"Clatter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Sir W. Pen's family, how poorly they clothe their daughter so soon after marriage, and do say that Mr. Lowther was married once before, and some such thing there hath been, whatever the bottom of it is. But to think of the clatter they make with his coach, and his owne fine cloathes, and yet how meanly they live within doors, and nastily, and borrowing everything of neighbours is a ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... to that cousin. The buried treasure he hadn't taken very seriously. In spite of all the remarkable things that had happened to him he still had moments of incredulity, and in the midst of an Ohio wheatfield, with the click and clatter of the reapers in his ears and the dry scent of the wheat in his nostrils, to dream of buried gold ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... stood on 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 basins in hand. The moment they ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... wonderful," Hewet assured them, turning round in his saddle and smiling encouragement. Rachel caught his eye and smiled too. They struggled on for some time longer, nothing being heard but the clatter of hooves striving on the loose stones. Then they saw that Evelyn was off her ass, and that Mr. Perrott was standing in the attitude of a statesman in Parliament Square, stretching an arm of stone towards the view. A little to the left ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... crept up the hill, taking cunning advantage of every bush, stump, and boulder. For all his awkward looking bulk, he moved as lightly as a cat, making himself small, and twisting and flattening and effacing himself; and never a twig was allowed to snap, or a stone to clatter, ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... the swords of Seraphim kept profane feet from its sacred hills. But these rough rocks around me, these dry, fiery hollows, these thickets of ancient oak and ilex, had heard the trumpets of the Middle Ages, and the clang and clatter of European armor—I could feel and believe that. I entered the ranks; I followed the trumpets and the holy hymns, and waited breathlessly for the moment when every mailed knee should drop in the dust, and every bearded and sunburned cheek be wet ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... keep a lonely little lad from a frolic. Even William, roused from his after-dinner doze by peals of laughter, was sometimes inveigled into activities that left him breathless, but curiously aglow. While Pete, polishing silver in the dining-room down-stairs, smiled indulgently at the merry clatter above—and forgot the teasing pain in ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... the head of that battalion had climbed two-thirds of the steep a mysterious and fatal incident occurred. Suddenly from the darkness encircling the clambering soldiers broke out a roar "like that of an approaching train,"[133] there was a rush of hoofs and the clatter of scattering stones. In a moment a group of loose animals, whether horses, mules or cattle, it was impossible to discern, bounding down the rocky precipice, tore past the last companies of the Royal Irish Fusiliers and disappeared as quickly as they had ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... Di," the child-voice piped eagerly, and there was a little clatter of the tiny crutch as it was tucked away out ...
— Glory and the Other Girl • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... countryside lying, as it seemed, under snow, with square patches of dimness, white phantoms of roads, rents and pools of velvety blackness, and lamp-jewelled houses. I remember a train boring its way like a hastening caterpillar of fire across the landscape, and how distinctly I heard its clatter. Every town and street was buttoned with street lamps. I came quite close to the South Downs near Lewes, and all the lights were out in the houses, and the people gone to bed. We left the land a little to the east of Brighton, and ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... but the cheerful chuckle of a well-fed company, the clatter of plates and knives, and the chit-chat of light hearts under the ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... it," she admitted, as with a clatter and a bang that, she was sure, could be heard a mile away, an evident avalanche of tools tumbled to the floor. Her crowbar had struck a box ...
— Betty Gordon at Boarding School - The Treasure of Indian Chasm • Alice Emerson
... without the prison yard; the scene was one of pandemonium. Ere long five of the engine party had been captured, three inside of the yard and two immediately outside. Among these were Jenks and Macgreggor who were both uninjured, but both very much disheartened. Soon there was the clatter of hoofs, and a troop of cavalry dashed up to the front ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... the first train that ran by. I was feeding quietly near the pales which separated the meadow from the railway, when I heard a strange sound at a distance, and before I knew whence it came—with a rush and a clatter, and a puffing out of smoke—a long black train of something flew by, and was gone almost before I could draw my breath. I galloped to the further side of the meadow, and there I stood snorting with astonishment and fear. In the course of the day ...
— Black Beauty, Young Folks' Edition • Anna Sewell
... was heard outside the gate, which stood invitingly open. Prince Alexis clutched his whip with iron fingers, and unconsciously took the attitude of a wild beast about to spring from its ambush. Now the hard clatter of hoofs and the rumbling, of wheels echoed from the archway, and the kibitka rolled into the courtyard. It stopped near the foot of the grand staircase. Boris, who sat upon the farther side, rose to alight, in order to hand down his wife; but no sooner had he made ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... as he heard the quickening clatter of the horse's heels, and waited for the horseman, lifting his paper cap from his head with a bright smile of recognition. Next to his own brother Seth, Adam would have done more for Arthur Donnithorne than for any other young man in the ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... with myself setting the table, or turning the meat. Then came the blowing of the conch-shell for father in the field, the howling of old Lion, the gathering around the table, the blessing, the dull clatter of pewter spoons on pewter dishes, and the talk about the ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... Mrs. Seacomb;—"that's him," she added, as a loud rattling of the back door was followed in an incredibly short space of time by a similar rattling at the front, after which came the clatter of various sticks and clods at ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... admitting a flood of sound, and a porter stood regarding us. The sounds of doors slamming, and the hoof-clatter of cab-horses, and behind these things the featureless remote roar of the London cobble-stones, came to my ears. A truckload of lighted lamps blazed ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... and gave them the road. As the coach penetrated deeper into the gorge, signs of human life and activity became fewer. The sun could not send his light into this shadowy tomb of granite. The rattle of the wheels and the clatter of the horses' hoofs sounded like a constant crash of thunder in the ears of the tender traveler, a dainty morsel among hawks ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... out of sight into the town. Duane waited, hoping the outlaw would make good his word. Probably not a quarter of an hour had elapsed when Duane heard the clear reports of a Winchester rifle, the clatter of rapid hoof-beats, and yells unmistakably the kind to mean danger for a man like Stevens. Duane mounted and rode to the edge of ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... the passenger, as if he were about to offer some good- natured excuse for the man's awkwardness, but his observations were drowned by a louder clatter below than ever; and, ere the captain could descend to ascertain the cause, the new steward rushed up the companion ladder, with his eyes half-starting from his head, his hair standing on end, and his ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... to a private room, with her daughter and son-in-law for supporters, and half a score waiters and chamber-maids, whom her hysterical symptoms had assembled, by way of a tail. Seeing her so well guarded, I thought it unnecessary to add to the escort. As she left the room, there was a clatter of hoofs outside, and looking through the window, I saw the coroneted berline whirled rapidly away by four vigorous posters. Just then the dinner-bell rang, and the obsequious head-waiter, who with profound bows had assisted at the departure of the travellers, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... The wild clatter, the crackling of a river of horns, and the thundering of hoofs, was deafening. Whaley, seeing eighty thousand dollars' worth of cattle running away from him, turned with a fierce imprecation, and gave David a passionate ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... 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 so great, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... maintained over the low kopjes, until by evening we were faced by the more serious line of the Pieter's Hills. The operations had been carried out with a monotony of gallantry. Always the same extended advance, always the same rattle of Mausers and clatter of pom-poms from a ridge, always the same victorious soldiers on the barren crest, with a few crippled Boers before them and many crippled comrades behind. They were expensive triumphs, and yet every one brought them nearer to their goal. ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... brass band. All that has been written of man's noblest friend— from the dim, uncertain time when some unknown hand, in a leisure moment, dashed off the Thirty-ninth chapter of the Book of Job, to the yesterday when Long Gordon translated into ringing verse the rhythmic clatter of the hoof-beats he loved so well—all might find fulfilment in this unvalued beast, now providentially owned ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... willing to guide them in their search for slaves and gold. Only there was no gold: nothing but a little copper and stinging swarms of flies, gray clouds of midges and black ooze that sucked the Spaniards to their thighs, and the clatter of scrub palmetto leaves on their iron shirts like the sound of wooden swords, as the Indians wound them in and out of trails that began in swamps and arrived nowhere. Never once did they come any nearer to the towns than a few poor fisher huts, and never a pearl showed in any Indian's necklace ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al
... of the net, to prevent 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 and dry on ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... of blows on the door below thundering like cannon-shot. We still kept up our fire, but hopelessly, when we heard the clatter of hoofs without. The firing ceased, and we saw through the smoke four squadrons of lancers dashing like a troop of lions through the midst of the Austrians. All yielded before them. The Kaiserliks fled, but the long, blue lances, with ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... devised a plan. In the pocket of the coat I had on was a small piece of dirty rag that I had used some time before to clean a gun with. 'Put this in your mouth,' I whispered again, giving him the rag; 'and if I hear another sound you are a dead man.' I knew that that would stifle the clatter of his teeth. I must have looked as if I meant what I said, for he instantly obeyed me, and continued his journey ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... giants when they saw through the clear water a great moving mass like quicksilver. And then the wild excitement of hauling in; the difficulty of it; the danger of the fish escaping; the warning cries of Rob; the clatter made by the mackerel; the possibility of swamping the boat altogether, as all the four were straining their utmost at one side. Indeed, by an awkward tilt at one moment some hundred or two of the ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... with tears of gratitude in his eyes, followed his guide and friend. They went through the store-room between great piles of blankets, through the wool-room filled with big bales of fleece, and up-stairs into the weaving-room amid the click and clatter and roar of three score busy and intricate looms. Pen was introduced to the foreman, and his duties as bobbin-boy ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... neglected or affronted babe, or the trodden dog, is as tuneful as the midnight cat there, but only that they approach it in the prevailing tendency of all the local discords to soften and lose themselves in the general unison. This embraces the clatter of the cabs, which are seldom less than fifty years old, and of a looseness in all their joints responsive to their effect of dusty decrepitude. Their clatter penetrates the volumed tread of the myriad feet in a city where, if you did not see all sorts of people driving, you would say the whole ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... He had to pass along a short home-made road, and over a low parapetless bridge constructed simply of four tree-trunks laid parallel and covered with turf. Then he dropped the bars of the gate into the hill pasture with a clatter, which came to Winsome's ears as she stood at her window looking out into the night. She was just thinking at that moment what a good thing it was that she had sent back Ralph Peden's poem. So, in order to see whether this were so or ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... the gallery could be seen the hats and heads of more people. People were entering all the time and leaving all the time. Scores of waitresses, in pale green and white, moved to and fro like an alien and mercenary population. The heat, the stir, the hum, and the clatter were terrific. And from on high descended thin, strident music in ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... signorina,' said the 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,' he said, 'Were ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Jack reached into his pocket, drew out the revolver, and hurled it through the open window. They could hear it clatter on the cliffs below and then splash into the ocean. Instinctively, Koltsoff's eyes had followed the flight of the weapon. When he turned his head Jack was close at his side. The Russian stepped ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... you, we had supper before you came, when we were waiting for Father," she said, with a choke in her voice, which made her turn hastily away and knock a tin pan over, so that in the sudden clatter he might not notice how near she was to ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... although it contains no passages of teary sentimentality in attitude toward man and beast, one must hesitate in denying all connection with Sterne's manner. It would seem as if, having outgrown the earlier Yorick, awakened from dubious, fine-spun dreams of human brotherhood, perhaps by the rude clatter of the French revolution, certain would-be men of letters turned to Yorick again and saw, as through a glass darkly, that other element of his nature, and tried in lumbering, Teutonic way to adopt his whimsicality, ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... and flying about of honey bees would prevent one from enjoying the singing of a skylark. Emboldened by what I saw the others doing, I left my seat and made my way across the floor to Yoletta's side, stealing through the gloom with great caution to avoid making a clatter with those abominable boots. ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... in the yoke of thy car Shall the colts of Enetia fleet; Nor Limna's echoes quiver afar To the clatter of galloping feet. The sleepless music of old, That leaped in the lyre, Ceaseth now, and is cold, In the halls of thy sire. The bowers are discrowned and unladen Where Artemis lay on the lea; And the love-dream of many a maiden Lost, in the losing ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides
... instant at the galley-door, He was looking forward at the pedlar. The hands were all down below in the forecastle, eating their breakfast. The other stranger seemed to have gone. I could not see him about the deck. At last the skylight came down with a clatter, leaving me free to go below again. As I went down the hatchway, into the 'tweendecks gloom, I saw a figure apparently at work among the ship's stores lashed to the deck there. I could not see who it was; it was too dark for that but the thing ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... comfort so safe—for respectable people. And we WERE respectable people.... That was the world that made us what we are. That was the sheltering and friendly greenhouse in which we grew. We fitted our minds to that.... And here we are with the greenhouse falling in upon us lump by lump, smash and clatter, the wild winds of heaven ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... from the sky, the steady glare of a burning barn here and there reddened the blackness. The village dead, under the pelted sod, must have shuddered at the din. Even the moments of lull were saturate with terrors. In them rose audible the roar of waters, the clatter of frightened animals, the rattle of gates, the shouts of voices, the click of heels on the flags of the streets, as the villagers hurried to the succor of neighbors fighting fires out on the hills. For long afterward the ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... several natives came to make small purchases, but, not being boys any longer, a gruff word was enough to send them running. And then came the clatter of hoofs of the advance-guard, and the German looked up to see a fire in Ranjoor Singh's eyes that a caged tiger could ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... was nearly three o'clock when they heard the far-off shriek of the whistle sounding up from the south; then, after an interval, the puffing of the engine on the up-grade; then the faint ringing of the rails, the increasing clatter of the train, and the blazing headlight of the locomotive swept slowly through the darkness, past the platform. The engineer was leaning on one arm, with his head out of the cab-window, and as he passed he nodded and waved his hand to Hemenway. The conductor also nodded ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... twilight, two stage-loads of passengers, drawn rapidly by twelve wild horses through the now deserted streets of Puebla, approached the gate that opened out upon the road to Mexico. The rattle of the wheels and the clatter of so many hoofs had awakened the gatekeeper, and at our approach the ponderous portals that inclosed the city by night flew open, and away we whirled out into the ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... clatter at the boys' tables, however, growing occasionally to a hubbub, amply made up for any sombreness in the meal elsewhere; and Railsford, having exhausted his inquiries, and having failed to engage one of his neighbours in conversation, resigned himself to the enjoyment ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... ground so that the running gear of the wagon, with its looped log-chain, which would later do duty as a brake on the long grade down from timber line on the side of Spirit Canyon, rattled and banged over the rocks with the clatter that could be heard for half a mile. Lorraine looked after her father enviously. If she were a boy she would be riding on that sack of hay tied to the "hounds" for a seat. But, being a girl, it had never occurred to Brit that she might like to go—might ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... the door caused her first to doubt the identity of the person spoken to, and a very vivid crimson dyed her cheeks, when, Liberia coming in, her blacksmith arms laden with logs, she threw them down with resounding clatter, and said, 'Wal, ef that ain't the nicest, soft speakin'est gentleman I ever see! He asked me as perlite for the wood, as he couldn't be perliter ef I ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... messenger, and to those who sent him, no apology is needed,' said the austere Laird, 'so let him depart.' And the clatter of a horse's hoofs was heard, and the muttered imprecations of its rider on the churlish treatment ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... of the sun came a clatter of tins and a savoury odour throughout Khartoum to its farthest precincts, for it was Ramadan, and no man ate till sunset. Seti smiled an avid smile, and waited. At last he got up, turned his face towards Mecca, and said his prayers. Then he lifted the latch of Fielding's hut, entered, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... King," a momentary silence fell upon the company, contrasting strangely with the clatter of voices which had ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... water and verdure amid towering walls of bare, sun-baked rock, has lost much of its poetry and romance. The stream flows clear as in the poet's time, but the solitude he loved so well is invaded. Of his garden not a trace remains. The perpetually whirring wheels of a water-mill, the clatter of washerwomen beating clothes on the bank, now drown the murmur of the waves, whilst at every turn the traveller is beset by vendors of immortelles and photographs. Truth to tell, an element of vulgarity has found its way to this once ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... one's wit and humour straight away. And taking the invasion of other trades one step further one might, after an attempt to sell one's own newspaper, even get to the pitch of having to read it oneself. No; even essayists must be reasonable. If its mechanical clitter-clatter did not render composition impossible, the typewriter would still be beneath the honour of a ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... She heard the clatter of pattens in the room below; it was Nancy churning in the dairy. She heard shouts from beyond the orchard—it was her father stacking in the haggard; she heard her mother talking in the bar, and the mill-wheel swishing in the pond. It seemed almost wonderful that the machinery of ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... at London, its superior regularity and order, in my opinion, prevent its coming up to the scene I have just faintly traced, in the strange and excited feelings it calls up. Amidst all this, there is a constant clatter of tongues strongly recalling the confusion of Babel. A China-man never talks below his breath; and, if one may judge from the loud tones in which the whole community express their sentiments, whether in a house or shop or in the street, the only conclusion that ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... the piano seems to say so little that I care so little for it. The music I mean is what I hear, when, in a summer's afternoon, I carry my book out into the barn to read as I lie on a bed of hay. I don't read, but I listen. The cooing of the doves, the clatter even of the fowls in the barn-yard, the quiet noises, with the whisperings of the great elm, and the rustling of the brook in the field beyond,—all this is the music I like to hear. It puts me into delicious dreams, and stirs me, too, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... he broke in. "An alarm clock isn't a Gatling gun. Your association of ideas is faulty. There is much in common between the clatter of an alarm clock and the suffragist cause, but all the ladies promised not to ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... that was banned against us. Wherefore on a day in the grey of the morning, when we had been on this isle somewhat less than a year, we went down to it and stepped in, and reddened stem and stern and said the spell-words. But straightway arose an hideous braying and clatter, and thunder came therewith, and trembling of the earth, and the waters of the lake arose in huge waves; nor might we move from our seats in the boat till the two witches came running down to us, and haled us out ashore, and had us up into the house, ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... on to the accompaniment of a clatter of plates and spoons and dishes, and the fizzling of sausages, prefacing the evening meal, to which all now sat down after ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... 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 ...
— Sunset Pass - or Running the Gauntlet Through Apache Land • Charles King
... clatter of dishes and spoons. Mrs. Bentley and Mrs. Meade presided over this part of the ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock
... been in Pontarlier Jails (self-constituted prisoner); was noticed fording estuaries of the sea (at low water), in flight from the face of men. He has pleaded before Aix Parlements (to get back his wife); the public gathering on roofs, to see since they could not hear: "the clatter-teeth (claque-dents)!" snarles singular old Mirabeau; discerning in such admired forensic eloquence nothing but two clattering jaw-bones, and a head vacant, sonorous, of the ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... Couper, how spellest it? Lo! he hath forgotten, ye may see, The first word of his a b c. Hark, fool, hark, I will teach thee, P.a—pa.—t.e.r—ter—do together Tom Couper. Is not this a sore matter? Lo! here you see him proved a fool! He had more need to go to school, Than to come hither to clatter. STU. Certain, this is a solution Meet for such a boy's question. HU. Sensual Appetite, I pray thee Let pass all trifles and vanity For a while, it shall not long be, And depart, I thee require; For I would talk a word or two With ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... the ponds and rivers boiled, And how the shingles rattled! And oaks were scattered on the ground, As if the Titans battled; And all above was in a howl, And all below a clatter,— The earth was like a frying-pan, ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... no longer profitable, and the natives have relapsed into their former monotony. So far away from the sound of a church-bell, it would be no easy matter to tell when the Sabbath morn arrives, were it not for the radical change that comes over these hardy longshoremen. The clatter and jingle of the ponderous family razor, as it flies back and forth on the time-worn strap suspended from the kitchen mantlepiece, is the first signal that ushers in the day. The change is an outward one at least, for then the "biled" ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various
... you taught music in the city, and music is about the only form of recreation for which I have taken time in my busy life. There are many things concerning the musical tendencies of the day that I would like to ask you about. But I hear the clatter of the supper dishes. What do you think of the editorial page, and its moral tendencies? That ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... a circle of priests, some of whom brandished flaming pine-knots, while all grasped a sacrificial flint knife. Suddenly there was a clatter of arms and in burst Frithiof, his brow dark as autumn storms. Helge's face went pale as he confronted the angry hero, for he knew what his coming presaged. "Take thy tribute, King," said Frithiof, and with the words, he took the purse from his girdle and flung it in Helge's face with such force ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... the house, often with muddy or dusty shoes, she would fly into the hall, clatter up the Front Stairs, and, perhaps, down again and out, without a thought of her wrongdoing. This would leave footprints, and often scratches and heel-marks on the beautiful steps, which meant extra work for Jane; and even then the ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells
... for another blow. But the blow remained undelivered. There was a rush of horse's hoofs, a clatter as they ceased, the sound of running feet, and a smashing blow took the torturer on the side of the jaw. He dropped like a log beside his victim. The whole thing was the work of an instant. So swift had ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... 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 ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... there were a few squads of Militia recruits being drilled by the trumpet-voiced sergeants; and for music there was the ring of a hundred rifle-butts striking the ground together, the tramp and click of many feet, and the clatter of the colonel's horse as he rode across ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... "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 lived ...
— 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 ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... certain puppet representing an hag; every time she appears, with her weird head and ghastly grin, the lights burn low, the music of the accompanying orchestra moans forth a sinister strain given by the flutes, mingled with a rattling tremolo which sounds like the clatter of bones. This creature evidently plays an ugly part in the piece,—that of a horrible old ghoul, spiteful and famished. Still more appalling than her person is her shadow, which, projected upon a ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... empty, though scattered furs along the benches showed where sleepers might have rested. But from outside, a clatter of hurrying feet and excited voices broke suddenly upon her. Did it mean a battle? She sat up, straining eye and ear. The jubilant voices shouted greetings that just missed being intelligible. The sun, ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... but he went away into the hall, rang, and presently she heard the ascending clatter of a dumb-waiter. From it he took the luncheon card and returned to where she was sitting at a rococo table. She blushed as he laid the card before her, and would have nothing to do with it. The result was that he did the ordering, sent the dumb-waiter down with his scribbled memorandum, ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... out of place as if some fairy wand had failed to break the incantation at the right hour and left a piece of Magicland behind. The parlor maid went about uncertainly, scarcely knowing what to do and what to leave undone, and the milk cars, and newsboys, and early laborers began to make a clatter of every day on the streets. The morning paper, flung across the steps with Betty's picture, where Betty's reluctant feet had gone a few hours before, seemed to mock at life, and upstairs the man that Betty thought she went out ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... something like scissors, could have opened themselves wide enough to take up an honest, vulgar good-sized piece; and when I tried to seize two little minnikin pieces at once, so as not to be detected in too many returns to the sugar-basin, they absolutely dropped one, with a little sharp clatter, quite in a malicious and unnatural manner. But before this happened we had had a slight disappointment. In the little silver jug was cream, in the larger one was milk. As soon as Mr Mulliner came in, Carlo began to ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... "Shield," 387; Hom. "Il." xii. 148: "Then forth rushed the twain, and fought in front of the gates like wild boars that in the mountains abide the assailing crew of men and dogs, and charging on either flank they crush the wood around them, cutting it at the root, and the clatter of their tusks waxes loud, till one smite them and take their ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon
... not here. I cannot understand," marvelled Glaucon; but while he spoke, he was interrupted by the clatter of hoofs from a party of horsemen spurring furiously and heading from the pass ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... retreat. Good day, my friend.' It was dusk," Ponsonby adds, "when two squadrons of Prussian cavalry, each of them two deep, came across the valley, and passed over me in full trot, lifting me from the ground, and tumbling me about cruelly. The clatter of of their approach and the apprehensions they excited, may be imagined; a gun taking that direction must have ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... present writer by Mr. Matthias Fitzgerald, coachman to Miss Cooke, of Cappagh House, Co. Limerick. He stated that one moonlight night he was driving along the road from Askeaton to Limerick when he heard coming up behind him the roll of wheels, the clatter of horses' hoofs, and the jingling of the bits. He drew over to his own side to let this carriage pass, but nothing passed. He then looked back, but could see nothing, the road was perfectly bare ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour
... daughter Elisabeth, and she has pined ever since at his unaccountable disappearance. Tannhaeuser, at first incredulous, in the end joyfully agrees to go back to the Wartburg, where the Landgrave's castle can be seen, and the merry clatter of hunting horns is heard on all sides as the curtain falls. It will be seen that there is no vestige of the old stage trickery of the Dutchman here: all seems natural because all is inevitable; of songs and concerted ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... and all the golden twilight was hazy with the dust suspended in swirl and strata over the ugly roofs. In the canvas-faced main street the throng and noise had increased rather than diminished at the approach of dusk. Although clatter of dishes mingled with the cadence, the people acted as if they had no thought of eating; and while aware of certain pangs myself, I felt a diffidence in ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... emptying it over what was, relatively, the only quiet man at the table excepting myself, bringing from him a volley of language which made the others appear dumb by comparison. I soon learned that in all of this clatter of voices and table utensils they were discussing purely ordinary affairs and arguing about mere trifles, and that not the least ill feeling was aroused. It was not long before I enjoyed the spirited chatter and badinage at the table as much as I did my ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... came up the street, With clatter of hoofs and tramp of feet; There was General Jones to guide the van, And Corporal Jinks, his right-hand man; And each was riding his high horse, And each had epaulettes, of course; And each had a sash of the bloodiest red, ...
— Farm Ballads • Will Carleton
... the ragged, unkempt garden in front of the tenement house was so trodden that the snow was packed and hard. The gate swung back with a jar and clatter, and two limp frosted hens flew shrieking out from the shelter of the ash-heap behind it. The door was open, and Helen could see the square of the entry, papered, where the plaster had not been broken away, with pale green castles embowered in livid trees. On either side was the entrance to a ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... in its lower part, to the grimy water-front, where there was ever a noise of the unloading of ships, the shouts of teamsters, and the clatter of dray-horses' big hoofs on bare cobblestones. Ken liked to walk there, even on such a dreary March day as this, when the horses splashed through puddles, and the funnels of the steamers dripped sootily black. He had left Felicia in the garden, investigating ...
— The Happy Venture • Edith Ballinger Price
... of falling asleep; his desire was to consider the position which he had so rashly created for himself; but he did fall asleep—and in the hard chair! He was awakened by a tremendous clatter, as if the house was being bombarded and there were bricks falling about his ears. When he regained all his senses this bombardment resolved itself into nothing but a loud and continued assault on the front door. He rose, and saw a frowsy, dishevelled, ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... is a graceful line of figures, beginning on the left where the mass of rock is broken by the little flight of cupids, and continuing across the picture until it is brought up sharply by the light figure under the trees on the right. Note the pretty clatter of spots this line of figures brings across the picture, introducing light spots into the darker masses, ending up with the strongly accented light spot of the figure on the right; and dark spots into the lighter masses, ending up with ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... was many things in turn; a railway carriage, a pleasure boat on the Thames, a hammock under the trees; last of all it was the upper berth in a not very sweet-smelling cabin, with a clatter of knives and forks near at hand, and a very strong odor of ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... which they prepared and ate their second meal, as scanty as the first. An aged slave, who was remarkable for his industry and fidelity, was working with all his might on the threshing floor; amidst the clatter of the shelling and winnowing machines the master spoke to him, but he did not hear; he presently gave him several severe cuts with the raw hide, saying, at the same time, 'damn you, if you cannot hear ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... clatter and clamour of harsh voices, mouthing the wild gipsies' jargon, had no effect on Baltic. Seeing that he could gain nothing from the mocking crowd, he pushed back one or two, who seemed disposed to be affectionate with a view to robbing his pockets, ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... down a sort of blind of bamboo, which descended with a sharp clatter, and secured it at the bottom; and then the man in the tall fez, with the black beard and wand, began a sort of dervish dance. In this the men with the gold wands joined, and finally, in an outer ring, the bearers, the palanquin being the center of the circles described by these solemn dancers, ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... 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, ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... still. But even if she had shrieked it is doubtful if any one in the dining room could have heard her. The "ghost seiners," quoting from Mr. Bloomer, were pouring through the entry and, as all were talking at once, the clatter of tongues would have drowned out any shriek of ordinary volume. A moment later the Halletts, father and daughter, led the way into the sitting room. Lulie's first procedure was to glance quickly about the apartment. A look of ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... intense stillness of early morning the little cavalcade made a startling clatter on the shell highway; but the rattle of hoofs was soon deadened in the sand of a broad country road curving south through dune and hammock ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... a joke. He won't see it. He will lift his eyebrows with a certain look of contempt, and continue to cogitate—about nothing. If the joke is a very bad pun—such a frightful pun that even a stork will see and resent it—perhaps he will chatter his beak savagely, with a noise like the clatter of the lid on an empty cigar-box; but he will continue his sham meditations. "Ah, my friend," he seems to say, "you are empty and frivolous—I cogitate the profounder immensities of esoteric cogibundity." The fact being that he is very seedy after ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... King and his companions were fused in a shifting mass of trunks and faces, the walls raced round, the singing of the sea roared and fretted in my ears. I caught my hand to my brow and staggered; I could not stand, I heard a clatter as though of a sword falling to the floor, arms were stretched out to receive me and I sank into them, hearing a murmur close by ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... the waggon made in the best manner, and of the strongest wood that could be obtained, for it bumped and swayed about, creaking dismally beneath its heavy load, and making the casks and pots slung beneath clatter together every now and then, as it went over some larger stone than usual. They saw too the value of a good foreloper; for if a careless man were at the head of the oxen, the waggon might at any moment be wrecked over some rugged rock ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... and our clothing tore on the thorny projections of limbs that seemed to have grown there since we climbed. To make matters worse, I stepped off the lowest branch, imagining there was another branch beneath it, and fell headlong, rifle and all, with a clatter and thump that should have alarmed the village half a mile away. And Will, not knowing what I had done but alarmed by the noise I made, jumped ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... blank. When her thoughts returned she stood alone in the room. The clatter of Morgan's galloping horse died swiftly away down the road. She turned to Dan. Black Bart was crouched at watch beside him. She kneeled again—lowered her head—heard the faint but steady breathing. He seemed infinitely young—infinitely weak and helpless. The whiteness of the ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... born men was foremost, with his wiry fingers spread, to pass them through the scattery forelock of that mettlesome horse, old Time. The old horse galloped by him unawares, and left him standing still, to hearken the swish of the tail, and the clatter of the hoofs, and the spirited nostrils neighing for a race, on the wide breezy down at the end of the lane. But Geoffrey Mordacks was not to blame. His instructions were to move slowly, until he was sure of something worth moving for. And of this he had no surety yet, and was only too likely ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... the genius of man had dreamed. Between these cases were deep lateral openings, eight feet wide, crowded with the sick, and long rows of them were stretched through the centre of the hall. A gallery ran around above the cases, and this was filled with cots. The clatter of the feet of passing surgeons and nurses over the marble floor added to the ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... master's saddle; and no sooner was it released than it plunged into the yard, then bounded into the field, around which it galloped, until it found the water. The others imitated this bad example; the clatter of hoofs, though beaten on a rich turf, soon resounding in the stillness of the night, until it might be heard across the valley. The ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... invitations to come in, and dine and rest; but, from the looks of the people who stand on the piazza I am very certain that it is the wrong house and the wrong way. Here is another road. It is very beautiful and macadamized. The horses' hoofs clatter and ring, and they who ride over it spin along the highway, until suddenly they find that the road breaks over an embankment, and they try to halt, and they saw the bit in the mouth of the fiery ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... often lost which would be easy enough if the ground was more open. Frequently, although the tracks show that old tahr must be near, and in spite of the utmost care and caution, the first intimation one has of the presence of the game is a rush through the bushes, a clatter of falling stones, and perhaps a glimpse of the shaggy hind-quarters of the last of the herd as he vanishes over some precipice where it is perfectly impossible ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... across the room, but as he went out of the door he struck his toe against the sill, making a great clatter. ...
— The Cat in Grandfather's House • Carl Henry Grabo
... slipping and clatter of pebbles near me, and discovered Fred Maxim at my side. "Look!" he said, hoarse with excitement. "Already!" He pointed to a string of dim little figures galloping helter-skelter over the neck and down the gap in the ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... they would be seated before he opened the door and stepped into the dining-room. The effect was not at all what he had expected. Daisy was the first to see him. She dropped her knife on the plate with a clatter and gave a little scream. Shorty stopped a spoonful of soup halfway to his mouth, as if he were waiting to have a still picture of himself taken. His eyes stared and his jaw fell. Mrs. Seymour, who was bringing a platter from ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... 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 and exhibiting the ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... Understand you, minister!" said he, "to be sure I do. I have been that way often and often. That was the case when I was to Lowel factories, with the galls a taking of them off in the paintin' line. The dear little critters kept up such an everlastin' almighty clatter, clatter, clatter; jabber, jabber, jabber, all talkin' and chatterin' at once, you couldn't hear no blessed one of them; and they jist fairly stunned a feller. For nothin' in natur', unless it be perpetual motion, can equal a woman's tongue. ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... beside the Seine, remembering, with a pang of jealous passion, that the flowers on Alpine meadows are still blooming, and the rivulets still flowing with a ceaseless song, while Paris shops are all we see, and all we hear is the dull clatter of ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... just beginning to stir and twitter in their nests under the eaves when I heard the horses' hoofs a-clatter on the high road," said Dame Watt to her neighbour as they stood in close confab in her small front garden. "Lord's mercy! though I have lain down expecting it every night for a week, the heart ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... things Is the gratitude of kings; The plaudits of the crowd Are but the clatter of feet At midnight in the street, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... adventurers looked into the cave. The men there were unaware of the presence of our friends, and were busily engaged. Some attended to the grinding machine, the roar and clatter of which made it possible for Tom and the others to talk and move about without being overheard. Into this machine certain ingredients were put, and they were then pulverized, and taken ...
— Tom Swift Among The Diamond Makers - or The Secret of Phantom Mountain • Victor Appleton
... so he climbed a tree with his hide to be out of danger. During the night a gang of thieves came to the tree, and began to divide their booty. While there were busy over this, Spanling let the hide fall with a clatter into their midst, and they all ran away in a fright, leaving ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... in the evening, and finished at six in the morning; and all these couples, joyous as they were amorous and indefatigable, laughed, ate, and drank, with youthful and Pantagruelian ardor, so that, during the first part of the feast, there was less chatter than clatter of ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... was in the dining-room the usual rustling, clatter of plates, forks and knives, tinkling of glasses, and whispered conversation. "Our" American was sitting at the side of his odd Dulcinea, and he again looked like a self-satisfied cox-comb. But, it seemed to me that into the everyday mood of the vessel's table-d'hote, there ...
— The Shield • Various
... Polly, with a lingering accent on the second word, as she caught the sound of a distant clatter of dishes and breathed in a ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... pardon, Mr. Burnham," said Fuller suddenly. "I didn't notice that rope was in your way." And he learned over and tossed the rope away. As he did so some hard object fell with a clatter ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux
... horse's neck, the animal protruded his head, uncovered his teeth, and moved his jaws, exactly as if nibbling another horse's neck, for he could never have nibbled his own neck. If a horse is much tickled, as when curry-combed, his wish to bite something becomes so intolerably strong, that he will clatter his teeth together, and though not vicious, bite his groom. At the same time from habit he closely depresses his ears, so as to protect them from being bitten, as if he were fighting ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... would have been too much, would they not? But the poor box itself was to be pitied; it had come open in the fall, and all that was in it had naturally tumbled out. That explained the noise and clatter. The box had held—indeed it had been made on purpose to hold them—two beautiful glass jugs, which had been sent to mother all the way from Italy! Baby had never seen them, because they were only used when ...
— The Adventures of Herr Baby • Mrs. Molesworth
... guess what happened; and if I had known more I should have expected it. As soon as I got the pan over the edge the milk swayed towards me, the pan escaped from my hands, and fell with terrific clatter on the floor, deluging me with ...
— Kristy's Rainy Day Picnic • Olive Thorne Miller
... the street belonged to a strange, busy world outside his interest and thoughts. They formed what was known as the public, often making a clatter About things which they did not understand, when they Should obey the orders of their superiors. Of late, their clatter had been about the extra taxes for the recent increase of the standing forces by another corps. The public was bovine with a parrot's ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... shown into a comfortable inner sitting-room, looking more like a gentleman's book-room than a lawyer's chambers, and there waited for Sir Abraham. Nor was he kept waiting long: in ten or fifteen minutes he heard a clatter of voices speaking quickly in the passage, and ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... The clatter of hoofs was growing louder with each passing second. The police must certainly be near the top of the rise now. Bill was well away. He was well in the bush ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... father heard the clear, sonorous tones of his fine voice calling to his attendants, and yet a few seconds later the lively clatter of his horse's hoofs on ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... the evening, when every Apache had disappeared, and the clatter of ponies had gone far away into the quiet night, Coronado lay down to rest. He would have started homeward, but the country was a complete desert, the trail led here and there over vast sheets of trackless rock, and he feared that he might ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... with such power, that almost before the ear catches the sound, it is vibrating in the tendon Achilles. It is said by some, that salmon get accustomed to crimping; and I suppose that, in like manner, the American tympanum gets accustomed to this abominable clatter and noise. ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... Trinity must have been shuffling china plates like cards, from the clatter that could be heard in the Great Court. Jacob's rooms, however, were in Neville's Court; at the top; so that reaching his door one went in a little out of breath; but he wasn't there. Dining in Hall, ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... little stones marking every hundred metres until the tenth rose into the proud kilometre stone proclaiming the distance to the next stately town, rang too with the sound of British voices, and the tramp of British feet, and the clatter of British transport, and the screech and whir of cars, revealing as they passed the flash of red and gold of the British staff. Yet the finely cultivated land remained to show that it was France; and the little whitewashed villages; ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... hours, watching the electric cars. They announced themselves from a great distance by a low singing on the overhead wire; then with a rush and a rumble the big, lighted things dashed across the void, and rumbled on with a clatter of smashing iron as they took the switches recklessly. The noise soothed her; in the quiet intervals she was listening for sounds from upstairs. The night was still and languorous, one of the peaceful nights of large spaces when the heavens brood over ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... Brigandine of brass, thy broad Habergeon. 1120 Vant-brass and Greves, and Gauntlet, add thy Spear A Weavers beam, and seven-times-folded shield. I only with an Oak'n staff will meet thee, And raise such out-cries on thy clatter'd Iron, Which long shall not with-hold mee from thy head, That in a little time while breath remains thee, Thou oft shalt wish thy self at Gath to boast Again in safety what thou wouldst have done To Samson, but shalt never ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... upon the house with wild violence and set everything in the place a-clatter. He lit the lamp. Then he seemed to collect himself and went over and felt the stove. It was ice cold. The blankets were laid out upon the floor in the usual spread of the daytime. They had not ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... other men and boys got in. If Charlie felt "queer" before, he felt still "queerer" now, and when the cage began to descend, he felt almost sick with the motion; it seemed to him as if they were never going to reach the bottom. Down, down, down they went; the clatter of the engine above, and the creaking of the cage, making Charlie fancy every now and then that the rope was giving way, and that in another second they would all be dashed to atoms. Whenever he looked up, and remembered that all their ...
— Charlie Scott - or, There's Time Enough • Unknown
... Polani, your daughters have been everything that is kind, but I have no taste for assemblies and entertainments. I feel out of place there, amid all the gaily dressed nobles and ladies, and no sooner do I get there, than I begin to wonder how anyone can prefer the heated rooms, and clatter of tongues, to the quiet pleasure of a walk backwards and forwards on the deck of a good ship. Besides, I want to learn my profession, and there is so much to learn in it that I feel I have no ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... he went across the street and on to the bridge to look at the river that flowed past the station. It was narrow and filled with ships, and the water looked gray and dirty. A pall of black smoke covered the sky. From all sides of him and even in the air above his head a great clatter and roar of ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... was to be finally abandoned. Mr. Fairbairn, an anxious-faced, sorrow-worn man, stood on a raised dais by the cashier while he handed the little pile of hardly-earned shillings and coppers to each successive workman as the long procession filed past his table. It was usual with the employees to clatter away the instant that they had been paid, like so many children let out of school; but to-day they waited, forming little groups over the great dreary room, and discussing in subdued voices the misfortune which had come upon their employers, and the future which awaited themselves. When ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... they are astir so late and so early, patiently waiting at the hotel doors to be hired, that there seems to be no night for them—darkness only, that blots them out for a time as they stand waiting. At all hours there is in St. Gian the tinkle of bells, the clatter of hoofs, the crack of a whip, dust in retreat; but no coachman brought him news. The streets were thronged with other coachmen on foot looking into every face in quest of some person who wanted to return to the lowlands, but none had looked ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... helplessness, she caught again a sound of vehicles and hooves on the cobbles of the street below. A carriage was approaching. It drew up with a clatter before the fencing-academy. Could it be Andre-Louis returning? Passionately she snatched at that straw of hope. Knocking, loud and urgent, fell upon the door. She heard Andre-Louis' housekeeper, her wooden shoes clanking upon the stairs, hurrying ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... inns, the changing of troops at one of the guard-houses on the way, the reiterated commands given to the fresh squad before starting on the next lap of this strange, momentous way; and all the while, audible above the clatter of horses' hoofs, the rumbling of coach-wheels—two closed carriages, each drawn by a pair of sturdy horses; which were changed at every halt. A soldier on each box urged them to a good pace to keep up with the troopers, who were allowed to go at an easy canter or light jog-trot, whatever ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... lips 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 ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... opposite to it, and hearing its regular and never- changing voice, that one deep constant note, uppermost amongst all the noise and clatter in the streets below, - marking that, let that tumult rise or fall, go on or stop, - let it be night or noon, to-morrow or to-day, this year or next, - it still performed its functions with the same dull constancy, and regulated the progress ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... turned his stomach. At sight of the green light of greed in their eyes he had said to himself, "Davy is a rough fellow, but a born Christian. These creatures are hogs. Why doesn't his gorge rise at them?" When the supper was done, and while the cloth was being removed, amid the clatter of dishes and the striking of lights, Lovibond rose and slipped out ...
— Capt'n Davy's Honeymoon - 1893 • Hall Caine
... peal forth their noisy reminder of the virility of the Holy Catholic faith. Then the man raised his head, seemingly startled into awareness of his material environment. For a few moments he listened confusedly to the insistent clatter—but he made no sign of the cross, nor did his head bend with the weight of a hollow Ave on his bloodless lips while the clamoring muezzins filled the warm, tropical air with their jangling appeal. Rising with an air of weary indifference, he slowly crossed the room and threw wide the shutters ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... humiliating a defeat. The wild charges of the Highland men broke up the ordered ranks of the English troops in hopeless confusion; almost all the infantry was cut to pieces, and the cavalry {215} escaped only by desperate flight. Cope's dragoons were accustomed to flight by this time; the clatter of their horses' hoofs as they cantered from Coltbrigg was still in their cars, and as they once again tore in shameless flight up the Edinburgh High Street they might well have reflected upon the rapidity with which such experiences repeated themselves. General ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy |
