"Rattle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... The men halted a few moments, and then were ordered to fall in and advance against the enemy. Skirmishers, as usual, had advanced and prepared the way for the lines of infantry and the artillery. The shots of the skirmishers had become more and more frequent, till the sharp rattle of musketry told of the actual presence of the enemy. The artillery of the Sixth corps was at once run out, and a brisk fire opened upon the rebels, who replied with their guns, but with less vigor than that exhibited by our own. The commands of ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... previous to the coveted nominal rank enabling her to trample on those beneath it. And women like that Mrs. Warwick, a woman of no birth, no money, not even honest character, enjoyed the entry undisputed, circulated among the highest:—because people took her rattle for wit!—and because also our nobility, Lady Wathin feared, had no due regard for morality. Our aristocracy, brilliant and ancient though it was, merited rebuke. She grew severe upon aristocratic scandals, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... barrow. A motor cab followed, two Australian troopers on the roof of that, with a hospital nurse, her cap awry, sitting across the knees of one of them. A girl on the kerb, continuously springing a rattle in a sort of trance, shrieked with laughter at the nurse. Lines of people with linked arms chanted and surged along, bare-headed, or with hats turned into jokes. A private car, a beautiful little saloon in which a lady was solitary, stopped near me, and the lady beckoned with a smile to a Canadian ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... the whole house was in silence, when there was heard the rattle of a latchkey in the stairway door, followed by footsteps in the corridor and then the querulous tinkling of the music-box upon ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... did!" shouted Mr. Blake. Both he and Mr. Porter had to shout to be heard above the noise of the storm; for the thunder was very loud, and the patter of the rain drops, and the rattle of the hail made a very great ...
— Daddy Takes Us to the Garden - The Daddy Series for Little Folks • Howard R. Garis
... turning the piece of cane upside down, shaking it, listening for any rattle within, and otherwise examining it most carefully. Meanwhile Cleo had rescued the wrappings, and was trying to connect the line of print. She smoothed out the torn, yellow pieces, and presently her eye fell upon a ringed ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis
... windows had been smashed by shrapnel, and bits of glass and things crunched under foot. The room was full of noises—the crackle of the telephones, the crooning of the woman, the croak of the wounded old man, the clear and incisive tones of the general and his brigade-major, the rattle of not too distant rifles, the booming of guns and occasionally the terrific, overwhelming crash of a ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... we must hie away from these "junketings"—these festive boards, which our loyal ancestors seem to have infinitely enjoyed. We must hie away the long wished for "snow storm," the signal of attack has come. 'Tis five o'clock before dawn. Hark to the rattle of the alarm drum. Hark! Hark to the tolling of every city bell (and you know Quebec bells are numerous) louder! louder even than the voice of the easterly storm. To ARMS! To ARMS! resounds in the Market Place—the Place d'Armes—and ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... the windows rattle; the weapon fell from her hand, having done its work and, amid the smoke, a body dropped heavily on the carpet, which was soon ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... "it's all very well for you to rattle on like this, but you mustn't treat Ken's proposal lightly. He's a splendid man and he's ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... a clatter of hoofs and a rattle of wheels, and a brown horse, drawing a very loose-jointed wagon, with Ralph Haverley, in a broad hat and light tennis jacket, driving, dashed up to the back door and stopped ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... out rather a Levite than a Samaritan. In mere self-defence, I would have been constrained to keep up a series of general and impersonal reflections till the swagman lost his individuality—say, five or six hours—but I was rescued from this tyranny by the faint rattle of a buggy on the other side of the river. Idly turning my glass on the two occupants of the vehicle, I recognised one of them as a familiar and valued friend—a farmer, residing five or six miles down ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... larger, and his throat was filled with an exultant rattle. In the matter of the Upisk wives he knew that ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... in a corner of the comfortable carriage, that hardly swayed on its supple springs, while the grays trotted swiftly, in the midst of the unceasing rattle of wheels and the changing impressions in the pure air, Anna ran over the events of the last days, and she saw her position quite differently from how it had seemed at home. Now the thought of death seemed no longer so terrible and so clear ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... at Llandudno must see our burning ship, and will come out in their boats." He kept in the line of light, although it did not lead him direct to the shore, in order that they might be seen. He swam with desperation. One moment he thought he had heard her last gasp rattle through the rush of the waters; and all strength was gone, and he lay on the waves as if he himself must die, and go with her spirit straight through that purple lift to heaven; the next he heard the splash of oars, and raised himself ...
— The Moorland Cottage • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... its base, a stream disappears in an arched cave at the foot of a towering rocky cliff, and I have bethought me since of whether, like Allan Quatermain's subterranean stream, it would, if followed, reveal things heretofore unseen. And so we climb the lovely Suran Pass, rattle down the western slope upon the Black Sea coast, and reach ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... tormented by doubts as he lounged in the parlor-car, and, growing restless, he went out on the rear platform and lighted a cigar. There was faint moonlight, and dim trees fled past him; the rattle of wheels and the rush of the cool wind was soothing. He could not think while he stood holding on by the brass rail to protect himself against the lurching, and he found a relief in the roar as the great train swept across a foaming river. They had been detained at a junction ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... desirable plan, if you want to do anything, to do it in the way consecrated by custom, more especially if you are a woman. The rattle of a carriage along the road just behind me, and the fact that I started and turned suddenly hot, drove this truth home to my soul. The mist hid me, and the carriage, no doubt full of cousins, drove on in the direction of the house; but what an absurd position ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... little snakes, and all kinds of stork-dainties that he could find. And then, how funny it was to see the tricks he would perform to amuse them. He would lay his head quite round over his tail, and clatter with his beak, as if it had been a rattle; and then he would tell them stories all ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... The trees of the boulevard, in four straight lines, lifted their frail skeletons in the fog. They heard, through the wide silence, the diminishing rattle of their cab, on its way back to the barrier, and the trotting of a horse coming ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... I exclaimed, and I jumped up so suddenly that I made all the cups rattle and nearly threw over the table altogether. 'Then if anything stops Clem getting back quickly, I can run home and explain. Anyway you'd be more comfortable if you knew the two of us were on the hunt together. You don't mind my ...
— Peterkin • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... looked at him as she turned away. She was wounded to the heart; and the poor lad, putting a fearful curb upon himself, suffered her to leave him. He did not even go down to the door to see the carriage leave, and in a few minutes the rattle of wheels across the stony street fell upon his ears like a last farewell. Then, there being none to witness his weakness, he laid his head down upon the battered old desk, and wept as he had not wept since his childhood. He had a proud spirit, and circumstances had made him morbidly sensitive. ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... at the inn, I do not know how long, but they told me afterward it was for many days, hanging on the brink between life and death, until one day I heard in my dreams the music of the fife and the rattle of the drums, and awoke to life and hope again. The sunlight was streaming through the south window across the counterpane of the bed, and outside could be heard the steady tread ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... one instance he had the greatest difficulty in proving that the machine had been used in Georgia, although at that very moment three, separate gins were at work within fifty yards of the building in which the court sat. They were all so near, that the rattle and hum of the machinery could be ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris
... up a shaly bank, Kit was glad to see a broken wall loom among the tossing flakes. This was the shaft-house of an abandoned mine, and there was a sheep-fold, built with pulled-down material, close by. He shouted and waited until he heard the dogs bark and a rattle of stones. The Herdwicks were coming down and presently broke out from the snow in a compact, struggling flock. Tom shouted and threw a hurdle across the entrance when the dogs had driven the ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... young, rattle-headed creature, not much like your own kin, I guess; but, young man, she is as dear as the apple of our eyes, and I charge you to treat her well. She has never had a crossways word spoke to her all her life, and don't you ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... brigade a cry of recognition, and every man instinctively perceived that some grim business had begun. Another Sunday battle was raging just over the ridge, and the rest of that day's march had for its accompaniment the music of pom-poms, the rattle of rifle fire, and the thud of shells. But at the close of the day an officer somewhat discontentedly reported that "if" our artillery had only reached a certain place by a certain time, something splendid would have happened. Many of our rat-traps proved thus weak in ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... of a quick, lively dance. Cf. Middlemen's Spanish Gipsy (IV. 2): "Fortune's a scurvy whore if she makes not my head sound like a rattle and ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... "What a rattle-headed dunce I am! Thai brave and unfortunate Athos was wounded right on that shoulder I ran against head foremost, like a ram. The only thing that surprizes me is that he didn't strike me dead on the spot; he had provocation enough, for I must have hurt him savagely. As to Porthos—oh! ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... heretics always were inconsistent, never could state plainly their meaning, much less agree together; and thus, whether they would or no, could not help giving to the simple a warning of their true character, as if by their rattle." ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... street-junction I have already mentioned. Here stands one of the most beautiful monuments to Prague's former glory, the "Powder Tower." When first you come upon this, rising serenely in all its ornate loveliness out of the roar and rattle of the traffic, the sight of it catches your breath. King Vladislav II caused it to be erected—one of the gates of the old city. An unhappy King this latter, I should say; at least his lot was cast in unhappy times. One of the last Slavs to occupy the throne of Bohemia—he ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... meteor! An Isolde, who is a Jewish prostitute. Bestial and mournful lust. The frenzy of murder, pillage, incest, and untrammeled instincts which is stirring in the depths of German decadence.... And, on the other hand, the spasm of a voluptuous and melancholy suicide, the death-rattle which sounds through your French decadence.... On the one hand, the beast: on the other, the prey. Where is man?... Your Debussy is the genius of good taste: Strauss is the genius of bad taste. Debussy is ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... there two bands of one hundred men each, waiting for their commander. About fifty among the strongest and most zealous had helmets on their heads and long swords hanging to belts from their waists. Others displayed with pride bucklers, on which they loved to rattle an iron gauntlet. ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... few minutes Miss Laura stood by the door and looked in, but soon the men had piled up so many boxes and trunks that she could not see me. Then she went away. Mr. Morris asked one of the men to see that I did not get hurt, and I heard some money rattle. Then he went ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... each an exhortation, And kind friend Luth engaged awhile in prayer, Which met, at present, no disapprobation. Much death bed comfort does the sick one share, But soon his eyes assume a brighter glare, The rattle in his throat bespeaks death near. Anon they raise the dying youth with care, Whose smiling face shows plain he has no fear, For Jesus in the valley ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... There was a mournful dispirited look about the hound, evidently an aged animal, for the once black muzzle was touched with grey, and there was a film over one of the keen beautiful eyes, which opened eagerly as he pricked his ears and lifted his head at the rattle of the door latch. Then, as two boys came out, he rose, and with a slowly waving tail, and a wistful appealing air, came and laid his head against one of the pair who had appeared in the porch. They were lads of fourteen and fifteen, ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... which had been the first building seen when the darkness brightened, and was propped up against the garden wall, like an artist's lay figure waiting to be forwarded, until the dog- cart should arrive from the farm-house below. In due time—and a very long time it seemed to Mr. Idle—the rattle of wheels was heard, and the crippled Apprentice was lifted into the seat. As the dog-cart was driven back to the inn, the landlord related an anecdote which he had just heard at the farm-house, of an unhappy man who had been lost, ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... his wife yet. Ben drove fiend-fashion; but before they passed the last house in the village, lights were glancing and windows grating as they were opened. Years after, I heard the story of such a midnight cry borne past sleeping houses with the quick rattle of wheels; but no one who heard it could give the right clue to its explanation, and it dried ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... down, the order was given to fire. A flash of flame ran along the face of the great square, and then a continuous roar told that the breech-loading rifles were at work, while the machine-guns of the sailors added their rattle to the din of ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... lift up their voices with cries for night to come; the horses, ruffled and shivering, with their tails to the wind, as they snap their frosted fodder, or paw through the rime to the frozen grass underneath, causing their icy fetlocks to rattle about their hoofs; the cattle, crowded to leeward of some deep-buried haystack, the exposed side of the outermost of them white with whirling flakes; the sheep, turning their pitiful, trusting eyes about them over the fields of storm in earth ...
— Aftermath • James Lane Allen
... tells how St. Francis overcame in himself the mediaeval dread at the touch of a leper, and washed and tended one of the poor unfortunates. He was but following the example of Amil, who was not deterred by the dreaded sound of the "tartavelle"—the clapper or rattle which announced the approach of the leper {4}—from ...
— Old French Romances • William Morris
... incautious trespasser to run the gauntlet of batteries of blue and black eyes on either side of the way. A carriage passing through it communicated a singular thrill to the floors, and caused the china on the dining-table to rattle. Although we were comparatively free from the prevailing winds, wandering gusts sometimes got bewildered and strayed unconsciously into our street, and finding an unencumbered field, incontinently set up a shriek of joy, and went gleefully to work on the clothes-lines and chimney-pots, ...
— Urban Sketches • Bret Harte
... no longer in her cradle, Francis, and it is time to rattle at the windows. As for the black minx, who should have been up and at her duty this hour, there will be a balance to settle between us. Come, Patroon:—the appetite will not await the laziness of a wilful girl; we will to ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... he cried out to himself that the fear was groundless. There was blood in the secret at the very last! He arrived at Fleurieres almost in a state of elation; he had satisfied himself, logically, that in the presence of his threat of exposure they would, as he mentally phrased it, rattle down like unwound buckets. He remembered indeed that he must first catch his hare—first ascertain what there was to expose; but after that, why shouldn't his happiness be as good as new again? Mother and ...
— The American • Henry James
... that he had to be prating; and so would hush, still, and put all to quiet again. And that he might leave no argument unurged that might tend to make them secure, he said, and said it often, O Mansoul! consider that notwithstanding the old gentleman's rage, and the rattle of his high and thundering words, you hear nothing of Shaddai himself, when, liar and deceiver that he was, every outcry of Mr. Recorder against the sin of Mansoul was the voice of God in him to them. But he goes on and says, You see that ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... destroyed the emperors but it saved the people. It opened to the barbarians the palaces of Constantinople, but it opened the doors of cottages to the ministering angels of Christ. It had much to do with the great ones of earth. And what is more interesting than the death-rattle of an empire corrupt to the very marrow of its bones, than the somber galvanism under the influence of which the skeleton of tyranny danced upon the tombs of Heliogabalus and Caracalla! What a beautiful thing that mummy of Rome, embalmed in the perfumes of Nero ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... and imaginary beauties. All that can furnish this representation are the sounds of the words considered singly, and the time in which they are pronounced. Every language has some words framed to exhibit the noises which they express, as thump, rattle, growl, hiss. These, however, are but few, and the poet cannot make them more, nor can they be of any use but when sound is to be mentioned. The time of pronunciation was, in the dactylick measures of the learned languages, capable ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... from its scabbard and stood pressed against the rock wall while her eyes searched swiftly the prison into which she had fallen. Again came that light swift rattle with ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... bell came more slowly. The humming departed from the air. The window panes, the glass of the bookcase, the tumblers on the table, ceased to rattle and gave off only a ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... lives of most women, of the vast majority, the clatter and clash of housewifery prelude and postlude the spring song of their years. And the rattle of dishes, of busy knives and forks, the quick tapping of Maud's attendant feet, the sound of young and ravenous jaws at work: these sounds were in Joan's bewildered ears, and the sights which they accompanied in her bewildered eyes, just ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... rejoicings the sharp rattle of musketry was heard, and the Italians rushed to cover. A reconnoitering party reported that the Austrians were intrenched in a large villa beyond a stream outside the town. The Italian troops began an attack upon this position, and a skirmish party sought to take a position in a house ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... a flurried rattle against the fudge pan. "Oh!" a shriek of dismay, "my dear young and giddy friend, we're all out of sugar. What if we should want to make anything to-night? Let's run back to the grocery by the kitchen ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... of a fresh egg looks dull and porous. As it begins to age, the shell takes on a shiny appearance. If an egg is kept any length of time, a portion of its water evaporates, which leaves a space in the shell, and the egg will "rattle." An egg that rattles may be perfectly good, and ...
— Many Ways for Cooking Eggs • Mrs. S.T. Rorer
... rattle of the train on the railway lines, and, turning towards the other end of the platform, he saw that Ninian, having settled about the luggage and finished listening to the story of the fox hunt, was approaching them. "Come on," he said, catching hold of ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... and placing them away on the shelf behind Borg's back, dropped a heavy tin cup. The cabin was very still, and the sharp rattle came without warning. On the instant, with a brute roar, the chair was overturned and Borg was on his feet, eyes blazing and face convulsed. Bella gave an inarticulate, animal-like cry of fear and cowered at his feet. St. Vincent felt his hair bristling, ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... children's tombs—cocks and hens, pigs and horses, very rude. Similar toys are to be found in the Arles and the Avignon museums. I remember in the catacomb of S. Agnes at Rome is a whole collection of toys found in a Christian grave there, ivory dolls, a rattle, bells, and an earthenware money-box, just such as may be bought for a sou now in a foreign fair. De Rossi, the curator of the catacombs, has had them all put together under glass in proximity to the little grave where they were found. In a child's ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... must not be forgotten that there are many visitors who want their first impression of this city of their dreams to be abrupt; who want the transition from the rattle of the train to the peace of the gondola to be instantaneous; and these, of course, must enter Venice at the station. If, as most travellers from England do, they leave London by the 2.5 and do not break the journey, they will reach Venice a ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... deck before the crew had surrounded the wheelhouse. There was a rattle of steamer folded chairs, a pounce by the third mate, and out came the unfortunate Cupples, dragged ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... a fierce whisper. 'Cheer to show them we aren't afraid, and rattle the daggers to make more noise. One, two, three! Hip, hip, hooray! Again - Hip, hip, hooray! One more - Hip, hip, hooray!' The cheers were rather high and weak, but the rattle of the daggers lent ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... "I never thought to warn you against them. That's a poisonous one, I think, and they climb up the trees and among the flowers to get the young birds and eggs and beetles and things. Better always rattle a stick in amongst the leaves, sir, before you get handling them. Try again, now, with the handle of ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... place the body, take a turn of end of nape cord about tip of neck-wire and twist a wisp of cotton about them both to prevent wire catching in neck skin when passing through. Hold up the bird-skin by the head, shake it out loose and rattle neck-wire up through the neck. Run wire out of mouth, remove cotton and release free end of nape cord. Draw wire back to base of skull, leaving nape cord hanging from mouth. Now push wire through brain cavity, between eye sockets ...
— Taxidermy • Leon Luther Pray
... his window, saw the carriage rattle past, and saw his friend leaning back in it, with alert eyes, to scan every woman passing by. He stood on the balcony for a moment till the noise of the wheels on the stone pavement died away. When he returned to ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... kitchen they were having tea. The rattle of the crockery sounded very distinctly. He could distinguish the sharp, staccato ring when a cup was laid in a saucer, and the nervous rattle when cup and saucer were passed from one hand to the other. Spoons struck ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... us. They formed a complete line in front of us. General Carr, being desirous of striking their village, ordered the troops to charge, break through their line, and keep straight on. This movement would, no doubt, have been successfully accomplished had it not been for the rattle-brained and dare-devil French Lieutenant Schinosky, commanding Company B, who, misunderstanding General Carr's orders, charged upon some Indians at the left, while the rest of the command dashed through the enemy's ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody
... the floor of his prison, the bars appeared of a formidable thickness, and he dreaded lest the time that would elapse till the next visit of his jailer, should be insufficient for him to overcome the obstacle. To his unspeakable delight, however, his first effort caused the grating to shake and rattle. The stone into which the extremities of the bars were riveted was of no very hard description; the iron was corroded by the rust of centuries, and Paco at once saw, that what he had looked forward to as a task of severe difficulty, would be accomplished with the utmost ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... would have kicked. And here we'd been makin' hay, and makin' hay, the ranch people thanking Providence that prairie grass cures on the stem, while we cussed, for we were sick of the sight of hay. I got so the rattle of a mower give me hysterics. We were picked because we were steady and reliable, but one day we bunched the job. Says I, 'Here; we've cut grass for four solid months, includin' Sundays and legal holidays, although the Lord knows where they come in, for I haven't the least suspicion ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... his own. The brain within was well developed with healthy exercise. It filled its case, and did not rattle like a withered kernel, or sound soft like a rotten one. It was a vigorous, muscular brain. The owner felt that he could trust it for an effort, as he could his lungs for a shout, his legs for a leap, or his fist for a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... tesselated floors, the mottled marble of the balustrades; the hushed approach to the Supreme Court; the precipitous descent into the galleries of House and Senate, the rap of the Speaker's gavel—the rattle of argument as political foes contended in the legislative arena; the more subdued squabbles on the Senate floor; the savory smell of food rising from the restaurants in the lower regions; the climb to the dome, the look of the ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey
... looking other than "spick and span," as her husband often admiringly declared. Rose always said that she could tell just what part of the big house Aunt Hetty was in because she could hear her starched skirts rattle; and she realized that Anne's untidy appearance was a real trouble to her ...
— A Little Maid of Massachusetts Colony • Alice Turner Curtis
... Profound and ingenious policy! Instead of curing the disease, to remove those symptoms by which alone its nature can be known! To leave the serpent his deadly sting, and deprive him only of his warning rattle! ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... before me with the first two fingers spread wide apart. "You lost," he said. "How's that, Sour-dough? We stuck him the first rattle out ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... hundred in number, perhaps, they swerved in dignified fashion and in their ineffably beautiful posture of flying, necks gently bent backward and long legs trailing delicately, flew away to the west. They were beginning to rise for a long flight when a harsh rattle of shots broke the evening quiet. Pop-pop-pop! Repeating shotguns worked at full speed. The flock crumpled and broke and a score of the beautiful birds came crashing down in shapeless, broken lumps. And then, too late to prevent the crime, ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... into the long prayer of the Presbyterian service. Bragg's army was still in middle Tennessee. There was no thought of an attack. Bang! Bang! Then the bursting of a shell too close for comfort. Bang! Bang! Then the rattle of shell fragments on the roof. On the other side of the river the Yankees ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... the rattle of the wagon, with which he delivered goods to the customers, was heard as he drove off. Don John came into the hall, and Nellie asked him ever so many questions about the condition of Michael, and what the doctor ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic
... did so rattle along that it was quite impossible for anyone to get in a word—there was a movement outside which was ominous had Allen but ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan
... wild things and wild places. The benedicite of the Druid woods, always appreciated by the few, like Lowell, is coming to be understood by the many. There is an increasing desire to get away from the roar and rattle of the streets, away from even the prim formality of suburban avenues and artificial bits of landscape gardening into the panorama of woodland, field, and stream. Men with means are disposing of their palatial residences in the cities and moving to real ...
— Some Winter Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... trumpet, with ringing cheer, with thundering hoof and streaming pennon and thrilling rattle of carbine and pistol; with one magnificent, triumphant burst of speed the troop comes whirling out from the covert of the bluff and sweeps all before ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... the devil" To exchange in our revel The ingot, the gem, and yellow doubloon; Coronets are but playthings— We reck not who say things When the Reiters have ridden to death! none too soon!— To flourish of trumpet and rattle of drum, The Reiters will finish as firm ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... lurked in the dark recesses of the swamp; on cypress-stumps or floating logs the deadly water-moccason lay stretched out, ready to bite without warning. Wherever there was a bit of dry ground, the workers were sure to hear the rattle of the rattlesnake. Sometimes whole nests of these reptiles ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... that he could hear the clatter of their golden wings, and their shrieks to each other: "here, here," "no, there; this way he went," as they chased him. But the Shoes of Swiftness flew too fast for them, and at last their cries and the rattle of their wings died away as he crossed the great river that ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... others: notably now it bewildered Duncan as he entered on the echo of Spaulding's "Come!" He had apprehended the visage of a thunderstorm, with a rattle of brusque complaints: he encountered Spaulding as he had always seemed: a little, urbane figure with a blank face, the blanker for glasses whose lenses seemed always to catch the light and, glaring, mask the eyes behind them; a prosperous man of affairs, well groomed both ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... man cried, with a gesture of tolerant impatience. "Of course it's life. Lorson! A hundred thousand dollars! It couldn't be for a thing less than life. It don't rattle me any." ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... easy to say, but when the reports came of victories to the British armies, assisted although they may have been by paid allies, the patriotic feelings of these Yorkshiremen did not fail to manifest themselves in a heavier consumption of beer than usual. We can hear the chink of glasses and the rattle of pewter tankards in the cosy parlours of the "White Swan," the "George," and the rest; we can hear as the years go by the loud cheers raised for Marlborough, for Wolfe, for Nelson, or for Wellington, while overhead the church bells are ringing loudly in the old ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... of strident voices that went from one end of the great square to the other, which was prolonged like the sound of the rising tide, which beats against the shore with ceaseless noise, that rattle of rifles, and the sound of the music that alternated with blasts of the trumpets all along the line, made the General's heart swell ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... silently, suffering always, but never hardening—on the contrary, growing tenderer for others the more it had to endure itself! Would it always be so? Was there no peace on earth for Ideala? No one who could be all her own? I felt responsible for this last hard blow; had I done well? The rush and rattle of the train shaped itself into a sort of sub-chorus to my thoughts as we sped through the pleasant fields: Was it right? Was it right? Was it right? And I saw Ideala, with soft, sad eyes, pleading—mutely ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... few minutes the rattle of the chain announced that the anchor was down. The sails were dewed up, ...
— Chasing the Sun • R.M. Ballantyne
... capture of the skirmish-line that killed him. Of course a great many of the official reports are misleading as to time, and it is only by these circumstances that we can judge definitely. I notice it was 12:20 o'clock, according to Allen, when they first heard the rattle of musketry ...
— The Battle of Atlanta - and Other Campaigns, Addresses, Etc. • Grenville M. Dodge
... signal flag against attack. Large numbers of insects thus coloured are nauseous and inedible; others, like wasps and bees, have stings; others are too hard to be eaten by small birds; while snakes with poisonous fangs often have some characteristic either of rattle, hood, or unusual colour, which indicates that they ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... rattle of kettles and tin pans and the Indian youth gave Rod a glad slap on the back as he hurried to the table. He was evidently in high spirits, and burst into a snatch of song as he cut up a loaf ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... to examine a pile of papers before her with that concentration and attention to detail which was characteristic of her eyes, pausing at times with prettily knit brows, and her penholder between her lips, in the semblance of a pout that was pleasant enough to see. Suddenly the rattle of hoofs and wheels struck her with the sense of something forgotten, and she put down her work quickly and stood up listening. The sound of rough voices and her father's querulous accents was broken upon by a cultivated and more familiar utterance: "All right; I'll speak to her at ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... and was pacing the floor with impatient strides. "Pierre Philibert!" exclaimed he, "where is the poor lad? He must be sought for and saved yet. What demons have assailed him now? Was it the serpent of strong drink, that bites men mad, or the legion of fiends that rattle the dice-box in their ears? Or was it the last temptation, which never fails when all else has been tried ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... activity of the wharf, while impeded, was in no wise stopped. The bustle, rattle, and shouting were, in fact, augmented by the temporary interference. Everybody seemed in a hurry, and everybody seemed out of temper, save a boy who lay at full length on the quay and earnestly studied ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... the place for a young man. You can be a baron out there with ten thousan' head of rattle. But the place for me is Texas. Trees is ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... admitted (but refused to show me), consisted of a butterfly-cocoon rattle, an eagle-bone whistle, and a feather headband. "I don't really do nothing but help nature," he said. When I replied that only some people know how to help nature he was gratified and smiled. "Oh well, it's all psychological anyway," he answered, confirming Lowie's description ...
— Washo Religion • James F. Downs
... waited for the signal from the hidden lokali player, on the far side of the river bend. At the first hollow rattle of his sticks, N'gori pushed off in his ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... lonely camp the dread tarantela disturbed her rest and in day's early gloam a warning rattle of creepy ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... hillock, on the leeside of which we are, rocks and shakes; and the air grows thick and suffocating—full of dust and saltpetre and sulphur. We are like to choke. All around is dark as night. We can see nothing, hear nothing but the howling of the hurricane, and the thunder and rattle of falling trees ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... with as many more. He thought to himself, "I must find out the way of making these heads." Cunning and curiosity prompted him to make the discovery. But he deemed it necessary to deceive his grandmother in so doing. "Noko," said he, "while I take my drum and rattle, and sing my war-songs, go and try to get me some larger heads for my arrows, for those you brought me are all of the same size. Go and see whether the old man cannot make some a little larger." He followed her as she went, keeping at a distance, and saw the old ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... were three years older than you really are. I wish—if I dare wish you anything different—that you were! It makes me uncomfortable to remember that I am—what? Almost half a year your elder as time flies:—not really, for your brain was born long before mine began to rattle in its shell. You say quite old things, and quietly, as if you had had them in your mind ten years already. When you told me about your two old pensioners, the blind man and his wife, whom you brought to so funny a reconciliation, I felt ("mir ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... seldom heard the corncrake, and never once the grasshopper lark. These two birds are so characteristic of the meadows in southwestern counties that a summer evening seems silent to me without the "crake, crake!" of the one and the singular sibilous rattle of the other. But they come to other places not far distant from the road, and one summer a grasshopper-lark could be heard in some meadows where I had not heard it the two preceding seasons. On the ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... continued their occupation in death-like silence, undisturbed by the buzz or the gaze of the lookers-on; not a sound was heard but the rattle of the heaped-up money, as it was passed from one side of the table to the other; nor was the smallest anxiety or emotion visible ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... the hut. The sky was solid with stars; the moon rose like a sharp scythe. The confused rumor of women crying in fright resounded from the various huts; the men who had been sleeping in the open, also woke up and the rattle of arms ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela
... another picking up the trail until the whole sky was ablaze with wavering shafts of light. The murmuring grew to a roar, accompanied by a deafening din of an Archie (anti-aircraft) barrage and the unceasing rattle of machine guns. ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq
... not left long in doubt as to the correctness of our surmisings, for we were soon rudely awakened by the rattle of shots exchanged between our vedettes and those of the enemy. Information was sent back at once to the advance guard and to our Commander, while we set to work to ascertain the enemy's exact position; this proved ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... capitalists both dared and did. If specific statutes were against them, the impelling forces of economic development and the power of might were wholly on their side. The competitive system was already doomed; the middle class was too blind to realize that what seemed to be victory was the rattle of the slow death struggle. At first, the great capitalists made no attempt to have these laws altered or repealed. They adopted a slyer and more circuitous mode of warfare. They simply evaded them. As fast as one trust was dissolved by ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... and as the rattle sounded once more, he made a long leap for the doorway. "That was a narrow escape. S'pose I hadn't a ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown
... Hogarth's Harlot's Progress done into unsparing prose. Smollett guides us at a brisk pace through the shady and brutal side of the eighteenth century; his vivacity is as unflagging as that of his disagreeable rattle of a hero. The passion usually understood as love is, to be sure, one of which he seems to have no conception; he regards a woman much as a greedy person might regard a sirloin of beef, or, at least, a plate ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... one may see the cloud of smoke, which waves in the wind like a pall over the city, slowly moving and settling down upon the land. One may almost hear the roar of the continual fires, the throb of the engines, the heavy beat of the trip-hammers, and the rattle of the spindles, by which the work of the world is done; and their noises, blended by the distance into one monotonous sound, seem like the voice of the restless, hard-working, unsettled spirit of gain. Manchester ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... knew you were too bright a man to hide your light under a half b-b-bushel of a village like that. In those seven-by-nine towns, all the sap dries out of men, and before they are forty they begin to rattle around like peas in a p-p-pod. In such places young men are never anything but milk sops, and old men anything but b-b-bald-headed infants! You needed to see the world, young man. You required a teacher. You have put yourself into ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... went the wheels—were never folks so glad; The stones did rattle underneath, as if ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... gun and fired. His shots rang out like the rattle of a maxim gun, so swiftly did he empty the six chambers. In a few moments they were once more on their way ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... parish constable in North Hunts. P.C., a supporter of Her Majesty's Government, resented Liberal candidate presenting himself before constituency. Determined he should not be heard. Brought down enormous rattle; swung it about throughout candidate's speech. JOSEPH GILLIS pricked up his ears. What a notion this would be for adaptation to Parliamentary usage! Suppose he had rattle and swung it whilst SAUNDERSON or JOHNSTON were speaking? Will consult SPEAKER ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 3, 1887 • Various
... bleak acres of bare red earth its light glanced, not warming them, but showing forth their coldness, as firelight glancing through a window-pane glows cold upon the garden snows. The big butter-nut-tree that stood up high and strong over the pump rattled its twigs in the air, as bare bones might rattle. ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... a few minutes to live. He had the death-rattle in his throat. Nevertheless, he had strength enough left to tell me his name and to speak a few words; and he died in my arms, not, however, before I learnt from him that M. Jorance and my father had tried to protect ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... the two dragging the stretcher could move in a last desperate rush for safety, before they could rise from their prone position, they heard the rattle of fire increase swiftly to a trembling staccato roar. But, miraculously, no bullets came near them, no whistling was about their ears, no ping and smack of impacting lead hailed about them—except, yes, just the fire of one rifle or two that sent ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... slightly open. Mrs Clowes's gaze, penetrating now and then the slit, could see the gleam of her lamp's ray on a horse's flank. The only sounds were the hoof-falls of the horse, the crunching of the wheels on the wet road, the occasional rattle of a vessel in the racks when the van happened to descend violently into a rut, and the steady murmur of Mrs Clowes's voice rehearsing the grandiloquence of the ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... the rail and gazed earnestly at the shore. There was a rattle, as the gang-plank moved in-board and was deposited on the deck. The girl uttered a little cry of dismay. Then suddenly her face brightened, and she began to wave her arm to attract the attention of an elderly man ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... room pitch-dark when closed, and it is doubtless wisest to have some of their central folds made with movable slats, but they give a charming sense of security and seclusion when the wintry blasts roar around our castle. On the other hand, the light outside blinds, that shake and rattle and bang when the stormy winds "do blow, do blow," are a fair substitute for the cooling shade of forest-trees. You may have learned that life is a succession of compromises. Building in New England certainly is. No sooner do we ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner
... compliment, they whisper soft nonsense which they would be sincerely ashamed to utter in the presence of their own sex, they act as if they were amusing babies, rather than conversing with intelligent human beings. Their own notion seems to be to shake the rattle-box, and awaken a laugh. I am not a baby, nor am ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... that which his profession had been supposed at all times to open to him. And now, since I have returned here, even our wise neighbours of Fairport have caught the same valiant humour. I hate a gun like a hurt wild duckI detest a drum like a quaker;and they thunder and rattle out yonder upon the town's common, so that every volley and roll ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... in progress, Lord Seacliff was enjoying a refreshing sleep in his room on the fourth floor. Two hours passed. The noise of the traffic in the street below faded away. Only the rattle of an occasional belated cab broke the silence. In the hotel all was still. Mr. Brewster had gone to bed. Archie, in his room, smoked meditatively. Peace may ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... the stream poured through the intervals between the squares. As they did so, crackling volleys broke out, while from the batteries on the sand hills an incessant fire was kept up upon them. Then, following the volleys, came the incessant rattle of musketry. The confusion among the cavalry grew greater and greater. Regiments were mixed up together, and their very numbers impeded their action. Many gallant fellows, detaching themselves from the mass, rode bravely at the squares, and died on the bayonets; ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... have become interwoven with the lives of the saints, a subject on which many works have been written. Hence it is unnecessary to do more than briefly note some of the more important items of sacred lore which have been embodied in many of the early Christian legends. The yellow rattle has been assigned to St. Peter, and the Primula veris, from its resemblance to a bunch of keys, is St. Peter's wort. Many flowers, too, from the time of their blossoming, have been dedicated to certain saints, as the square St. John's ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... rattle of machine-guns in the distant gloom beyond the streak of sandy shore. The decks were crowded with that same khaki crowd. We all stood eagerly watching and listening. The death-silence had come upon us. No one ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave
... the evening when he went down into the barroom, and he was sitting there watching a game of high, low, jack being played by some old fishermen. It was a pretty rough sort of night. The wind howled without and made the shutters and casements of the old building rattle, and finally an old man who ...
— Two Wonderful Detectives - Jack and Gil's Marvelous Skill • Harlan Page Halsey
... go, because I hear the rattle that can be made only by Kurt's car. He must have come back for something. You can go around ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... what lesson can we learn from the prison-house at Rome? We can learn this, that this world in which we live is in one sense a prison-house to all. It is a prison-house of hard work. In our great cities the roar of traffic, the rattle of machinery, the shriek of the steam-whistle, the eager crowds flocking to office and bank and exchange all mean one thing—work. Every man's talk is of business; he is in the prison-house, and he ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
... unless there are too many of them, it is only necessary to make noise enough to let the snake know that some one is approaching, and it gets out of the way as fast as possible; or, if it has not time to do this, it coils itself up and springs its rattle, thus giving notice that it is on hand, and ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton
... we vow a pilgrimage to St. James, to this place and to that; then we make earnest prayer, have a good confidence and every good kind of prayer. But when we are in our churches during mass, we stand like images of saints; know nothing to speak of or to lament; the beads rattle, the pages rustle and the mouth babbles; and that is ...
— A Treatise on Good Works • Dr. Martin Luther
... usually grey and very large, and their bodies are shaved in such a manner as to leave patterns on the legs and snout, which are often coloured. The saddles are of red leather and cloth, and from them hang long tassels which swing as they canter through the streets, while the musical rattle of coloured beads and the chains of copper and brass which all donkeys wear around their necks, add their quota to the many noises of the streets, through which in a low murmur one may ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Egypt • R. Talbot Kelly
... he waited patiently, and then came the rattle of wheels, and loud voices and laughter, as a vehicle drew up at ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... True, the world's eyes are open now: —Less need for me to disallow Some few that keep Love's zone unbuckled, Peevish as ever to be suckled, Lulled by the same old baby-prattle With intermixture of the rattle, When she would have them creep, stand steady Upon their feet, or walk already, Not to speak of trying to climb. I will be wise another time, And not desire a wall between us, When next I see a church-roof cover So many species ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... Samuel Gason (of whom it has been said that "no man living has been more among blacks or knows more of their ways") remarks concerning a dance of the Dieyerie tribe: "This dance men and women only take part in, in regular form and position, keeping splendid time to the rattle of the beat of two boomerangs; some of the women keep time by clapping their hands between their thighs; promiscuous sexual intercourse follows after the dance; jealousy is forbidden." Again, at the Mobierrie, or rat-harvest, "many weeks' preparation before the dance comes off; no quarreling ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... the eyes of all save one, the proprietor, Hawkins, returned to their plates, and the rattle of steel ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... in the dear objects at the Hutted Knoll. If I had met with a single woman I admired half as much as I do her pretty self, I should have been married long since." This was written in answer to some thoughtless rattle that the captain had volunteered to put in his last letter, as coming from Maud, who had sensitively shrunk from sending a message when asked; and it was read by father, mother, and Beulah, as the badinage of a brother to a sister, without awaking a second thought in ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... entirely different type. Big, husky, happy-go-lucky—a poor student but a right jolly companion; a fellow who could pitch into any kind of sport and play an uncommonly good game at almost anything. More than that, he could rattle off ragtime untiringly and his nimble fingers could catch up on the piano any tune he heard whistled. What wonder he speedily became the idol of Colversham? He was a born leader, tactfully marshaling at will the boys who were his own age, and good-naturedly ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... and then pointing with a convulsive movement of his wasted hand he cried, 'Don't you see, under that seat there, the worms crawling up through the rotten flooring, there? there!—fifty—a hundred—legion. For God's sake get me out of this charnel house! I can hear the dry bones rattle as the worms swarm out of the ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... Father Corrigan had been preparing me to take the Civil-Service examination, and that afternoon a lesson was due, so I went over to let him see how little I knew. I was in pain and was so blue that I could hardly speak without weeping, so I told the Reverend Father how tired I was of the rattle and bang, of the glare and the soot, the smells and the hurry. I told him what I longed for was the sweet, free open, and that I would like to homestead. That was Saturday evening. He advised me to go straight uptown and put an "ad" in the paper, so as to get it into the Sunday ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... a welcome in the sunny wind as the mail-boat came creeping through the Gate and with a great rattle and splatter dropped anchor in the basin off my father's wharf: for through my father's long glass I had from the summit of the Watchman long before spied the doctor aboard. He landed in fine fettle—clear-eyed, smiling, quick ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... in a reckless hour, it occurred to poor Corvick to take his young bride a drive. He had no command of that business: this had been brought home to me of old in a little tour we had once made together in a dogcart. In a dogcart he perched his companion for a rattle over Devonshire hills, on one of the likeliest of which he brought his horse, who, it was true, had bolted, down with such violence that the occupants of the cart were hurled forward and that he fell horribly on his head. He was killed on the ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James
... silent. Silence sits Lord of the revel, incubus of wits Arch palsier of prattle Yet many a girl here mute's a chatterer sweet, And many a youth in circles less discrete Is an 'agreeable rattle.' ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 February 15, 1890 • Various |
