usual delicate order, and proceeded to set the table, with light steps and no clatter ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... carries in suspension, and the sand and gravel and larger stones which it pushes along its bed. Especially in times of flood one may note the muddy water, its silt being kept from settling by the rolling, eddying currents; and often by placing his ear close to the bottom of a boat one may hear the clatter of pebbles as they are hurried along. In mountain torrents the rumble of bowlders as they clash together may be heard some distance away. The amount of the load which a stream can transport depends on its velocity. ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... throwing his arm round his beautiful, sweet-tempered wife. He sat by her side on the open balcony, smoking a cigarette in the cool air, which was loaded with the sweet scent of carnations and orange blossoms. Sounds of music and the clatter of castanets came from the road beneath, the stars shone above then, and two eyes full of affection—those of his wife—looked upon him with the expression of undying love. "Such a moment," he said, "makes it ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... dare to join its ranks. The moment the Angelus rings, darkness is supposed to have fallen. As the last stroke sounds, all the women disrobe and step into the water. Then there is laughing and screaming and a wonderful clatter. The men on the upper quay watch the bathers, straining their eyes, and seeing very little. Yet the white uncertain outlines perceptible against the dark-blue waters of the stream stir the poetic mind, and the possessor of a little fancy finds it not difficult to imagine that Diana and ...
— Carmen • Prosper Merimee
... bungling effort to catch the heavy receptacle that fell following Jack's warning, but in the darkness he failed, and it crashed down with quite a clatter. ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... from the glare of the sun was soon to end; for before the crack of dawn, or, as it seemed to us, shortly after midnight, came such a clatter with the fires and the high-pressure engine and the sparks, and what all they did in that wild and reckless land, that further rest was impossible, and we betook ourselves with our mattresses to the staterooms, for another attempt ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... he's composing," soothed Billy. "I supposed you knew it, dear. Don't you fret! Run along and make him his favorite pudding, and by night both of you will have forgotten there ever were such things in the world as tins and shoes and carpet sweepers that clatter." ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter
... there came from somewhere just the last ripple of a mirthful laugh, the hall was empty! Phroso was gone! I flung the pickaxe down with a clatter on the boards, and exclaimed ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... the highway / and close upon their rear Of hoofs was heard the clatter; / too keen the chasers were. Then spake the valiant Dankwart: / "The foe is close at hand. Now bind we on the helmet, / —wisdom doth the ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... clatter some time, and bring me a gourd of water; the child's been crying for a drink this ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... many bars a clatter of hoofs announced Desmond's return. He flung himself from the saddle, cleared the verandah steps at a bound, and entered the room:—a man of magnetic vitality, with a temperament like a clear flame; a typical officer of that isolated force ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... across the arroyo came a sharp clatter of hoofs. He whirled, with his rifle at his shoulder. Over the barrel he saw a scraggy pony loping down into the wash along the trail of the burro. The pony's rider was armed with a rifle. Lennon took quick aim—only to drop the muzzle of his weapon. The rider had flung up a gauntleted hand, ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... outsides of things, our self-will, blind us to the Angel with the drawn sword who resists us, as well as to the Angel with the lily who would lead us. So we waste our days; are deaf to His voice speaking through all the clatter of tongues, and blind to His bright presence shining through all the dimness of earth; and, for far too many of us, we never can see God in the present, but only discern Him when He has passed by, like Moses from his cleft. Like this same Jacob, we have to say: 'Surely God was ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... then staggered, and a faintness passed over him. He had sat so long without moving that his legs bent under him. There was a pail of water with a dipper in it on a bench. He caught up a dipperful of water, drank it empty, and let it fall in the pail again with a clatter. ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... existing means of excluding or deadening outside sounds, though the newer office buildings are examples of initiative in this direction; not only are they of sound-proof construction, but in many instances they have replaced the noisy pavements of the streets with blocks which reduce the clatter to a minimum. In both improvements they have been emulated by some of the great retail stores which have shut out external noises and reduced those within to a point where they no longer distract the attention of clerks or customers from the business of selling and buying. In many, however, ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott
... had some very particular business to attend to on an outlying part of his estate, and craving the indulgence of his guests overnight, appear at the cabin in the glen before its inhabitants were astir in the morning. The clatter of Sibyl Grey's hoofs, the yelping of Mustard and Spice, and his own joyous shout of reveillee under our windows, were the signal that he had burst his toils, and meant for that day to 'take his ease in his inn.' On descending, he was found to be seated with all his dogs ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... little struck with the appearance of the women, who were habited in a coarse red camlet jacket, with a high apron before, long flying lappets to their caps, and were mounted upon large heavy wooden shoes, upon each of which a worsted tuft was fixed, in rude imitation of a rose. The appearance and clatter of these sabots, as they are called, leave upon the mind an impression of extreme ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... in the drizzle Enveloped in his macintosh he sat on a boulder in the lee of one of the old walls and moodily smoked cigars and listened to the ceaseless clatter of tongues. A ray of light penetrated the mind of the dragoman and he laboured assiduously with wet fuel until he had accomplished a tin mug of coffee. Bits of cinder floated in it, but Coleman rejoiced and was ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... ticket, which each passenger seemed to yield him with a tacit malediction; a suffering child hung about the empty tank, which could only gasp out a cindery drop or two of ice-water. The wind buffeted faintly at the windows; when the door was opened, the clatter of the rails struck through and through the car ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... front, dark with damp, and displaying greenish drain-sinks near the windows of each floor, also served as a big toy for the young couple. They spent their mornings below in throwing stones up into the drain-sinks, and the stones thereupon fell down the pipes with a very merry clatter. In thus amusing themselves, however, they managed to break a couple of windows, and filled the drains with stones, so that Mother Chantemesse, who had lived in the house for three and forty years, narrowly escaped being ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... the fine ripplings and whisperings of the evening calm, a metallic clatter, a horse was coming. The windings of the lane hid it as it approached. Then I heard a rush under the hedge, and close by glided a great dog, not staying to look up. The horse followed—a tall steed, and on its back a rider. He passed; a sliding sound, a clattering ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... again by what Norah termed "the direct route," traversed the home paddock, and drew up with a clatter of hoofs at the stable yard. Billy, a black youth of some fame concerning horses, came forward as they dismounted and took the bridles. But Norah preferred to unsaddle Bobs herself and let him go; she held it only civil after he had carried her well. She was leading him off when the dusky retainer ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... genera than man. The big Newfoundland and the great cat came to meals regularly. They shared Madigan's affection with the birds (whose cage, big as a dog's house, he had himself nailed up against the side of the wall), that broke into a maddening din of song, excited by the rival clatter of young ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... commended him for his zeal took final leave of him. Just as the demagogue's slouchy, grimy figure was disappearing down a side street there was the loud clatter of hoofs from that same direction, and the next moment a detachment of the mounted Town Guard, headed by an officer in uniform, galloped down ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... spirit of Nature, and it made his music come forth as it makes the flowers blow. The very spirit of the earth seemed to find its voice through him, the spirit of storm and the spirit of fair weather that sports when sweet rains make a musical clatter among the leaves. The music in which he found a voice for Nature cannot grow old while the earth renews its youth with each returning spring. In its pathos and in its joy the soul of seventeenth-century England is in his music ...
— Purcell • John F. Runciman
... "Then clatter went the earthen plates— "'Mind Judie,' was the cry; "I could have cop't[Footnote: Thrown] them at their pates; "'Trenchers for me,' ...
— Wild Flowers - Or, Pastoral and Local Poetry • Robert Bloomfield
... death, but as her innocent spirit ascended to heaven a great storm arose and lightning struck the statue, angrily hurling the scales from the left hand of the figure of Justice. They fell to the pavement with a clatter and in one of the shattered nests was found the pearl necklace. It had been stolen by a magpie who had cunningly woven the string of pearls into the clay wall of her babies' cradle. So the poor girl was proven innocent ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... violently struggled, and that the round hard head of one of them butted him in the stomach. He divined that sounds of ribald laughter, in the distance, proceeded from the driver of the Marychurch station fly. He knew two small figures raced whooping down the lane attended by squelchings of mud and clatter of ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... streaming up, bespoke the goodness of the crackling log from which a brilliant train of sparks was doubtless at that moment whirling up the chimney in honour of his coming—when, superadded to these enticements, there stole upon him from the distant kitchen a gentle sound of frying, with a musical clatter of plates and dishes, and a savoury smell that made even the boisterous wind a perfume—Gabriel felt his firmness oozing rapidly away. He tried to look stoically at the tavern, but his features would relax into a look of fondness. He turned his head the other way, and the cold black ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens |
