"Rattle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cut itself out black, yet of senseless silhouette, against the red west) in respect to poor Nan's flat infelicities, which for the most part kept no pace with the years or with change, but only shook like hard peas in a child's rattle, the same peas a ways, of course, so long as the rattle didn't split open with usage or from somebody's act of irritation. They represented, or they had long done so, her contribution to the more superficial of the two ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... and he soon finds that his body contains possibilities of pleasurable sensations which may be repeated by the proper stimulation. Besides the hunger-satisfaction that it brings, the act of sucking is pleasurable in itself, and so the baby begins to suck his thumb or his quilts or his rattle. Later, this impulse to stimulate the nerves about the mouth finds its satisfaction in kissing, and still later it plays a definite part in the wooing process; but at first the child is self-sufficient and finds ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... went on. "She recently visited my own little town of Jamshedpur. At the entreaty of a disciple, Ananda Moyi Ma went to the home of a dying man. She stood by his bedside; as her hand touched his forehead, his death-rattle ceased. The disease vanished at once; to the man's glad ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... very noisy, and at last uproarious. The snatches of songs, peals of laughter, and rattle of plates at last grew so loud that the other study-boys were afraid lest one of the masters should come up and catch the revellers. All of them heard every word that was spoken by Eric and his party, as the walls between the rooms were ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... addressed to the evil ones is performed in the following manner. The assistants assemble in the hut or tent of the wizard, who is concealed in a corner of the tent, where he has a drum, one or two round calabashes with a few small sea shells in them to make a noise, like the maraca or rattle of the Brazilian sorcerers, and some square bags of painted hide in which he keeps his spells. He begins the ceremony by making a strange noise with his drum and rattle, after which he feigns to fall into a fit, which is supposed to be occasioned by a struggle with ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... mill loomed darkly into the quiet air, and further up they could hear the rattle of machine drills hammering into the great sandstone ledges. Passing the pigmy lock of the old Hudson Bay Company, they floated a hundred yards from shore and immediately opposite the blockhouse. Here Elsie lifted her hand, and Belding, with a queer ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... and so was sliding down the long curve among the shadows, with the great walls of the canon towering infinitely above me, and with the black depth below. And in my sleep I made again the dreadful passage, and heard the clinking of the chain as it parted, and the rattle of it as it struck the rocks, and felt the grasp of Rayburn as he caught me, just as the bar was twitched out of my hands—and so woke to find Young shaking me, and to hear him say: "There's no earthly sense ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... the big guns began their chorus. With boom and roar, roar and boom they sang their anthem of death. The rattle of rifles came in as a response, and all this was ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... promised to call up his wife. Zada took a brief triumph from that. But Peter was ashamed and afraid to speak to Charity even across the wire. He knew that it has become as difficult to lie by telephone as face to face. The treacherous little quavers in the voice are multiplied to a rattle, and nothing can ever quite imitate sincerity. So much is bound to be over or ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... second German trenches without observing them, so completely demolished had they been by the French barrage. The fighting was yet somewhere beyond, although not waged with anything like the intensity of an hour ago. The artillery had almost entirely ceased, and the lesser rattle of machine-guns was diminishing. Yet he listened, trying to locate the thickest part of it, intending to push there as soon as he regained his breath; but always just above the noises came Marian's burning words, ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... shook his head. "Nothing," replied he, moodily, "can ever console me. Wherever I go, I shall hear the rattle of my prisoner's chain. Let us speak of it no more. I thank your majesty for the permission to leave Vienna, and I thank you for this bright and sacred hour, whose memory will bless me as long as I live. You have been to me this day a tender and sympathizing mother. May I henceforward ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... against the dark background of heavy cloud that hung low on the horizon; and, except for an irregular splutter of musketry, or an occasional dropping shot from direction of the town, the ominous, sustained rattle of ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... to the door, with Madge leaning heavily on him. They passed down the stairs, and the rattle of wheels told that they had gone. Jack was ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... when yon usher, vinegar-faced rogue that he is, began to inquire what Popish trangam you were wearing.—By the mass, the metal would have been confiscated for conscience-sake, like your other rattle-trap yonder at Avenel, which Mistress Lilias bears about on her shoes in the guise of a pair of shoe-buckles—This comes of carrying ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... was in progress, Lord Seacliff was enjoying a refreshing sleep in his room on the fourth floor. Two hours passed. The noise of the traffic in the street below faded away. Only the rattle of an occasional belated cab broke the silence. In the hotel all was still. Mr. Brewster had gone to bed. Archie, in his room, smoked meditatively. Peace may have been ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... The slight rattle of a racing droshky made Rudin raise his head. Lezhnyov was driving to meet him with his invariable trotting pony. Rudin bowed to him without speaking, and as though struck with a sudden thought, turned out of the road and walked quickly ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... him rattle over the drawbridge, and was turning to leave the apartment to welcome him home, when he entered, so great haste had he made. Without observing that she was not alone, he advanced, and, throwing his arms round her, drew aside her ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... "Hoppergrass" just as we felt the first cool gust against our faces. A cloud blew across the sun for an instant. The boom swung out with a rattle and a bump, the sail filled, and the "Hoppergrass" heeled over to the breeze. It was only a light puff, and it did not last long, but it was enough to get us under way once more. Spike and I took a peek toward Mr. Snider's boat. They were getting up their sail, so Spike jumped up on the seat ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson
... damp, rainy, grey days when happy people can afford to realise contentment indoors, and we were a very comfortable group indeed: Margarita sorting music, Roger drawing plans for a new chimney, Miss Jencks shaking a coral rattle for the delectation of the tiny Mary, who lay in her shallow basket under the lee of the great spinning-wheel, and I hugging the fire and watching them. I considered Roger's reforms in the matter of chimneys too thorough-going for the slender frame of the house ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... and, at the same time, most annoying conditions both to the owner of the piano and the tuner, is the "sympathetic rattle." This trouble is most usual in the square and the grand pianos and is generally due to some loose substance lying on the sound board. The rattle will be apparent only when certain keys are struck, other tones being perfectly free from it. These tones cause the sound board to vibrate in ...
— Piano Tuning - A Simple and Accurate Method for Amateurs • J. Cree Fischer
... host o' good things there They wage an awful battle; They're crying out, "A lile bit mair!" An' plates an' glasses rattle. Here, yan's nae time a word to pass, Thrang(1) supping an' thrang biting; There, simpering sits a girt soft lass That waits for mich inviting An' ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... the bell the whole long double line of soldiers, from the Pope's chair at the western end to the eastern door, with a rattle of arms that ran from end to end of the church, dropped on one knee—saluted. Then, crac!—and as they had dropped, they rose, the stiff white breeches and towering helmets of the Guardia Nobile, the red and yellow of the Swiss, the red and blue of the Papal guards—all ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the traitor rest, He, the deceiver, Who would win maiden's breast, Ruin, and leave her? In the lost battle, Borne down by the flying, Where mingles war's rattle With groans of the dying; Eleu loro There ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... and resolution. There was scarcely a breath of wind, and the ships were, in a few instants, shrouded in their own smoke; and were frequently obliged to cease firing until this drifted slowly away, to enable them to aim their guns. The rattle of the machine guns added to the din. Midshipmen were sent aloft, and these signalled down to the deck the result of each shot, so that the gunners were enabled to direct their fire, even when they could not see ten yards beyond the muzzle of ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... night rattle and bang of the city may go unnoticed for years but eventually it takes its toll. Then comes a great longing to get away from it all. If family income is independent of salary earned by a city job, there is nothing ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... to wonder why so great exception should be made in my favour, especially as I had owed my present bill so long. However, we let the fellow rattle on at his shoppy talk, and soon arrived at Mr Shoddy's ready-made ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... sire; And from the record of his father's stripes, He gathered zeal which did his youth inspire. Fearless and keen in the border battle, Careless of risk while dealing blow for blow, What did he care for yell or rifle-rattle If he in peril only ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 1, October, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... has only published a Spanish grammar, a Greek lexicon, and a few articles in the papers. While at Oxford he ran daily, with some friends, during one "eights week" a cynical comic paper called "The Rattle," to boost some theories he held, and which he wished to enforce, and also to "score" a few of the dons to whom he objected. This would have resulted in his being asked to retire for a season from the seat of learning at the request of his enemies, had not our beloved provost routed the special ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... the name of a quick, lively dance. Cf. Middlemen's Spanish Gipsy (IV. 2): "Fortune's a scurvy whore if she makes not my head sound like a rattle and ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... returning to the company, went to his study, and took this opportunity of finishing his will; but as the servants were all in attendance at supper he could not get any body to witness it; and for this he was obliged to wait till a very late hour, when all the company at last departed. The rattle of carriages at length died away; and when all was silence, just as he was about to ring for his witnesses, he heard Lady Sarah's step coming along the corridor towards the study: he went out immediately to meet her, drew her ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... new Jewish circle, removed from the pollution of his presence, leaving him alone in the great house with the black page. And this house was shunned as though marked with the cross of the pestilence. The more high-spirited Jew-boys would throw stones at its windows or rattle its doors, but it was even keener sport to run after its tenant himself, on the rare occasions when he appeared in the streets, to spit out like their elders at the sight of him, to pelt him with mud, and to shout after him, ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... displaced the native ones, as they did in Wales and elsewhere, and amongst some of our far Eastern Indians. But there were terrifying and repulsive names as well, such as Sese kenapik kaow apeoo, "She sits like a rattle-snake"; and one individual rejoiced in the appalling surname of "Grand Bastard." These instances serve to illustrate the tendency of half-breed nomenclature at the lake towards the mother's side. Here, too, there was no reserve ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair
... ladies and gentlemen were driving up from all directions with similar sledges and horses. That was a rush and rattle! The drivers rushed past each other as though it was for a very heavy wager, or as if they were on their wedding journey. At last the coachman perceived that their course lay above the clouds, which stretched ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... its sunlight. There was a Low Country fellow there, waist deep in schnapps, and a Finlander sucking strong beer like a hog. Meinheer and the Finn came to words and blows, and I, who was sitting astride of the railing staring, heard a shrill scream from the old man and a rattle as he dropped his fiddle, and then a flash and a red rain of blood on the table as my Finn fell with a knife in him, the Hollander's knife, smartly pegged in between the left breast and the shoulder. I declare that, even in my excitement at that first sight of blood drawn in feud, my boyish ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... seriously—not on most occasions. In the present instance, with feeling running as high as it was in some quarters, that crazy idea of seizing a few elevators at the point of a gun—! What in heaven's name would they do with them after they got them? Nevertheless, McNair might find rattle-brained listeners enough to cause a heap of trouble. There were always a few fellows ready for excitement; they might go in for the fun of it, then before they knew it the thing would curdle over night like a pan of milk in ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... the village, with a brook running down the middle of its street. This brook serves many purposes. The women kneel beside it with sleeves and kimonos tucked up, washing clothes and vegetables, or dipping buckets in it to get water for baths. There is a loud rattle of wooden hammers at various points, for the stream turns a number of small water-wheels, and these work big wooden hammers which pound up the rice placed in a big stump of a tree hollowed out for a mortar. As you stroll along the village street you see what every one is doing, for the fronts of ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Japan • John Finnemore
... piercing the blue sky with a thousand spars, fluttering the flags of all nations to the wind, shot through with the sharp rattle of winch-chains, and perfumed with garlic, vanilla, fumes of coal tar, and the tang of the sea, the wharves of Marseilles lay before the travellers, a great counter eternally vibrating to the thunder of trade; bales of carpets from the Levant, tons of cheeses from Holland, wood from ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... the West, is very much like a small woodchuck. In a prairie-dog town there are hundreds of holes close together. When we go to look at them, we see a little head at every door-way, which dives out of sight as we come near. Owls and rattle-snakes live in the same holes with ...
— Friends in Feathers and Fur, and Other Neighbors - For Young Folks • James Johonnot
... see that they are in good physical condition; that they have the proper equipment, ammunition and ration; that their canteens are full, their horses (if mounted) are in good condition, not of a conspicuous color and not given to neighing, and that there is nothing about the equipment to rattle or glisten. The patrol leader should also see that the men have nothing with them (maps, orders, letters, newspapers, etc.) that, if captured, would give the enemy valuable information. This is a more important inspection ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... I mean. I don't mean that I find it stupid. I don't like the kind of rattle-brained life we've been leading this six weeks. But, then, it just suits Lillie; and it's so sweet and patient of her to come here and give it all up, and say not a word of regret; and then, you see, I shall be just up to my ears in business now, and ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the time passed as the bones were rattling. They had little quiet parties with closed doors, and Bloundell devised a box lined with felt, so that the dice should make no noise, and their tell-tale rattle not bring the sharp-eared tutors up to the rooms. Bloundell, Ringwood, and Pen were once very nearly caught by Mr. Buck, who, passing in the Quadrangle, thought he heard the words "Two to one on the caster," through Pen's open window; but when the tutor got into Arthur's rooms he found the ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... for love, all my affections are centred in the dear objects at the Hutted Knoll. If I had met with a single woman I admired half as much as I do her pretty self, I should have been married long since." This was written in answer to some thoughtless rattle that the captain had volunteered to put in his last letter, as coming from Maud, who had sensitively shrunk from sending a message when asked; and it was read by father, mother, and Beulah, as the badinage of a brother to a sister, without awaking a second thought ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... and wakened some time after in darkness. The waves were hissing and slapping at the porthole; the second steward was cursing expertly in the linen closet, which happened to be opposite our stateroom; and somewhere people in good health were consuming viands, for cooking odors and the rattle of dishes came to us. A door in the corridor opened, and the sound of a cornet was wafted back from the forward deck. Somebody was playing "The Holy City." Steps went by. A voice with an English ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... the Sabbath; an excellent contrivance for poising the balance between God and Mammon, and illustrating the ease with which a man's duties to both, may be accommodated and adjusted. How the carriages rattle up, and deposit their richly- dressed burdens beneath the lofty portico! The powdered footmen glide along the aisle, place the richly-bound prayer-books on the pew desks, slam the doors, and hurry away, leaving the fashionable members of the congregation to inspect ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... Above in the limpid sunlight floats the great eagle, deadly enemy of the rattlesnake; from a near-by bush the exquisite song of the mocking-bird trills out, and far up the rocks the hoof-strokes of the mountain sheep strike with a rattle of stones that seems music in the crystal air. Yonder the wild turkey calls from the pine trees, or we hark to the whir of the grouse or the pine-hen. Noisy magpies startle the silence of the northern districts, and the sage-hen and the ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... where the denunciations of those who had abandoned them still seemed to hang and echo in the darkness. What thoughts passed through their minds or for how long a time they might still have sat in bitter contemplation can only be guessed, for they were surprised by the sharp rattle of a lock, the two great doors of the adjoining room were thrown wide open, and a broad and brilliant light flooded the apartment. Niccolas, the King's majordomo, stood between the doors, a black silhouette against the glare of ...
— The King's Jackal • Richard Harding Davis
... trying to trick him—get him for perjury. No! He wouldn't perjure himself again! No! But what could he do? His head swung stupidly, swaying like a dazed bull's. The sweat poured from every pore in his vast bulk. A hoarse noise—like a death rattle—came from his throat. The room dissolved in waves of white and black. Then in a vertigo he toppled forward and pitched headlong ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... having tea. The rattle of the crockery sounded very distinctly. He could distinguish the sharp, staccato ring when a cup was laid in a saucer, and the nervous rattle when cup and saucer were passed from one hand to the other. Spoons struck china with a faint metallic tinkle. He felt ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... he had caught the rattle of wheels along the road, and had picked up his field-glass to see who was passing. It was only a coloured man jogging along in the heat and dust with a cart full of chicken-coops. The Colonel watched him drive up a lane that led to the back of the new hotel that had just been ...
— The Little Colonel • Annie Fellows Johnston
... in peace, loved land, For we rest not, but stand, Off shaken our sloth. When the boils of war rattle To shirk not the battle, We make thee our oath. As we hope for a Heaven, Thy chains shall be riven, Thine ensign unfurled. And in pride of our race We will fearlessly face The might of the world. When our trumpet is blown, And our standard ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... be taken prisoner. His hands were tied, and he was made to walk in the midst of the warriors. At night they encamped, and after partaking of their evening meal, commenced their Indian ceremonies of drumming and shaking the rattle, accompanied with war songs. San-ge-man was asked by the chief of the party, if he could che-qwon-dum, at the same time giving him the rattle. He took it and commenced singing in a low, plaintive tone, ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland
... carefully in the mouth of the pot; and when she got home she shut all the doors and windows, and took away the cloth, and turned the pot upside down upon her hearthstone. What was her surprise to find that, instead of the deadly snake which she expected to see fall out of it, there fell out with a rattle and a clang a most magnificent necklace ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... will walk up and down arm in arm under the trees, while you tell me your pitiful tale." He drew the doleful governor into the courtyard, took him by the arm as he had said, and, in his rough, good-humored way, cried: "Out with it, rattle away, Baisemeaux; what have you got ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... juvenile belief that treasure was concealed inside their bodies. This idea Mr R. L. Stevenson eagerly fostered in the slightly younger generation, and, with the love of harmless mischief natural to him, implored us to 'rattle them soundly when ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black
... they set foot, and though the wicked king kept himself alive for three and a half years, he succumbed to hunger and thirst at last, and in Kohala his withered frame ceased to be animate. To this day "the rattle of Hua's bones in the sun" afford a simile in common speech. And the wrath of the gods was heavy, so that the people died ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... capital trick you played on old Mudge," he said with a hearty laugh which almost made the tins rattle. "I don't blame you a bit for running away. I've got a story to tell you about Mrs. Mudge. She's a ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... sound of a shot. Another and another—then a volley, which almost at once became a continuous rattle of musketry. ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... the skiff was cut off from sight by the marsh-bank; then the rower's head alone was seen above the tall brown grasses; and then he pulled around the bend and was lost to view behind a mass of flaming woodbine; and still, in the distance, could be heard across the water the rattle of his ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - First published in the "Century Magazine" • Heman White Chaplin
... well-measured distances, and form a connecting link with each other by means of their pocket-handkerchiefs held by the extreme corners. Each damsel carries a lighted taper of brown wax, and a tin rattle, which she jingles as she moves. The whole procession terminates in a military band, composed of musicians whose hard work and little pay are exhibited in their uniforms, which are limited to buttonless shirts and brief unmentionables. Their instruments are a big drum, hand tambours, huge ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... the murket brought his clenched hand down on the table with a force that made the lamp wink and the implements rattle in their ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... membership. I asked him, after this period, how he had deceived his people by the art of powwowing, or jugglery. He said that he had accomplished it by the direct influence of Satan. He had addressed him, on these occasions, and sung his songs to him, beating the drum or shaking the rattle. He adhered firmly to this opinion. He appeared to have great faith in the atonement of Christ, and relied with extraordinary simplicity upon it. He gave a striking proof of this, the autumn after his conversion, when ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... whip, round went the wheels, Were never folk so glad; The stones did rattle underneath, As if ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... room; the broadening light searched into them, and suddenly the air was tinged with warm gold. Somewhere the sun had risen. In a little, Scrope heard a dropping sound of firing, and a few moments afterwards the rattle of a volley. The battle was joined. Scrope saw the trench again yawn up before his eyes. The Major was right. This morning, again, Lieutenant Scrope had the harder part ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... first of a series of voyages that were contracted for her to run. On the completion of these he was asked by his owner to take command of a barque of about 600 tons deadweight. To an ordinary man and to the average shipmaster of that time, the opportunity of being shifted from an old rattle-trap brig to the enviable position of commander of a "South Spainer" would have been accepted with excessive pride and gratitude; but Bourne was not an ordinary man. He had spent a long life as master of a vessel on which he had placed his affections, ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... bubbling sound; also there is a horny sound, which is perhaps produced by striking upon the edges of the lower mandible with those of the upper. But it is quite unlike the loud, hard noise made by the stork; the poor stork being a dumb bird has made a sort of policeman's rattle of his huge beak. These sounds do not follow each other; they come from time to time, the intervals being filled up with others in such endless variety, each bird producing its own notes, that one can but suppose ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... queer old lady, who, they say, once used to queen it at the court of Louis Napoleon. She's over eighty years of age now, but quite rich, I've been told. And if you've never been in her house you'd be interested in seeing how she lives. That wonderful green parrot of hers can rattle off a whole string of songs and sayings. It almost gives you the creeps to hear Jocko performing, for it strikes you as what Andy McGuffey would call uncanny. Well, so long, K. K. I hope you ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... soon, however, as the funeral was over, the house was nightly disturbed by strange noises: people downstairs would hear rushings about in the upper rooms, banging of doors, and the sound of heavy footsteps. The cups and saucers used to fall off the dresser, and all the pots and pans would rattle. ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour
... immense praise; in the theatre had collected all that bore the name of high and fashionable society in the city. The boxes were filled, except one, which only just before the beginning of the second act was opened with a rattle and filled with loud, free, and bold conversation. It was occupied by a number of young men of elegant dress and manners; they, as it seemed, were connected by similarity in position, habits, and pleasures. Prom the higher to the lower ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... joke, and laughed heartily. "Jingo, that is a good one, Paul. Cipher will be as mad as a March hare. I'll make the old door rattle," said Hans. ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
... could have knocked me down with a baby's rattle. I'd forgot all about that fool Sarah Ann. I cal'late I turned nineteen different shades of red, and for a minute I couldn't think of a word to say. And Bennie D. smiled, wicked as the Old ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... to do, when there now came that unmistakable crack which made him nestle down in the bed again, and draw the clothes to his chin, just as there was the sharp rattle of the key in the door. This was flung open, and Waller sprang in, to dash through the darkness and thrust his head out of the window and look down into the gloom beneath. Drawing ...
— The New Forest Spy • George Manville Fenn
... which he had opened: an invincible force was pushing it from the other side, streams of blood flowed through the cracks; flames shot forth; shouts, oaths and groans mingled with the roar of cannon and the rattle of musketry. Everybody in the Palace of Night was running about in wild confusion. Bread and Sugar tried to take to flight, but could not find the way out; and they now came back to Tyltyl and put their shoulders to ...
— The Blue Bird for Children - The Wonderful Adventures of Tyltyl and Mytyl in Search of Happiness • Georgette Leblanc
... mines with their thousands of grinning natives and heard the rattle of gravel in the "jigs" my mind went back to Kimberley and the immense part that its glittering wealth played in determining the economic fate of South Africa. Long before the gold "rush" opened up in the ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... leaned over a gray mass huddled at Jones feet. It was a deer gasping and choking. I plainly heard the wheeze of blood in its throat, and the sound, like a death-rattle, affected me powerfully. Bending closer, I saw where one side of the neck, low down, had been ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... of striking their village, ordered the troops to charge, break through their line, and keep straight on. This movement would, no doubt, have been successfully accomplished had it not been for the rattle-brained and daredevil French Lieutenant Schinosky, commanding Company B, who, misunderstanding General Carr's orders, charged upon some Indians at the left, while the rest of the command dashed through the enemy's line, and was keeping ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... does not tread upon the steps of light more indivisibly, than did our all-conquering arrival upon the escaping efforts of the gig. That must the young man have felt too plainly. His back was now turned to us; not by sight could he any longer communicate with the peril; but by the dreadful rattle of our harness, too truly had his ear been instructed—that all was finished as regarded any further effort of his. Already in resignation he had rested from his struggle; and perhaps, in his heart he was whispering—"Father, which art above, do thou finish in heaven what I on earth have attempted." ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... was spoken until, above the swish of the water and the rattle of the rowlocks, the Eel ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... clearly a desirable plan, if you want to do anything, to do it in the way consecrated by custom, more especially if you are a woman. The rattle of a carriage along the road just behind me, and the fact that I started and turned suddenly hot, drove this truth home to my soul. The mist hid me, and the carriage, no doubt full of cousins, drove on in the direction of the house; but what an absurd position ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... folks begin to count the minutes on their watches. There are men on the ground who saw the first guillotine at work. They describe the click of the cleaver, the steady march of victims upon the scaffold-stairs, the rattle of the death-cart turning out of the Rue Saint Honore, the painted executioners, with their dripping hands, wiping away the jets of blood from the hard, rough faces; nay! the step of the young queen, white-haired with care, but very ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... with emotion that, after uttering a long sigh like a death rattle, he sank, a dead weight, into the arms ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... thing very difficult, if not impossible, for a man to be a good judge of what he himself cannot do. It is also very necessary that children should have some employment which will amuse them; for which reason the rattle of Archytas seems well contrived, which they give children to play with, to prevent their breaking those things which are about the house; for at their age they cannot sit still: this therefore is well adapted to infants, as instruction ought to be their rattle ...
— Politics - A Treatise on Government • Aristotle
... the young count, throwing his arm over the shoulder of the artisan's son. "If the glass wouldn't rattle, I would throw now; but there's another day ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... from the guns of Fort Hell, and in the haze but few of the rebel shells shrieking along their high curve could be clearly seen bursting over Hancock's cheering men. Indistinguishably blent were the sounds of hosts on the move, field-guns pounding to the front, troops shouting, the clink and rattle of metal, officers calling, bugles blaring, drums rolling, mules screaming,—all heard as a running accompaniment to the cannon heavily punctuating ...
— Old Man Savarin and Other Stories • Edward William Thomson
... such influence that, if once he should approve of your play, his patronage will support it against all the efforts of envy and ignorance; for, I do assure you, that merit alone will not bring success. I have already spoken of your performance to Lord Rattle, and if you will call at my house in a day or two, you shall have a letter of introduction to his lordship." I was sensibly touched with this mark of Mr. Supple's friendship; and looking upon my affair as already done, went home and imparted my good fortune ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... near each other. Upsets were therefore only the occasion for a hearty laugh; for it took but a few minutes to right the canoe, bale it out, and proceed on their way. Occasionally they had unpleasant visitors at their camp, and altogether they killed ten or twelve rattle-snakes. In some of the valleys they found the remains of the dwellings of a people far anterior to the present Indian races. Some of these ruins appeared to have been communal houses. At other points they saw cliff-dwellings in the ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... 'll hev to rattle On them kittle drums o' yourn,— 'Taint a knowin' kind o' cattle Thet is ketched with mouldy corn; Put in stiff, you fifer feller, Let folks see how spry you be,— Guess you 'll toot till you are yeller 'Fore you git ahold ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... was unhappy. The talk went on like a rattle of small artillery, always slightly sententious, with a sententiousness that was only emphasised by the continual crackling of a witticism, the continual spatter of verbal jest, designed to give a tone of flippancy to a stream ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... silent people, encountering the averted heads or scornful eyes of young girls and the cold hatred in the faces of gray-haired gentlewomen, who turned their backs as the ragged guidons bobbed past and the village street rang with the clink-clank of scabbards and rattle of Spencer carbines. ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... we can't but please, Tho' London sent us all her loud O. P.'s,[2] Let them come on, like snakes, all hiss and rattle, Armed with a thousand fans, we'd give them battle; You, on our side, R. P.[3]upon our banners, Soon should we teach the saucy O. P.'s manners: And show that, here—howe'er John Bull may doubt— In all our plays, the Riot-Act's cut out; And, while we skim ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... departed. The last sound that fell upon his ear as he left his door, was the blessing murmured by his bride. Again he felt disposed to turn back and sacrifice all for his affection; but already one of the city guard stood behind him, and the rattle of arms on the pavement told him that his arrest had not been lightly ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various
... confirmation of these words, followed a stamping and rattle of hoofs on the flags of the courtyard below. The old servant stood wringing his hands in helpless ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... way past the stalls of the three Pleasants, whose dwelling she had invaded, to the upright ladder which led to the loft. The horses were all lying down after their hard day's work, and only one of them turned his great head with a rattle of his halter, to see who this small intruder could be. Lilac clambered up the ladder and was soon in the dark fragrant-smelling loft above, where the trusses of hay and straw were mysteriously grouped ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... but Kate could not sleep. There seemed to be the rattle and bump of the train going on in her bed; the gas- lights in the streets below came in unnaturally, and the noises were much more frightful and unaccountable than any she had ever heard at home. Her eyes spread with fright, instead of ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... there, and tried to think and plan. But I felt pretty rotten, and I couldn't see daylight, so I went down to lunch, and who should be at the next table but the Dangerfields, the whole outfit, just back from England and bursting with cheerfulness! They made me lunch with them, and it was ghastly to rattle along feeling as I did, but I got away as soon us I decently could—rather sooner, I think—and went for a walk, hoping the air would clear my head. I tramped miles—oh, a long time, but it seemed not to do any good; I felt deadlier and ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... to ask what "suspended" was. It sounded rather painful. But at this instant there was the rattle of a latch key at the door, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... here I am, eternally tied to this accurst insignia, if I'm to keep my promise! Isn't that a sacrifice, friend H.? There's no course open to me. The poor girl is madly in love. She called me a "rattle!" As ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... louder and louder. The wind, it is true, was nearly hushed, but the roar and the rattle of the echo-awakening thunder fully made up for its cessation, while, now and then, even there, in that underground abode, some sudden reflection of the vivid lightning's light would find its way, lending, for a fleeting moment, sufficient light to Marchdale, wherewith he could ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... could whistle, on his fingers, an invigorating reel, And could imitate a piper on the handles of the wheel; He could play in double octaves, too, all up and down the rail, Or rattle off a rondo on the ...
— The Admiral's Caravan • Charles E. Carryl
... you come upon them suddenly and find them coiled. It is a peculiarity of these specimens of the Crotalus of America that they strike only from the coil, are easily killed, and generally, although not always, do they rattle before they dart ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... departure of the cars. Old Salem now wears a much livelier expression than when I first beheld her. Strangers rumble down from Boston by hundreds at a time. New faces throng in Essex street. Railroad-hacks and omnibuses rattle over the pavements. There is a perceptible increase of oyster-shops and other establishments for the accommodation of a transitory diurnal multitude. But a more important change awaits the venerable town. An immense accumulation of musty ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... knew how it would be yesterday, and how you would be worse and not better. You are not fit to go out, dear dearest, to sit in the glare of lights and talk and listen, and have the knives and forks to rattle all the while and remind you of the chains of necessity. Oh—should I bear it, do you think? I was thinking, when you went away—after you had quite gone. You would laugh to see me at my dinner—Flush and me—Flush placing in me such an heroic confidence, that, after he has cast one discriminating ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett |
