"Whirring" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mothers to take care of the family. They never come near us until their children are able to take care of themselves. I've taught these youngsters of mine what to eat and where to find it. They have learned to fly pretty well, and taken some lessons in whirring, so that they can frighten their enemies. I wouldn't be surprised to see Father Mit-chee any day. Why, there he is now! I can tell his ...
— The Magic Speech Flower - or Little Luke and His Animal Friends • Melvin Hix
... ridge still held by the Confederates, the shell tearing through or over the dissolving groups of their right wing, and cracking viciously above the heads of the victorious Unionists. The explosions followed each other with stunning rapidity, and the shrill whirring of the splinters was ominous. Men began to fall again in the ranks or to drop out of them wounded. Of all this Waldron took no further note than to ride hastily to the brow of the ridge and look for his ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... from the poor child's eyes, tears of conscious happiness, and the burden rolled away from her heart now, as yesterday's whirring shuttles in her brain had been hushed into silence by her long sleep. She raised her swimming eyes to Mistress Mary's with a look of unspeakable trust. 'I love you! oh, I love, love, love you!' she whispered, and, holding the flower close to her ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the sun, as the birds abandoned them unless they had begun brooding. In that case the mother sat so tight, occasionally the reaper, passing over, took off her head. More commonly she flew away just in time, whirring up between the mules, with a great pretense of lameness. If the nest by good luck was discovered in time, grain was left standing about it. Nobody grudged the yard or so of wheat lost for the ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams
... I was reading, curiously enough, the Bible. I have begun, in these later days, to take a growing interest in that great and ancient book. Suddenly, a distinct tremor shook the house, and there came a faint and distant, whirring buzz, that grew rapidly into a far, muffled screaming. It reminded me, in a queer, gigantic way, of the noise that a clock makes, when the catch is released, and it is allowed to run down. The sound appeared to come from some remote height—somewhere up in the night. There was no repetition ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... he could hear the whirring of the car coming back from Cheltenham; the lines of the beech trees opened fan-wise to let it through. He saw Colin sitting up ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... kitchen, Drear and lonely our retreat, Speak a word and break the silence, Dearest little Mother, sweet! Has the moaning of the tempest Closed thine eyelids wearily? Has the spinning wheel's soft whirring Hummed a ...
— Russian Lyrics • Translated by Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi
... the whirring of a covey of sand-grouse or partridges could express little more than the swift passage of birds to a place of security. To the man who grew almost as a part of the forest, the movement was something well defined, clearly initiated, and the first step in a sequence that he could trace without ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... rabbit in his burrow, Heard the pheasant, Bena, drumming, Heard the squirrel, Adjidaumo, Rattling in his hoard of acorns, Saw the pigeon, the Omeme, Building nests among the pine-trees, And in flocks the wild-goose, Wawa, Flying to the fen-lands northward, Whirring, wailing far above him. "Master of Life!" he cried, desponding, "Must our lives depend on these things?" On the next day of his fasting By the river's brink he wandered, Through the Muskoday, the meadow, Saw the wild rice, Mahnomonee, Saw the blueberry, Meenahga, And the strawberry, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... held tortured and struggling all the time in the first grip of that masterful hold wherewith the potter lifts his clay when he lays it on the eternal whirring of the wheel. ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... themselves opposite the flowers, the attention of all was attracted to the movements of a far different sort of bird. It was that one we have been speaking of. It was seated upon a tree, not far from the honeysuckles; but every now and then it would spring from its perch, dash forward, and after whirring about for some moments among the humming-birds fly back to the ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... across the room to a door. The Speaker pushed it open. Technicians looked up. Conger saw machinery, whirring and turning; benches and retorts. In the center of the room was ...
— The Skull • Philip K. Dick
... great drums pounding, And the small drums steady whirring, And every blow of the great convulsive drums, Strikes me ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... movement of time in early life, and its swift flight as it approaches old age, to the drumming of a partridge or ruffed grouse in the woods—the strokes falling slow and distinct at first, and following each other more and more rapidly, till they end at last in a whirring sound. ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... bats and lifted up their spears as it were for war. Nevertheless when they perceived that that war for which they watched was not now come upon them, they lowered their spears and suffered him to enter, and he passed whirring through the earthward gateway. Even so he came, as foretold, to the City of Never perched upon Toldenarba, and saw late twilight on those pinnacles that know no other light. All the domes were of copper, but the spires on their summits ...
— The Book of Wonder • Edward J. M. D. Plunkett, Lord Dunsany
... and sorrow, Ever fair and ever new; Whirring round the dear old woodland, Feeding ...
— Andromeda and Other Poems • Charles Kingsley
... the few magnified shapes of a covey of snow grouse, the ryper of the Scandinavian land, which, after running for a while, rose and passed over him with whirring wings, seeking the lower part of the valley, where the snow was ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... were even more disturbing. All day long it would seem that the birds were coming thicker from all quarters. Doubtless many were going as well as coming, but the mass seemed never to get less. Each bird seemed to sound some note of fear or anger or seeking, and the whirring of wings never ceased nor lessened. The air was full of a muttered throb. No window or barrier could shut out the sound, till the ears of any listener became dulled by the ceaseless murmur. So monotonous it was, so cheerless, so disheartening, so melancholy, ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... seems a huge, stirring sort of place," he added, as he watched motors, bicycles, and gharries whirring past the entrance. ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... Buildings is emblazoned with many names, including that of the Rev. John Hatton. The oak was not sported, and our rap at the inner door was immediately answered by a shout of "Come in!" As we opened it we heard a peculiar whirring sound. "Road skates," said Hatton, gracefully circling the table and then coming to a standstill. I was introduced. "I'm very glad to see you both," he said. "The two other men I share these rooms with have gone away, so I'm killing time by training for my road-skate tour abroad. It's trying ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... were congratulating themselves on the happy termination of the meal, when, just as the Duke was speaking, there was a heavy lurch, and a tremendous sea broke over their heads. Then came a fearful whirring sound that shook through every plate and timber and bulkhead, like the sudden running down of mammoth clock-work, lasting some twenty seconds; then everything was quiet again save the sea, and the yacht ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... their crew—for when I stepped out of the express elevator, there was no one in sight that I remember but the boy who was with me. I pressed the button of the local, which was just beside the express—there was a buzz and whirring hum as if the elevator had ascended, and the door opened. As I stepped over its threshold, I felt a violent blow and terrific pain on the back of my head, and seemed to fall into limitless space. That was all I knew until I woke up in the hospital where Mr. Blaine had taken me ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... jumped up in his excitement, for there was a whirring of wings, a burst of screaming, and a flock of birds flew over their heads, with the plumage looking in the morning light as white ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... had stopped for a moment after sending our bearer flying, and then, seeing him down, snorted a little, lowered his head, and would doubtless have tossed and trampled him to death had there not suddenly come a whirring whizzing noise from some bushes in a hollow on our right, when something struck the buffalo a heavy blow upon the muzzle, making it turn up its head, utter a furious roar, ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... roar from all the Rebel boats. The air is full of indescribable noises. The water boils and bubbles around us. It is tossed up in columns and jets. There are sudden flashes overhead, explosions, and sulphurous clouds, and whirring of ragged pieces of iron. The uproar increases. The cannonade reverberates from the high bluff behind the city to the dark-green forest upon the Arkansas shore, and echoes ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... big, airy beds, adorned with many-colored counterpanes, and hung with natty curtains, showing the skill of the mistress of the house. The other end was my father's workshop, filled with five or six "stocking-frames," whirring with the constant action of five or six pairs of busy hands and feet, and producing right genuine hosiery for the merchants at Hawick and Dumfries. The "closet" was a very small apartment betwixt the other two, having room only for a bed, a little table and a chair, with a diminutive window ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... For the Master's eye is on us, Never off us, still upon us, Night and day! Work away! Keep the busy fingers plying, Keep the ceaseless shuttles flying; See that never thread lie wrong; Let not clash or clatter round us, Sound of whirring wheels, confound us; Steady hand! let woof be strong And firm, that has to last ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... in his winter home below could hear them whirring along, cutting fancy figures in the ice, and ...
— Little Jack Rabbit and the Squirrel Brothers • David Cory
... an expletive, on its face value, so this natural outlet for his irritation was denied him. Instead, therefore, of replying in words, he merely glanced sourly at the half-open door, through which issued the whirring noise of the little dressmaker at her sewing. Now and then, in the intervals when her feet left the pedal, she could be heard humming softly to herself with her mouth full ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... the fallen Galpy's cricket bat, and the two other cricketers were fighting back to back on the other side. Carroll was clubbing his way toward Mr. Brewster, but his weapon was now in his left hand. Matters looked dark indeed, when there shrilled fiercely from above them the whirring ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... where we dined we plunged again into the thick forest, where every now and then some splendid grouse or the beautiful plume-crowned California quail went whirring away from before our horses. Here and there a broad grizzly "sign" intersected our trail. The tall purple deer-weed, a magnificent scarlet flower of name unknown to me, and another blossom like the laburnum, endlessly varied in its shades of roseate, blue, or the compromised tints, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... It was a long hour they passed there. Rankin sat silent, holding on his knee little Ariadne, who amused herself quietly with his watch and the leather strap that held it. He took the back off, and let her see the little wheel whirring back and forth. His eyes never left the child's serious, rosy face. Once or twice he laid his large, work-roughened hand gently on ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... When cats run home and light is come, And dew is cold upon the ground, And the far-off stream is dumb, And the whirring sail goes round, And the whirring sail goes round. Alone and warming his fine wits, The white owl ...
— The Nursery, October 1877, Vol. XXII. No. 4 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... she held her hands with locked fingers behind her. It was hot, hot as the breaths of a thousand belching furnaces. A white, burning glare had spread itself from horizon to horizon, and the earth wrinkled and cracked beneath it. From every corner of this parched wilderness came an ominous whirring, like the last wheezing gasp of an alarm-clock before striking the hour. This menacing orchestration was nothing more or less than millions of grasshoppers rasping legs and wings together in hoarse appreciation of the heat and glare; but it had a sound that boded evil. Again and ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... are blue above my head, The prairie green below, And flickering o'er the tufted grass The shifting shadows go, Vague-sailing, where the feathery clouds Fleck white the tranquil skies, Black javelins darting where aloft The whirring pheasant flies. ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... wave upon wave of crimson flame, against the yellow earth. Violet-veiled mountains appeared in the west, marking the southern trend of the Colorado. The air was suffocating. The train-created wind was like a blast from a furnace; yet with the electric fans whirring, with blinds drawn and windows closed to keep the withering air out, it seemed a little less uncomfortable in the car, in spite of the unvitalized air, than under the ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... in it?" Sam asked coolly. "That small whirring sound you hear isn't the hydrogen-helium conversion; it's a fan blowing air through a cooling coil. Even in the Sahara Desert there's enough moisture in the air to ...
— Damned If You Don't • Gordon Randall Garrett
... pack went on, when one of our Otomi Indians gave a howl as an arrow went through his leg, and I felt a sharp little nip on my forehead where an arrow just grazed it, and there was that queer, faint whirring sound in the air that only a flight of a good ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... ye, ghost or no ghost," he ejaculated, gazing all round into the gloomy depths of the woods with his cutlass uplifted. Instead of flying again in front of him, as he had expected, the bat flew with a whirring noise past his ear. Down came the cutlass with a sudden thwack, cutting deep into the trunk of a small tree, which trembled under the shock and sent a shower of nuts of a large size down upon the sailor's head. Startled as he ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne
... stillest evening, may the presence of the night-jar be detected, except by its coarse call, while the sprightly little sun-bird flits hither and thither, prodigal of its vivid colours and joying with machine-like whirring. The sun-bird exemplifies the brightness of the day. All its activities are bold and conspicuous. Aptly named, it has nothing to hide, no deeds which will not withstand the scrutiny ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... effort. She was suffering torments. The words her father had said to her on the terrace were pouring back into her mind. She seemed to hear his voice now, cool and confident, warning her against Jimmy, saying that he was crooked. There was a curious whirring in her head. Everything in the room was growing large and misty. She heard Lord Dreever begin to say something that sounded as if someone were speaking at the end of a telephone; and, then, she was aware that Jimmy was holding her in his ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... ever lived can hardly claim infallibility in matters of opinion. A distinguished philosopher and vivisector of three hundred years ago, Rene Descartes, put forth the theory that animals, being without souls, cannot suffer pain, and that their cries under vivisection were simply as the whirring of wheels in an intricate piece of machinery. We can easily imagine a modern follower of Descartes declaring, as the philosopher would have done, that "NO SUFFERING WAS FELT." A professor of physiology in Harvard Medical School, in course of an address before a State ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... rang while the train was still running around, and Miss Davis had to catch it and leave it turned upside down with the little wheels whirring around while she marched her class into Miss May's room for ...
— Sunny Boy and His Playmates • Ramy Allison White
... the tired and sleepy citizens are startled from their dreams by whoops, hurrahs, snatches of songs, and outbursts of rude laughter ringing through the frosty air and mingling with the clattering of horses' feet and the whirring rumble of swift-revolving wheels, as some party of roystering blades, excited by deep potations, drive shouting homewards from ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... its whirring note and they fell silent. Upon the silver sheet there took shape and actuality the moving barge with its banners and streamers and costumed actors. Then a flash was given of the Indians gathering on the wild shore—wondering, ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson
... before him. A-1 house! S-ay, I should worry that he ain't a Sunday-school boy. Show me the one that is. Your old man in his young days wasn't such a low flier, neither, if anybody should ask you." He made a whirring noise in his throat at that, pinching her cold cheek. She was walking rapidly now toward the house. "Well, since our daughter goes out riding in a six-thousand-dollar car, to show that we're sports, lets ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... shaking a stiff piece of cloth." On the west coast of Africa the little black-weavers (Ploceus?) congregate in a small party on the bushes round a small open space, and sing and glide through the air with quivering wings, "which make a rapid whirring sound like a child's rattle." One bird after another thus performs for hours together, but only during the courting-season. At this season, and at no other time, the males of certain night-jars (Caprimulgus) make a strange booming noise with their wings. ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... cantles out of the buttresses, and pitted and starred the paved square outside. They were at work, too, that very afternoon, though I do not think the cathedral was their objective for the moment. We walked to and fro in the silence of the streets and beneath the whirring wings overhead. Presently, a young woman, keeping to the wall, crossed a corner. An old woman opened a shutter (how it jarred!), and spoke to her. The silence closed again, but it seemed to me that I heard a sound of singing—the sort of chant one hears in nightmare-cities ...
— France At War - On the Frontier of Civilization • Rudyard Kipling
... Stewart directed the chauffeur to drive them to an address in the outskirts of the city and away they sped. It was only a short run in that whirring machine over Washington's beautiful streets and when the school was reached both Peggy and Polly exclaimed over the beauty of its situation, for Columbia Heights School was in the midst of spacious grounds, the buildings were substantial ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... blue jay or woodpecker, the loon's ghostly cry—solitary notes, and unhappy, as though wrung by pain out of the choking silence; or away on the hillside a grouse began drumming, or a duck went whirring down the long waterway until the sound sank and was overtaken again by the ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... a dark brown colour, marked with a white patch on the wings, were seen, and some specimens shot. They made a whirring sound in flight, like the partridge, and appeared to haunt the rocks; a habit ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... and there in the cavern, carrying Rinkitink upon his back, and neither of them paid the slightest heed to the whirring knives, although the glitter of the hundreds of polished blades was rather trying to their eyes. Perhaps for ten minutes the knives darted about them in bewildering fury; then they disappeared as ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum
... little hill. Two wheels were lifted from the ground. The machine was poised in the air for a second before it crashed into the ditch and turned over completely, throwing me clear, but burying Blackie and Peter under its weight of steel and wood and whirring wheels. ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... strangers likewise / smote many a whirring slash, Wherefrom the men of Bechelaren / felt deep and long the gash Through the shining ring-mail / e'en to their life's core. In storm of battle wrought they / glorious ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... dry beneath her, in one place Stirring with earth-coloured life, ever turning and stirring. But never the motion has a human face Nor sound, save intermittent machinery whirring. ...
— New Poems • D. H. Lawrence
... came up to the wood Fred stopped short, for from out of its dark recesses came a peculiar whirring sound, as if somebody ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... cheat your outstretched hand, and affect to be wing-broken and wounded, and yet have just strength to tumble along, until she has drawn you, fatigued, a safe distance from her threatened children and the young hopes of her heart; and then will she mount, whirring with glad strength, and away through the maze of trees you have not seen before, like a close-shot bullet, ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... lacked the equipment to cope with Pleiad affairs. As it was, his attention positively would not concentrate upon the rapid undercurrents, where the real energy of the habitues seemed to operate. It was all like a game of evil children, or rather of queer unfinished beings, a whirring everywhere of the topsy-turvy and the perverse—sick and insane to his ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... quite so well this week—yesterday some friends came early and kept me at home—for which I seem to suffer a little; less, already, than in the morning—so I will go out and walk away the whirring ... which is all the mighty ailment. As for 'Luria' I have not looked at it since I saw you—which means, saw you in the body, because last night I saw you; as I wonder if ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... this farm are of the fiber of poetry. The silence of the snowy aisles of the forest, the whirring flight of partridges, the impudent bark of squirrels, the quavering voices of owls and coons, the music of the winds in the high trees,—all these impressions unite in my mind like parts of a woodland symphony. I soon learned to distinguish the raccoon's ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... all the birds flew in a great flock into the air. There was a loud rustling and whirring and beating of wings. The air was full of dust, and it seemed as if a black cloud were floating over ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... but as he was afraid of descending among them, he made a noose with a long piece of rattan, lowered it gently, and slipping it over one of them, drew her up into the tree. She cried out, and they all disappeared with a whirring noise. The girl he caught was very young, and she cried sadly because she had no clothes on; so he rolled her in a chawat (long sash), and immediately heard the gongs at his own house, which he had thought was a long way off. ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... have moved on three hundred yards, and are resting again. In the daytime hens peck and cackle in every street; at nightfall the bordering veldt hums with crickets and bullfrogs. At morn come a flight of locusts—first, yellow-white scouts whirring down every street, then a pelting snowstorm of them high up over the houses, spangling the blue heaven. But Burghersdorp cared nothing. "There is nothing for them," said a farmer, with cosy satisfaction; "the frost killed everything ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens
... carpet; and through the open window comes the fragrance of the wild-brier and the mock-orange. The birds are carolling in the trees, and their shadows flit across the window as they dart to and fro in the sunshine; while the murmur of the bee, the cooing of doves from the eaves, and the whirring of a little humming-bird that has its nest in the honeysuckle, send up a sound of joy to meet the ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... end of winter, when the snow was melted on my south hillside and about my wood-pile, the partridges came out of the woods morning and evening to feed there. Whichever side you walk in the woods the partridge bursts away on whirring wings, jarring the snow from the dry leaves and twigs on high, which comes sifting down in the sunbeams like golden dust; for this brave bird is not to be scared by winter. It is frequently covered up by drifts, and, it ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... carefully out of her cradle; then their wings went "whir-r-r, whir-r-r"—you 've heard a green fly buzzing against a window-pane, have n't you? That was the kind of whirring noise the Dream-Fairies' wings made, with the pleasing difference that the Dream-Fairies' wings produced a soft, soothing music. The cricket under the honeysuckle by the window heard this music and saw the Dream-Fairies carrying Sweet-One-Darling ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field
... in good earnest, and the Spaniards on the hills were engaged in heavy volley firing. The Mauser bullets drove in sheets through the trees and the tall jungle grass, making a peculiar whirring or rustling sound; some of the bullets seemed to pop in the air, so that we thought they were explosive; and, indeed, many of those which were coated with brass did explode, in the sense that the brass coat was ripped off, making a thin plate of hard ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt
... sound of the whirring thing behind him the animal cast an affrighted glance in its direction, and with a little squeal of terror redoubled its frantic efforts to escape. The girl, too, looked back over her shoulder. Her face was very white, but her eyes were steady ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... voice and piano was very loud just then, so that the little, soft, whirring sound of the electric bell reached only one or two pairs of ears in the big room. It did not reach the host certainly, and neither he nor most of the others observed the servant make his way among the groups of seated or standing ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... the whirring pheasant springs, And mounts exulting on triumphant wings: Short is his joy; he feels the fiery wound, Flutters in blood, and panting beats the ground. Ah! what avail his glossy, varying dyes, His purple crest, and scarlet-circled eyes, The vivid green his shining plumes unfold, His painted ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... fire a gun?" he said. "Oh! no. I was only dreaming that I was hunting with father, and he shot at the beautiful pheasants that were making such a whirring of wings for me. It was music. When can I hunt with father, ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... must keep going in order to turn out the produce of a great city factory. He was no more here than one of the many parts of that engine, and if some day he should be absorbed into the midst of those whirring wheels and ground up like corn, who ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... I discovered in a dense forest on the side of a mountain. The sitting bird was disturbed as I passed beneath her. The whirring of her wings arrested my attention, when, after a short pause, I had the good luck to see, through an opening in the leaves, the bird return to her nest, which appeared like a mere wart or excrescence on a small branch. The humming-bird, ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... are still upon his lips, he has had time to lean back in his chair with the languid air of one who has given to the world views not admitting of contradiction, when a sharp whirring noise is heard, followed by a crash of broken glass and the dull thud of a bullet that has found its home in the wall right opposite the squire. Right opposite Brian, too, for they had been side by side with Owen Kelly, fortunately not quite, ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... to the days when she was "little Draxy" and Elder Kinney was only her pastor. Slowly she lived her life since then over again, its joy and its sorrow alike softened in her tender, brooding thoughts. The soft whirring sound of a bird's wings in the air roused her: as it flew past the window she saw that it was one of the yellow-hammers, which still built their nests in the maple-grove behind ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... natterjacks were whirring like the nightjar. Strange birds screamed and rushed out of the trees as she sped along. White moths, ghostlike, wavered about her, mosquitoes piped. Water-rats ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... giddy and strange, and the aching at the back of my head was almost unbearable; but I began to walk with Day holding my hand, and after a time—he guiding me, for I felt very stupid—I began to trot; and at last, with my head throbbing and whirring, I found myself standing by my clothes, and my ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... powerful binoculars. He gazed from this height down on the settlement, on the reeking chimneys of those distant houses, on the tiny black objects that were men moving against a field of white. He could hear a faint whirring which he took to be the machinery of a sawmill. He could see on the river bank and at another point in the nearby woods the feathery puff of steam. He often wondered about these people, buried, like himself, in this snow-blanketed and mountain-ringed remoteness. Who were ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... and his eyes lazily roamed his surroundings, evidently a bedroom and bath in a good hotel. His head was whirring and picture after picture was forming and blurring and melting before his eyes, but beyond the desire to laugh he had no entirely conscious reaction. He reached for ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... it would call, or soon or late, as it calls the whirring wings; It's the olden lure, it's the golden lure, it's the lure of the timeless things, And to-night, O, God of the trails untrod, how it whines ...
— Giant Hours With Poet Preachers • William L. Stidger
... whirring continued, but then three of the birds were seen to drop to the ground, one dead and ...
— The Rover Boys on Snowshoe Island - or, The Old Lumberman's Treasure Box • Edward Stratemeyer
... gun-metal glistened over with gold. The taxi-cabs, the wild cats of the town, swept over the gleaming floor swiftly, soon lessening in the distance, as if scornful of the other clumsy-footed traffic. He heard the merry click-clock of the swinging hansoms, then the excited whirring of the motor-buses as they charged full-tilt heavily down the road, their hearts, as it seemed, beating with trepidation; they drew up with a sigh of relief by the kerb, and stood there panting—great, nervous, clumsy things. Siegmund was always amused by the headlong, floundering ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... through them, came tilting along over the sea as if they were alive,—and so they were,—and drew up, as if in order of battle, just before the mouth of the cave; and then a silver trumpet sounded on the shore, and a swarm of hornets appeared, whizzing and whirring all about the cave; and then there was another trumpet, and another, about as loud as you may hear from a caged blue-bottle, and compliments were interchanged, and a salute fired, which frightened the little lady-fairies into all sorts of shapes, and made the little fairy-bride jump ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various
... the sway of summer lay over all things. But, though the heat was broiling, the walk was lovely. All about me was alive with voice or perfume. Clouds of linnets fluttered among the branches, golden beetles crawled upon the grass, thousands of tiny whirring wings beat the air—flies, gnats, gadflies, bees—all chorusing the life—giving warmth of the day and the sunshine that bathed and penetrated all nature. I halted from time to time in the parched ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... Whirring the peacocks from the brake With Argus wings arose, Wild swans abandoned pool and lake For climes ...
— Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan • Toru Dutt
... headquarters camp frequently received shots from the point of Lookout Mountain also, but fortunately no casualties resulted from this plunging fire, though, I am free to confess, at first our nerves were often upset by the whirring of twenty-pounder shells dropped inconsiderately into our camp at untimely ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... down the narrow alleys, proclaimed the merciful conditions of the conquerors and called on the people to lay down their arms. Great piles of surrendered weapons rose in the streets, guarded by Soudanese soldiers. Many Arabs sought clemency; but there were others who disdained it; and the whirring of the Maxims, the crashes of the volleys, and a continual dropping fire attested that there was fighting in all parts of the city into which the columns had penetrated. All Dervishes who did not immediately surrender ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... rest-time was nearly over; while the sudden rattle of a machine gun close by him, indulging in a little indirect fire at a well-known Hun gathering place a thousand yards or so behind their lines, disturbed a covey of partridges, which rose with an angry whirring of wings. Then came four of those unmistakable faint muffled bursts from high above his head, which betokened an aeroplane's morning gallop; and even as he automatically jerked his head skywards, with a swishing noise something buried itself in the earth not far away. It is well to remember ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... aspiration valves, ignited the divine spark plugs, and whiz! went their motor-meters in a whirring, buzzing melody. ...
— The Re-echo Club • Carolyn Wells
... phonograph, a rare possession since it was the only one in the Village. The Indian carefully wound it up and lowered it into the hole. There was a craning of masked heads, . . . a period of grunting approval, . . . and then faintly from below came a whirring, a sputtering and a high, cracked voice of announcement. The White Chief's face wore its sardonic smile as the gravel was being shoveled into the grave for the little tin phonograph was bravely playing: There'll be a Hot Time in the Old ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... was very hot, even hotter than the day had been. Only the whirring electric fan kept the air moving. It might have been midsummer instead of ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... whole system, had no time for rebellion. He was in the whirlpool which was mightier than himself and his revolt. After all, a man is a small and helpless factor before his own needs. For a time those whirring machines, which had been evolved in the first place from the brains of men, and partook in a manner of both the spirit and the grosser elements of existence, its higher qualities and its sordid mechanism, like man himself, had the ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... from the direction of the stables, came a roar of men's voices, a sound of bursting and crashing through the under-wood, a thundering of heavy feet, followed by a whirring of frightened birds into the air. Brooks leaned forward breathing hard, and tightening his newly moistened grip on ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... I can't ... it's gone ... and even if it weren't...." He dropped back in his chair and took his head between his hands. He had forgotten what he wanted the money for. He made a great effort to regain hold of the idea, but all the whirring, shuttling, flying had abruptly ceased in his brain, and he sat with his eyes shut, staring straight into darkness.... The clock struck, and he remembered that he had said he would go down to the dining-room. "If I don't she'll come up—" He raised his head and sat listening for the sound of ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... room! What do they gaze on with wide-open eyes? A dense, dense forest, where no sunbeam pries, And in its centre a cleared spot.—There bloom Gigantic flowers on creepers that embrace Tall trees; there, in a quiet lucid lake The white swans glide; there, "whirring from the brake," The peacock springs; there, herds of wild deer race; There, patches gleam with yellow waving grain; There, blue smoke from strange altars rises light, There, dwells in peace, the poet-anchorite. ...
— Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan • Toru Dutt
... as "Creechy," although less noisy, was the enemy's 1-pound Maxim. A very loud hammering, quickly repeated, and almost simultaneously a whirring in the air, followed by four quick explosions, and then we knew this poisonous devil was at work. The shells were little gems in their way, and when they did not burst, which was often the case, were tremendously in request as souvenirs. Not ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... could speak for her own sorrow and fear. There was a deep stillness in the house. Outside the tempest raged wildly. It seemed to Joan as if hours passed in that interval of heart-trembling; she was almost shocked when the old clock gave its long whirring warning and then struck only one. Her first look was to the fire. It wanted replenishing. Her next was at Denas. The girl was fast asleep. Her hands were across the open Bible, her face was dropped upon them. Joan touched her and said ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... judgment, for they had not been in position more than half an hour—by which time the sun, magnified to twice his size by the evening vapours through which he glowed, palpitating like a ball of white-hot steel, hung upon the very edge of the horizon—when a whirring of wings warned them to be on the alert, and a moment later a flock of some fifty teal, which must have been feeding on some far-off marsh during the day, settled down upon the surface of the water, with much splashing and loud quacks of satisfaction at having once more reached what they doubtless ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... whirring up and down Stoney Island Avenue when Sommers left the cottage, but he did not think to stop one. Instead, he walked on heedlessly, mechanically, toward the city. Frequently he stumbled and with difficulty saved himself ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... and Robert the Devil went well. The long streets rolled behind us, and were lost in the rain; then with a rhythmic drumming of hoofs and a constant splashing from under the whirring wheels, we swept out into the blackness of a treeless plain. I knew the road and did not take the shortest one; and it was rapture to draw the rugs and apron round Grace's waist, and feel the soft furs she wore brushing ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... elegant lawyers, members of committees, and marshals of nobility, who in their own homes will make a scene over the slightest fume from the stove, or stain on the floor, resign themselves here to whirring ventilation wheels, the disgusting smell of fumigating candles, and the filthy, ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... thread I love to see, Thy whirring sound is dear to me: Oh, swiftly turn by night and day, And toil for him that's ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... cane-fields came to us at night-time as we watched the shimmer of the fireflies. We sat so silently that the only thing to tell us that the wild duck sought his mate amidst the grass, was the swaying of the reed stems, or the rising of the teal with whirring wings. ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper
... the recovery we sought merely a purposeless whirring of machinery. It is important, of course, that every man and woman in the country be able to find work, that every factory run, that business and farming as a whole earn profits. But Government in a democratic Nation does not exist solely, or ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt • Franklin D. Roosevelt
... a whirring in the air and a joyous shout were heard. It was Prince Ricardo flying home ...
— Prince Ricardo of Pantouflia - being the adventures of Prince Prigio's son • Andrew Lang
... business, has gone; but elsewhere in its stead there are big offices of numerous commercial firms; and, moreover, there are large 'factories' of the modern kind, such as are denoted by tall chimneys and the perpetual roar of whirring wheels. ...
— The Story of Madras • Glyn Barlow
... far sweeter to me than the fragrance of peaches were the humid whiffs I breathed from the noisy press rooms in the Park Row basements, the smell of the printers' ink as it was received by the warm, moist rolls of paper in the whirring, clattering presses. There was history in the making, destiny at her loom. Nothing ever expels it: if once a taste for it is acquired, it ties itself up with ineffaceable memories and longings, and even ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... ceased pulling, the slaves resting upon their oars and raising the dripping blades high above the water; and a few seconds later a puff of white smoke burst from her bows, the report of her culverin boomed across the water, and the shot flew whirring athwart the galleon's bows, striking the water some twenty yards to leeward. Then, as George brought his glass to bear upon her, her oars once more dipped, while the gun's crew could be seen upon the forecastle busily engaged in reloading ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... a mighty whirring, a thunder and a roaring above the storm. She stood listening breathlessly to it rise and swell—and ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... and suffered almost the pain of death. The ride with these men, over twenty miles of hilly, woody country, was like one of Dante's excursions into the Shades. In the awful stillness of the dark pines, their screams frightened the hooting owls, and the whirring insects in the leaves and tree-tops quieted their songs. They heard the gurgle of the rills, and called aloud for water to quench their insatiate thirst. One of them sang a shrill, fierce, fiendish ballad, in an interval of relief, but plunged, at a sudden relapse, in prayers and curses. ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... midst of an interminable scolding that was being given by a nasal-voiced conductor to a passenger just before the dawn, exposed his head and remarked: "Has it occurred to you that this is a sleeping-car?" In the swift silence the whirring of my private ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... inevitably as time rolls by, comes that final week; period of mania, of abandon; and in the mere sorcerous passage of a pair of whirring wings, Dr. Jekyll, the exemplary, is no more. In his place, wearing his shoes, audaciously signing his name even to checks, is that other being, Hyde: one absolutely the reverse of the reputable Jekyll; repudiating with scorn that gentleman's engagements; ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... gloriously plumaged. Look to the colour of him, as rich a purple as that of your sunset cloud, with crest and throat like gold painted green. And then, the long curved beak of him, see how daintily he dips it into the cup of the flower and sips the honey therefrom. And his wings, why they are whirring so quickly that you cannot see but can only hear them! Can any of your fancies touch a thing ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... There was a sudden whirring about their heads. A lariat, thrown with unerring accuracy, had gathered them both in its coil. With a jerk they were drawn close together, their hands pinned to their side. Two cowboys quickly disarmed them. Long Jim came sauntering round from ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... gather, and all the mornings were crowded full. Often in the afternoon she went up in the garret to see Miss Eunice spin—sometimes on the big wheel, at others with flax on the small wheel. She liked the whirring sound, and it was a mystery to her how the thread came out so ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... the whirring marts, Peace where the scholar thinks, the hunter roams, Peace, God of Peace! peace, peace in all our homes, And peace in all ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... the sun was just appearing over the edge of the trees as Jacques pressed the button which set the self-starter whirring. The engine roared and the pilot listened intently for any sound of defect to come to his well-trained ear. An aviator must know by the sound just what is wrong with his motor; there is no chance to search for the cause of the trouble when ...
— Fighting in France • Ross Kay
... gave a screw a turn. Already the car was losing speed. The fellow behind was coming on like a red-headed whirlwind. For a moment the missing seemed to cease, and the speed surged back to the hum of the whirring gears. ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele
... natural aptitude for mechanics now stood him in good stead. Reaching out he threw over a lever and the machine moved forward. There was a whirring sound as the plane skimmed over the ground. As the machine began to rise, Hal pressed another lever, and they ...
— The boy Allies at Liege • Clair W. Hayes
... the pavement before him with his scabbard, using it as a blind man's staff. And so we advanced through the fetid gloom, the passage being only wide enough to let us walk shoulder to shoulder. There was a whirring of wings about us, and a squeaking; once something swooped square into my face, knocking a cry of terror from me, and ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... across the hills to New Hampshire. How lucky that Riverboro is only thirty miles from the state line!—It looks like snow, and how I wish it would be something more than a flurry; a regular whizzing, whirring storm that would pack the roads and let us slip over them with our ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... a loud splash and cackling, up would spring a knot of ducks, their wings whirring as they rapidly beat the air in a flight wonderful for such a heavy bird. Again a little farther and first one and then another snipe would dart away in zigzag flight, uttering their strange scape, scape. ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... for many miles, until, as they approached a cottage by the roadside, Ned thought he heard a familiar air. Indeed, he was sure that something important was about to happen, for the bluebird was whirring around in circles and singing as if her life depended upon the way ...
— The Magic Soap Bubble • David Cory
... hunt those big mountain canvasback? If you have, you know the story. If you have not, I am afraid I can not give you a correct impression of it. Sitting in a frozen blind, all at once you hear the whirring of wings, far off in the sky. Before you can locate the source of it, "Swish!" an old Can goes by. You look at the streak of light he leaves in the atmosphere. Then you hear another far-off alarm. ...
— Out of Doors—California and Oregon • J. A. Graves |
