"Clatter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to be rung down on the end of the play, a mad clatter of boots was heard behind the scenes. Then a man, dressed in complete black, and excessively pale, jumped upon the stage. His black hair was tossed all over his head, and his black eyes were rolling wildly. Thus much all the spectators saw at ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... to know his business, came forward with the coupling which fed compressed air to the machine, the runner gave a last inspection of his drill, turned his chuck screw, setting it against the rocky face, and signaled for the air. With a clatter like the discharge of a rapid-fire gun, the steel bit into the rock, and the Cross was really a mine again. Spattered with mud, and satisfied that the new drift was working in pay, the partner trudged ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... carried the two wounded men inside, when a clatter of hoofs in the avenue warned us that the sergeant, true to his promise, had come to our succour, and not alone. He was not well pleased to find himself too late for the fighting, and only in time ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... mistaken. There was in the dining-room the usual rustling, clatter of plates, forks and knives, tinkling of glasses, and whispered conversation. "Our" American was sitting at the side of his odd Dulcinea, and he again looked like a self-satisfied cox-comb. But, it seemed to ...
— The Shield • Various
... lines, waiting before the pit entrances of the theatres—short-coated boys, and girls in sailor hats, all shivering and chatting gayly. There was a blurred rhythm in all the dull city noises—in the clatter of the cab horses and the rumbling of the busses, in the street calls, and in the undulating tramp, tramp of the crowd. It was like the deep vibration of some vast underground machinery, and like the muffled pulsations of millions ...
— Alexander's Bridge and The Barrel Organ • Willa Cather and Alfred Noyes
... with a rattle and clatter and crash, a patrol wagon swung up to the curb—so close that a spatter of mud from the gutter fell on the woman's skirt. The wagon wheeled and backed. The police formed a quick lane across the sidewalk. The crowd surged forward and carried the woman close against ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright
... the last word, and sitting so, both silent, we heard a screen-door at the kitchen-end blow to with a bang and a clatter of tinware that sent the blood to my face in wrath. I said something—about Jim and his fly-doors (Jim believed that flies or their ghosts besieged that house all winter)—when the old heathen himself came boiling into the room like a whole United ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... we heard the clatter of hoofs behind us, and there was a troop of my old regiment out exercising. Invisible to all but ourselves, and each other, we watched the wanton troopers riding by on their meek ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... right and left and right again, and in running the narrow passage between table and bed to Martin's side; but Arthur veered too wide and fetched up with clatter and bang of pots and pans in the corner where Martin did his cooking. Arthur did not linger long. Ruth occupied the only chair, and having done his duty, he went outside and stood by the gate, the centre of seven marvelling Silvas, ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... and the girl came face to face with the Judge and marshal, who cried out upon seeing them, but as they reined in, out from the stairs beside them a man shot amid clatter and uproar. ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... with the grizzled beard hear adventure's story! Hear the tale the music tells, thrilling with ro- mance, Hear the clatter of a sword, hear a broken lance Falling from some hero's hand, red ...
— Cross Roads • Margaret E. Sangster
... been angry twice or thrice at finding his wife up on his return from the parties which he frequented: so she went straight to bed now; but although she did not sleep, and although the din and clatter, and the galloping of horsemen were incessant, she never heard any of these noises, having quite other disturbances to keep ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... little that I care so little for it. The music I mean is what I hear, when, in a summer's afternoon, I carry my book out into the barn to read as I lie on a bed of hay. I don't read, but I listen. The cooing of the doves, the clatter even of the fowls in the barn-yard, the quiet noises, with the whisperings of the great elm, and the rustling of the brook in the field beyond,—all this is the music I like to hear. It puts me into delicious dreams, and stirs me, too, into ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the mealy-mouthed chits sing," cried Ciboule, "we will make them dance to the clatter ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... omnibus of the Jolliette on its last journey swung around the corner of the dead wall which faces across the paved road the characteristic angular mass of the Fort St. Jean. Three horses trotted abreast, with the clatter of hoofs on the granite setts, and the yellow, uproarious machine jolted violently behind them, fantastic, lighted up, perfectly empty, and with the driver apparently asleep on his swaying perch above that amazing racket. ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... not stand even, and they tottered as she climbed, but Charley leaned his little body against them, and stretched out his arms, and held them steady. Biddy was not a moment too quick. As she threw herself forward across the topmost box, the shuffle and clatter of many feet and the shouting and screaming seemed to be all around them. Biddy could not look down. She was so frightened, and had climbed so fast, she could hardly breathe, but she heard a snapping and crunching of jaws ...
— Harper's Young People, March 9, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... and after a few minutes I had the streets pretty much to myself. It's a curious thing, Austin, to be alone in London at night, the gas-lamps stretching away in perspective, and the dead silence, and then perhaps the rush and clatter of a hansom on the stones, and the fire starting up under the horse's hoofs. I walked along pretty briskly, for I was feeling a little tired of being out in the night, and as the clocks were striking two I turned down ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen
... reached the door, Leneli sat down on the step, and Mother Adolf put the baby in her arms and went at once into the quiet house. Then there was a sound of quick steps about the kitchen, a rattling of the stove, and a clatter of tins which must have pleased the cuckoo, and soon she reappeared in the door with a bowl ...
— The Swiss Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... ruler—the Democritus of his grisly epoch. The Caribees excite none of the sensation here they have been accustomed to. The streets are not crowded, and the few civilians passing hardly turn their heads. Mounted orderlies dash hurriedly, with hideous clatter of sabre and equipments, across the line of march, through the very regiment's ranks, answering with a disdainful oath or mocking gibe when an outraged shoulder-strap raised a remonstrating voice. At Fourteenth Street the Caribees were halted ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... as London, yes, while simple as the nursery. The same big questions of life and death, of battle, duty, love, ruled the peaceful inhabitants. Only the noisy shouting, the clatter of superfluous chattering and feverish striving had dropped away. Hearts and minds wore fewer clothes among these woods and vineyards. There was no nakedness though ... there were flowers and moss, blue sky and peace and beauty. ... Thought ran into ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there; The children were nestled all snug in their beds, While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads; And mamma in her kerchief, and I in my cap, Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap,— When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter. Away to the window I flew like a flash, Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash. The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow Gave a lustre of midday to objects below; When what to my wondering eyes should appear, But ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... rummaging in the other rooms, and in less than five minutes' time the clatter of hoofs outside told the boy that the doctor was off, probably on the huge gray horse Wilbur had seen in the corral as he rode in that day. It was broad daylight when he wakened again, and Mrs. Davis was standing beside him with his breakfast tray. It was so long since ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... Ruth, dropping scissors, thimble and spool with a clatter as she got up from her chair. "Oh, Charlotte, I wish you would let me do something I want ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... she cried, as she dashed through the door. "Happy New Year, Billy! I've brought you a New Year's present. I said I must be the one to bring it, and papa is coming over in a few minutes to teach you to use it." And, with a clatter and a bang, she cast a pair of crutches on the ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray
... glaring lamp showed all the details of the room, and made it seem so real, so much more real than mere thoughts, let alone that of which one cannot think. He got up to alter the stove-damper, pushing it shut with a clatter of iron, burning his fingers slightly, and sat down again, feeling it a relief to know, if by the smart, that ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... summer's morning, when the first thing gave us warning Was the booming of the cannon from the river and the shore: "Child," says grandma, "what's the matter, what is all this noise and clatter? Have those scalping Indian devils come to murder us once more?" Poor old soul! my sides were shaking in the midst of all my quaking To hear her talk of Indians when the guns began to roar: She had seen the burning village, and the slaughter and the pillage, When the Mohawks ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... stood conspicuous upon an island in the river. As we approached, it looked not unlike a copy of Versailles. The pile was by no means brilliant with lights, as the court of a king might glitter, finding reflection upon the stream. We drove with a clatter upon the paving, and a sentinel ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... driver was seen to be of a commanding grace, and though she was not in white but in light blue, and her plain sailor hat was certainly not trimmed with roses, I had not the least difficulty in recognising her. At the same instant there was a hurried clatter of foot-steps upon the stairway leading from the gallery; the startled pigeons fluttered up from the garden-path, betaking themselves to flight, and "that other monsieur" came leaping across the courtyard, through the archway and ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... canvasmen now began to tear down the animal tent—the "menagerie," as it has always been known to the man who pays admission. An hour later, when the big show is over, the spectators will stream forth, even as their own blue seats begin to clatter to earth behind them, and they will blink with amazement to find themselves in the open air, instead of in the menagerie tent. As if by magic it has disappeared, and with it the sideshow and its banners, ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... old sheik's horse showed the utmost repugnance to the grim pile of corpses, snorting and rearing dangerously, and Craven wrestled with him for some moments before he bounded suddenly past them with a clatter of hoofs that sent the loose stones ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... Libert a merry bon soir, and were driven in a taxi along to the Trocadero grill-room, where, amid the clatter of plates, the chatter, and the accompanying orchestra, they found ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... tools with a clatter, wiped his mouth, beat his breast, and began to walk up and ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... six horses harnessed to the carriage, and so extend about ten yards, on slippery pavement, through very narrow streets, extremely crowded with women and children; then they will flog their horses to full speed, and clatter along without fear or shame. Nothing happens; I have remarked that nothing ever does anywhere ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... abandoned to the Tartars. Having ravaged the central valleys of the Don and the Volga, these demoniac warriors turned their steps again into southern Russia. The inhabitants, frantic with terror, fled from their line of march as lambs fly from wolves. The blasts of their trumpets and the clatter of their horses' hoofs were speedily resounding in the valley of the Dnieper. Soon from the steeples of Kief the banners of the terrible army were seen approaching from the east. They crossed the Dnieper ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... this hotel. The floor was of marble—scrupulously clean—and the Javanese waiters were dressed in a uniform of white trimmed with red, presenting a pleasing contrast to the slipshod dirty "boy" of an ordinary hotel, whose habit it is to clatter round flapping your face and brushing your food with his long, unclean, hanging sleeves. Though in the native states from whence X. came it is no uncommon thing to see Malays wait at table, yet in Singapore, with the exception of Indian servants, it is very seldom that there are any ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... to treat a "pore afflicted chap," and cursed the boss. Tom's admirers cursed in sympathy, and trouble seemed threatening, when the voice of Mitchell was heard to rise in slow, deliberate tones over the clatter of cutlery and ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... we have the roar of artillery, the rattle of musketry, the prancing of impatient steeds, the marching and countermarching of battalions, the roll of the drum, the clash and clatter of sabers, and the thunder of a thousand mounted men, as they hurry hither and yon. But nobody is hurt; it is all practice ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... indeed, they came no nearer the subject than to ask Weary if he were going to drive the team in to Dry Lake. They did not talk much about anything, for that matter; even the knives and forks seemed to share the general depression of spirits, and failed to give forth the cheerful clatter which was a daily accompaniment of meals in ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... chains of kenneled dogs, the hollow stamping of heavy boots, the lowing of cattle, with sounds besides so strange to the ears of Dorothy that they set her puzzling in vain to account for them; not to mention the chaff of the guard-rooms by the gates, and the scolding and clatter of the kitchen. This last, indeed, was audible only when the doors were open, for the walls of the kitchen, whether it was that the builders of it counted cookery second only to life, or that this had been judged, from the nature of the ground outside, ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... to prepare for it," mused the old man, with a jerk of his shoulders. "France! So the mutter runs. There is a Napoleon in France, but no Bonaparte. Clatter-clatter! Bang-bang!" He laughed ironically and cautiously glanced at his watch, an article which must have cost him many and many a potato-patch. He pulled his hat over his eyes, scratched the irritating stubble on his chin, and ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... going on to the accompaniment of a clatter of plates and spoons and dishes, and the fizzling of sausages, prefacing the evening meal, to which all now sat down after a lengthened grace ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... noisy winds are still; April's coming up the hill! All the spring is in her train, Led by shining ranks of rain; Pit, pat, patter, clatter, Sudden sun, and clatter, patter!— First the blue, and then the shower; Bursting bud, and smiling flower; Brooks set free with tinkling ring; Birds too full of song to sing; Crisp old leaves astir with pride, Where the timid violets hide,— All things ready with a will,— April's ...
— The Posy Ring - A Book of Verse for Children • Various
... quickly rallied them; the fight was renewed with increased fury, and the air was filled with the clatter of steel and the shouts ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... She had letters she positively must write; and so the two tall horses pranced off, bearing in the very large and very shiny carriage only the exemplary lady. As she heard them clatter off over the resounding granite, Jean gave a little skip. Her eyes danced too and her lips smiled mysteriously. She ran upstairs like a whirlwind and had the drawing-room door shut behind her before she paused. Only then did she seem to feel safely ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... pairs with which our unit was suddenly flooded by the authorities proved as silent as they were intended to be. Some of them squeaked; and the peregrinations of the orderly thus afflicted were perhaps more vexatious to the ear of a nervous patient at night than even the clatter of honest hobnails. And the soles were thin. A pair of ward-shoes lasted me on the average one month. If only worn within the ward they might have lasted longer—though not so very much longer. According to regulations, you were not allowed to wear ward-shoes except within the confines of ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... and, walking in the direction, he passed a couple of large open windows, from whence came the clatter of silver upon china and the buzz of voices accompanied by sundry odours of an agreeable nature, which reminded him of the fact that he had eaten nothing since ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... ruins of a building which used to be a bakehouse I received a startling surprise. I was bending down and looking into an empty oven when, with a rush and a clatter, a fine black cat sprang at my legs with a frightened, piteous look in its eyes, and mewed in a strange manner. For a moment I was startled, for the animal clung to my breeches. The poor creature looked half-starved. In its frenzy, it might bite or scratch ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... the world; she tells me also odd stories how the parish talks of Sir W. Pen's family, how poorly they clothe their daughter so soon after marriage, and do say that Mr. Lowther was married once before, and some such thing there hath been, whatever the bottom of it is. But to think of the clatter they make with his coach, and his owne fine cloathes, and yet how meanly they live within doors, and nastily, and borrowing everything of neighbours is a most ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... therewith something touched the heart of each more impressively, more completely, than ever words could touch it. Christopher got downstairs without knowing how: below, he threw down the extra logs of wood, which he had kept back, with a clatter from the wagon, and then drove briskly from the city. Not till he arrived at Lindenthal did he allow himself and his horses rest or food. He had driven away empty: he had nothing on his wagon, nothing in his purse; and yet who can tell what treasures he took home; and who ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German (V.2) • Various
... few moments' silence, when the chaplain, raising his hand, said a Latin grace; and then there was a clatter of trenchers, and the quick passing to and fro of the serving-men, and the sound of many ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... morning a lively clatter rising from the farm-yard came through my open window, along with the sunshine and the crisp freshness of the morning air. My apartment was in the southeast angle of the Chateau, and my bedroom windows—overlooking the ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... the firelight, the clatter of china issuing from the kitchen premises indicated unusual domestic activity on Nan's part, and finally culminated in her entry into the sitting-room, bearing ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... a whip rang clear; the clatter of hoofs and the grind of a wheel on the skid followed. A carriage dashed down the hill from Sasellano. Paul de Roustache had seen it, and stooped low for a moment in instinctive fear of being seen. Captain Dieppe, on the other hand, cried "Bravo!" and began to walk briskly towards the ford. ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope
... the direction of the theatre. A head was, now and then, thrust out of a shop-door, but I never before witnessed such a calm in this place, which is usually alive with people. Passing part of the way through one of the glazed galleries, I was started by a general clatter that sprung up all around me in every direction, and which extended itself entirely around the whole of the long galleries. The interruption to the previous profound quiet, was as sudden as the ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... at a station, and just after we had stopped, four rifle-shots rapped out in quick succession not far ahead. De Wet, we at once conjectured. In the darkness on our left we heard an impatient corporal turning out his sleepy guard, and a stir and clatter of arms. One of our companies of infantry was also turned out, and a party formed to patrol the line, outposts having reported some Boers tampering with the rails. The rest of the train was sound asleep, but we, being ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... on his lips to ask her to let him walk part of the way home with her. He might have this last pleasure since he was coming here no more, at least not in the old way. But, as though her words had been a challenge, there was a clatter of wheels and horses in the ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... It was just one such Sunday that they came face to face for the first time. Chad had gone down the street after leaving the church, had changed his mind and was going back to his room. People were pouring from the church, as he went by, but Chad did not even look across. A clatter rose behind him and he turned to see a horse and rockaway coming at a gallop up the street, which was narrow. The negro driver, frightened though he was, had sense enough to pull his running horse away from ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... heart!" cried Christie, walking about the room as if she had mounted her hobby, and was off for a canter, "how people can go on in such an idiotic fashion passes my understanding. Why keep up an endless clatter about gowns and dinners, your neighbors' affairs, and your own aches, when there is a world full of grand questions to settle, lovely things to see, wise things to study, and noble things to imitate. Bella, you must try the experiment, and be the queen of a better society than ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... hoarse roar Of the monster guns; And the sharp bark Of the lesser guns; The whine of the shells, The rifles' clatter Where the bullets patter, The rattle, rattle, rattle Of the mitrailleuse in battle, And the yells Of the men who charge through hells Where the poison gas descends, And the bursting shrapnel rends Limb from limb In the dim Chaos and clamor of the strife Where no man ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... an exclusive family of humans in a little eighty-thousand-dollar cottage on the outskirts of vulgarity—which is to say, the villa was situated near enough to town to admit of marketing, but far enough removed therefrom to escape the clatter of plebeian toil and the noxious contact with the unhealthy, unwealthy herd. Here the humans entertained selected friends who came at the ends of weeks to admire the splendor of Omar Ben's tail, to bow down to the humans' ...
— A Night Out • Edward Peple
... in the afternoon when the last Prussian outpost hailed us. I had been asleep for hours, but was awakened by the clatter of horses, and I opened my eyes to see a dozen Uhlans come cantering up ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... yard; the scene was one of pandemonium. Ere long five of the engine party had been captured, three inside of the yard and two immediately outside. Among these were Jenks and Macgreggor who were both uninjured, but both very much disheartened. Soon there was the clatter of hoofs, and a troop of cavalry dashed up to ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... edge of the tool cuts shavings from the solid metal rotating swiftly in the lathe. As blow follows blow the red-hot 'scale,' driven from the surface of the iron on the anvil by the heavy sledge, flies rattling against the window in a spray of fire. The ring of metal, the clatter, the roaring, and hissing of steam, fill the air, and through it rises now and then the shrill quick ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... picturesque horseman stood aside and gave them the road. As the coach penetrated deeper into the gorge, signs of human life and activity became fewer. The sun could not send his light into this shadowy tomb of granite. The rattle of the wheels and the clatter of the horses' hoofs sounded like a constant crash of thunder in the ears of the tender traveler, a dainty morsel ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... the sound of blows on the door below thundering like cannon-shot. We still kept up our fire, but hopelessly, when we heard the clatter of hoofs without. The firing ceased, and we saw through the smoke four squadrons of lancers dashing like a troop of lions through the midst of the Austrians. All yielded before them. The Kaiserliks fled, but the long, blue lances, ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... overflowing heart to his eager female listeners, who in turn relate, inquire, sympathize, or cheer. If I dare express a doubt that the path to victory will be a flowery one, eyes flash, cheeks burn, and tongues clatter, till all are checked up suddenly by a warning rap for "Order, order!" from the amiable lady presiding. Thus we swallow politics with every meal. We take a mouthful and read a telegram, one eye on table, the ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... suddenly changed. We found now that there was the steep slope from high up the mountain to the level of the water, which roared and surged along, and swept away the thin pieces of slaty stone which formed the slope—a clatter-slide, as west-country people would call it. These pieces were all loose and extremely unpleasant to walk upon, being shaley fragments of all sizes, from that of a child's hand up to thin fragments a foot ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... is ill," I murmured to myself as I wended my lonely way, and I lay awake thinking if I had said anything that would prejudice my chances of winning her, if I had omitted to say anything that might have inclined her to yield. One lies awake at night thinking of the mistakes one has made; thoughts clatter in one's head. Good heavens! how stupid it was of me not to have used a certain argument. Perhaps if I had spoken more tenderly, displayed a more Christian spirit—all that paganism, that talk about nymphs and dryads and satyrs and fauns frightened her. ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... search of the musket; but in his haste tumbled down the attic stairs, losing his grasp of the musket, which fell down with a clatter. ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... that at the instant of my turning to re-enter my library I should see something which would make my brain throb madly and my pulses start. I did not therefore instantly turn, but let the wind blow the door to with a loud clatter, while I walked quickly into my dining -room and drained a glass of cooking-sherry to the dregs. I do not introduce the cooking-sherry here for the purpose of eliciting a laugh from the reader, but in order to be faithful to life as we live it. All ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... there came a crash and clatter of steel and wood from the garden, out of sight of which Tom and Mr. Damon had walked while talking. Then followed a jangle ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Scout - or, Uncle Sam's Mastery of the Sky • Victor Appleton
... The far-off clatter of carriage wheels presently arrested his attention; looking down the street, he could see the lights of a hackney carriage advancing towards him. They had already flashed upon the open crossing a block beyond before his vague ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... white Targa, mute and expressionless as a phantom, would pass us and we would hear the clatter of his ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... Boom, Rattle, Clash, BANG, Clink, BANG, Dong, BANG, Clatter, BANG BANG BANG! What on earth is this! This is, or soon will be, the Achilles, iron armour-plated ship. Twelve hundred men are working at her now; twelve hundred men working on stages over her sides, over her bows, over her stern, under her keel, between ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... the boatswain snatched up a small coil of line that we had made ready for the purpose, and hurled himself recklessly at a dark mass that at that moment came sliding close past what had been our lee side before I luffed the catamaran into the wind. I heard the splashing clatter of his boots as he landed upon certain objects that sounded like loose paddles lying washing about in the bottom of the canoe—for such I now saw the craft to be; saw him stoop, as though making fast the rope he had taken with him; and then he shouted: "All fast, sir; let her go off!" I put ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... breeze an answer—"Monseigneur! Monseigneur!" The cry grew louder suddenly. The clatter of hoofs urged to an anguish of speed sounded on the night. M. Beaucaire's servants had lagged sorely behind, but they made up for it now. Almost before the noise of their own steeds they came riding down the moonlit aisle between the mists. Chosen men, these servants of Beaucaire, ...
— Monsieur Beaucaire • Booth Tarkington
... merriment. What do you suppose were the age and sex of the inventor of the game called "Tying a tin kettle to a dog's tail?" And do you suppose this inventor stood by, in silent gravity, to witness the success of the experiment? The yelp of the astounded dog, and the clatter of the kitchen utensil so strangely misplaced, were doubtless swallowed up in the loud guffaws of the Laughing Hyena ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 4, April 23, 1870 • Various
... our objective being the Mons-Jurbise road. There was no opposition of any kind and by 09.00 we had reached the objective. Our job had proved an easy one, and we quite expected to get orders to continue the pursuit. But of a sudden there arose a clatter of hoofs and an obviously excited transport officer dashed up to the Commanding Officer, brandishing one of the pink forms we had learned to hate. But never before had an Army Form borne such a message as this: "Hostilities will ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... the darkness and at that instant I made a discovery. Leith was not alone. Keeping time with the clatter of the shoes was a softer tattoo that told me that a barefooted runner was racing beside the man ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... saluting Heriot by the name of Jingling Geordie, (for it was his well-known custom to give nicknames to all those with whom he was on terms of familiarity,) inquired what new clatter-traps he had brought with him, to cheat his lawful and native ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... room until a cheerful clatter of crockery below heralded the approach of tea-time. He heard Miss Miller call her uncle in from the garden, and with some satisfaction heard her pleasant voice engaged in brisk talk. At intervals Mr. ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... that you are full of care and labor to support your families. Say it over and over, till you really believe it yourself, if you please, that when you come home tired at night, you cannot be crazed with the clatter of children's tongues. You want to rest and be quiet. So you do, and so you should—but have you any right to be so perfectly worn out with business, that the voice of your own child is irksome to you? Try, for once, a little ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... affected the pronunciation, as in Sloper and Smoker (Chapter III). Tinker is sometimes found as the frequentative Tinkler, a name traditionally due to his approach being heralded by the clatter ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... neutral- coloured uniforms, but fought from first to last in clothes of blue and green and blazing scarlet. As I stood one day in the Place de Meir in Antwerp and watched a regiment of mud-bespattered guides clatter past, it was hard to believe that I was living in the twentieth century and not in the beginning of the nineteenth, for instead of serviceable uniforms of grey or drab or khaki, these men wore the befrogged green jackets, the cherry-coloured breeches, and ...
— Fighting in Flanders • E. Alexander Powell
... clatter of little feet running through the house and out upon the veranda, the carriage draw up before the door, then the voices of the children pouring out the story of their fright, and the punishment of its authors, and the answering tones of their ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... he turned hastily around, and encountered a group of Chimney-sweepers, who immediately set up such a clatter with their brushes and shovels, dancing at the same time in the true May-day style round him and a strapping Irish fish-woman, that he was completely prevented from pursuit, and almost from observation, while a universal laugh from those near him bespoke ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... nibbling another horse's neck, for he could never have nibbled his own neck. If a horse is much tickled, as when curry-combed, his wish to bite something becomes so intolerably strong, that he will clatter his teeth together, and though not vicious, bite his groom. At the same time from habit he closely depresses his ears, so as to protect them from being bitten, as if he were ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... or in some of those barrels? may not a man steal in at the window with a ladder of ropes, or come down the chimney, have a false key, or get in when he is asleep? If a mouse do but stir, or the wind blow, a casement clatter, that's the villain, there he is: by his goodwill no man shall see her, salute her, speak with her, she shall not go forth of his sight, so much as to do her needs. [6129]Non ita bovem argus, &c. Argus did not so keep his cow, that watchful dragon the golden fleece, or Cerberus ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... trop," said the Captain, looking at them rather wistfully. "I'd best go and talk to the hermit,"—and so he strolled off out of the hum of men, and noise, and clatter of the banquet, into the dark walk, at the end of which lived that well-known pasteboard Solitary. It wasn't very good fun for Dobbin—and, indeed, to be alone at Vauxhall, I have found, from my ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... his head triumphantly toward a tin pail of eggs on the table. "Seven dollars a clatter, though," he confessed, after ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... was lost in the clatter of Moses' feet as he stumbled up the ladder-way. Remembering his letter at that moment, Miles followed him, and reached the gangway just ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... lines of street-cars also meet and diverge. The fashionable idlers of the town hold high carnival in the Puerto del Sol, day and night. One is half dazed by the whirl of carriages, the rush of pedestrians, the passing of military bands with marching regiments, and the clatter of horses' feet caused by dashing equestrians. This plaza or square is a scene of incessant movement from early morn until midnight. Like Paris and Vienna, Madrid does not seem to thoroughly awaken until evening, the tide of life becoming ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... replied the unknown cowman. As he spoke he halted, looked about, and resigning Alex to the guardianship of the Italian, disappeared in the shadow of an over-hang of the ravine. A moment later there was a clatter of hoofs, and ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs
... determined not to see her, and while he designedly made all the clatter he could, and placed himself before the entrance, I took the means he had devised. She came, turned him aside, examined the door, pushed violently against it, and I believe would willingly have broken it open; but finding her good intentions, I set my shoulder to the panel, taking care not to ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... affected admiration exquisitely absurd and almost past belief; even Growling himself was amazed, as he threw in a rapturous "charming" or "bravissimo," at the egregious folly of his dupe, who still continued singing, while the laughter of the supper-room and the inviting clatter of its knives and forks were ringing in his ear. When Reddy concluded, the doctor asked might he venture to request the last verse again; "for," continued he, "there is a singular beauty of thought and felicity of expression in its numbers, ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... the blue scarf about her shoulders, sat beside David as they drove over the country road, home from her graduation. The vehicle rattled somewhat, but the young folks on the rear seat could speak and hear above the clatter. ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... and brewing; up on a yellow tide under the arches of the bridge swings a string of barges, piled with bales of hay. A flock of pigeons sways and wheels in the sky, drops to the roofs, settles with a clatter, sails up into the sky again. Black-headed gulls, in their winter suits of dove-colour and white, walk about the muddy edge of the rising tide, drift on the stream like torn paper, soar and hang in the wind above the bridge, peering this way and that for ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... have I to tell ye when ye dinna ken the very horn-book o' knowledge? Besides, I am no clatter-vengeance to tell stories in the middle o' the muir, where there are ears open high and low. There's others than me wi mair experience and a better skill at the telling. Our clan was well acquaint wi' the reivers and lifters o' the muirs, and could crack ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... discovered that her much-vaunted temper was not one-two-three to that of the red-haired person. He turned a sort of blue-white, shoved Jane out of his way as if she had been a chair, and she heard him clatter down the stairs and slam ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... With a clatter and crash down came the wooden frontage. It was a part of the mechanics intrusted to the docile and intelligent Chieftain that so soon as the woodwork had dropped he, counterfeiting an unappeasable bloodthirstiness, should fling himself headlong against the ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... out of the doorway a very old man—a bent and wrinkled old man with long white hair which trailed down from under a broad-brimmed hat. He was dragging a coffin, single-handed. The free end of the solemn box bumped down the wooden steps with a hollow clatter that suggested emptiness. There was a woodpile at one side of the yard. The old man tugged the casket over the litter of chips and dropped the end. He wrenched an ax from its cleft in a chopping-block and caved in the top of the ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... terrible of phenomena held in God's hand, whereby He saith to poor, puny, arrogant man, "Be still, and know that I am God." Isoult awoke to hear sounds on all sides of her—the bed creaking, and below the dishes and pans dancing with a noisy clatter. In the next chamber she heard Walter crying, and Kate asking if the end of all the world were come; but John would not permit her to rise and go to them. And she also heard Esther talking with them and comforting them in a low voice, so she was comparatively satisfied. The baby, ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... up his hands, letting the shears clatter to the ground, and with a hoarse cry turned and fled up the path as swiftly as he ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces • Edith Van Dyne
... until she turned her horse into the Old Stage Road, and the clatter of the hoofs was gone. When the stillness had fallen again he went slowly on ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... them as they climbed. There was no beaten path, nor any mark of former human visitation; and the way was over an endless heaping of tumbled fragments that rolled or turned beneath the foot. Sometimes a mass dislodged would clatter down with hollow echoings;—sometimes the substance trodden would burst like an empty shell....Stars pointed and thrilled; and ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... towering walls of bare, sun-baked rock, has lost much of its poetry and romance. The stream flows clear as in the poet's time, but the solitude he loved so well is invaded. Of his garden not a trace remains. The perpetually whirring wheels of a water-mill, the clatter of washerwomen beating clothes on the bank, now drown the murmur of the waves, whilst at every turn the traveller is beset by vendors of immortelles and photographs. Truth to tell, an element of vulgarity has found its way to this once ideal ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... noise, chances are often lost which would be easy enough if the ground was more open. Frequently, although the tracks show that old tahr must be near, and in spite of the utmost care and caution, the first intimation one has of the presence of the game is a rush through the bushes, a clatter of falling stones, and perhaps a glimpse of the shaggy hind-quarters of the last of the herd as he vanishes over some precipice where it is perfectly ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... those who are dear to him, or laboring to enlighten and reform his own spirit that he may give good gifts to his generation, and a beast whipped round a treadmill to the din of its own everlasting clatter. It is only work whose end shall, in some faint degree, be intelligible, which is demanded for the child; and with this sort of work we believe that it is very possible to furnish him. But our philanthropies in this direction may not be wrought by ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... of horses became audible outside; the sound increased rapidly; and in another minute I became aware that a cavalcade of some sort had approached the great door of the building; then there came the sound of champing of bits, the clatter of accoutrements, the jingle of spurs, and loud voices talking and laughing. Finally the heavy latch of the door was turned, one leaf swung heavily back upon its well-oiled hinges, and a group of some fourteen officers ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... caught the white goose by the leg, A goose—'twas no great matter. The goose let fall a golden egg With cackle and with clatter. ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... do,' aw thowt, soa aw went towards it to tak it off, when th' cock tried to foller, an wafted th' cannel aght wi his wings an let fair at th' top o' my heead, so aw grabbed at th' shelf to steady misen, when daan it coom wi all th' plates an pots, an sich a clatter an crash yo'd ha thowt th' haase had tummeld. Th' milk wor all spilt, an th' breead an cheese wor rollin' amang th' coils, an a bowl o' broth had emptied itsen onto th' front o' mi clean shirt, an aw wor sylin weet throo mi neck to mi feet. Th' ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... I thought I heard the clatter of your sabre," said the old man. "Where did you get ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... when he's composing," soothed Billy. "I supposed you knew it, dear. Don't you fret! Run along and make him his favorite pudding, and by night both of you will have forgotten there ever were such things in the world as tins and shoes and carpet sweepers that clatter." ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter
... the rider answer. Children, who, following the good example of the early bird, were already abroad, scurried out of his way, making a great clatter in their wooden shoes, and gaping until he passed ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... cat and rifled a pass through the closing ranks of clerks. Scotty snatched the cat out of the air. Rick followed through with a battering charge that sent a clerk caroming into a stack of copper jars. They went down with a clatter. Another clerk reached out and Rick gave him a straight arm that cleared the way long enough for a ...
— The Egyptian Cat Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... snappings of the old woodwork dried her throat. With her hand on the swing door that led into the dining-room, she paused in a delicious ecstasy of terror, as the imagined clink of glass and silver, the normal clatter of a cheerful meal, seemed to echo ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... for me," said the husband, throwing his arm round his beautiful, sweet-tempered wife. He sat by her side on the open balcony, smoking a cigarette in the cool air, which was loaded with the sweet scent of carnations and orange blossoms. Sounds of music and the clatter of castanets came from the road beneath, the stars shone above then, and two eyes full of affection—those of his wife—looked upon him with the expression of undying love. "Such a moment," he said, ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... Senator Hanway, although he could have liked it better had he been less thoughtfully polite. Richard would have preferred the main floor, with whatever delay and formal clatter such entrance made imperative. The more delay and the more clatter, the more chance of seeing Dorothy. It struck him with a dubious chill when Senator Hanway suddenly distinguished him with the freedom of that veranda door—a franchise upon which your statesman laid flattering ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... glimpses reveal that LANNES' corps is moving forward, and amid an unbroken clatter of firelocks spreads out further and wider upon the stretch of country in front of the Landgrafenberg. The Prussians, surprised at discerning in the fog such masses of the enemy close at ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... a wrong-headed judge of the newer places of pilgrimage. However this may be, after the first glance at Verdelais I wished I had not come. There was no quiet corner here where a wayfarer could sit and refresh himself; in this hurly-burly of eager hunger, and with this infernal clatter of tongues, ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker |
