"Clatter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Breton! Papa says Lynmouth may go out trout-fishing with him this afternoon. Come up with me to the Clatter. I'm going ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... footing, Sam automatically whipped out his gun, cursing as he saw Sandy slide from the saddle, clutch at the rim of the gap, drop down to the bed of the creek, while Pronto, frantic at the loss of his master, leaped the opening and fled with clatter of hoof and swinging stirrup ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... the noise and clatter of the vanward rose up on the face of the heath, and men were exceeding joyous that they had come so far without mishap. Therewith came weaponed men out from under House- stone, and they came toward the men of the vanward, and they were a half-score of the forerunners of the ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... singing. But suddenly a storm came on, chromatic scales and diminished sevenths were heard in the orchestra, everyone ran off, again dragging one of their number away, and the curtain dropped. Once more there was a terrible noise and clatter among the audience, and with rapturous faces everyone began shouting: "Duport! Duport! Duport!" Natasha no longer thought this strange. She looked about with pleasure, ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... moving softly to and fro, lighting the fire, and bringing an air of comfort over the dreary little parlour. Then she was gone for a little bit, and I felt a little more lonely and weary; and then I heard that cheerful clatter, commonly so grateful to feminine exhaustion, and the good woman entered with a toasted glow upon her face, bearing a tray with tea, and such hospitable accompaniments as she could command. She set them down and came up to me with ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... black and white, were busily employed in their avocations, and from the distance all seemed fair and moving with despatch. As they approached nearer, cries and moans sounded upon the air, and rose high above the clatter of the artisans' work. The Captain quickened his pace, but the colonel, as if from a consciousness of the effect, halted, and would fain have retraced his steps. "Come!" said the Captain, "let us hasten-they are killing somebody!" They approached the building, and entered by an open door ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... shrill notes of bugle calls and going to my bedroom window listened to the clatter of horses' hoofs and saw the dim forms of cavalry and guns going through the darkness—towards the enemy. No sound of firing rattled my window panes. It still seemed very quiet—over there to the East. Yet before the dawn came a German avalanche of men and guns might be ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... their effect. Ladies will not make themselves happy in any room, or with ever so much gilded furniture, unless some means of happiness are provided for them. Into these rooms no book is ever brought, no needle-work is introduced; from them no clatter of many tongues is ever heard. On a marble table in the middle of the room always stands a large pitcher of iced water; and from this a cold, damp, uninviting air is spread through the ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... smile on Hollis's face, but the rest of his speech was drowned in a clatter of hoofs as the "boss's" pony tore down the Coyote trail. Then Ten Spot smiled, mounted his pony, and rode away ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... daily growing weaker. One hot day in August she received a letter from her mother telling her to come at once if she "would see sister before she died." At noon that day when sickened by the hot air of the cafe, and when the clatter of dishes, the buzz of conversation, the orders shouted through the slide seemed but a hideous accompaniment to her tormented thoughts, she was suddenly startled by hearing the name of her native town, ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams
... gloom was filled with a hubbub of uproar and confusion, above which sounded continually the shrieking of women's voices. Nor had our hero taken above a couple of steps before he pitched headlong over two or three men struggling together upon the deck, falling with a great clatter and the loss of his pistol, which, however, he ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... training for his master's saddle; and no sooner was it released than it plunged into the yard, then bounded into the field, around which it galloped, until it found the water. The others imitated this bad example; the clatter of hoofs, though beaten on a rich turf, soon resounding in the stillness of the night, until it might be heard across the valley. The ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... ratified; but how little did the state of the town correspond to it! In the same night, while Masaniello was entertained by Cardinal Filomarino, a cry was again raised of treason and banditti; watch-fires were kindled, and the clatter of arms heard. The captain-general of the people governed, as there was no magistrate in Naples. In the obscurity of the night he caused the heads of fourteen persons to be cut off, without trial or judgment, upon the accusation of their being banditti. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... manner they who are Christ's are delivered from all temptations to make men's maxims and practices and approbation the law of their conduct. Society presses upon each of us; what we call public opinion, which is generally the clatter of the half-dozen people that happen to stand nearest us, rules us; and it needs to be said very emphatically to all Christian men and women—Take your law of conduct from His lips, and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... satire sure had given them both a stab, Called Kent a driveller, and the nymph a drab. For what is Nature? Ring her changes round, Her three flat notes are water, plants, and ground; Prolong the peal, yet, spite of all your clatter, The tedious chime is still ground, plants, and water. So, when some John his dull invention racks, To rival Boodle's dinners, or Almack's; Three uncouth legs of mutton shock our eyes, Three roasted geese, three buttered apple-pies. Come, then, prolific Art, and with thee bring The charms that ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... Madame de Bergenheim, as she heard the clatter of horses' hoofs at the end of the avenue; and without adding a word she fled rapidly toward the chateau. Gerfaut arose from his position no less rapidly and darted into the woods. A rustling of branches which he heard ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... stealthy march on the devoted fort. Like an avenging Nemesis, shod with silence, the column approached the unconscious garrison. Every order was conveyed in a whisper. No clink of sabre, nor clatter of muskets was heard. The snow, which had begun to fall, muffled the tread and deadened each sound. The column wound on in the hush of midnight over the wintry waste, stealing like a tiger on its prey. The ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... leaning against the hall-door, which opened on to the front courtyard. It was very quiet and very dull, nothing moving anywhere; no one crossed the square, sunny space, paved with little stones, and adorned with the usual round-topped trees, in green boxes. Inside the house there was an occasional clatter of plates and dishes, or the resonant nasal cry of "Auguste," or "Henri," from one or other of the servants, but that was all. Madelon found it too tiresome; the porte-cochere stood half open, she crossed the courtyard and peeped out. She saw a quiet, sunny ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... true that, when the assault was hottest, the citizens of Zama did not permit their minds or eyes to stray; but there were moments following the repulse of some great effort when the energy of the assailants flagged and there was a lull in the storm of sound made by human voices and the clatter of arms. Then the men on the walls would look with strained attention on the cavalry battle in the plain, would follow the fortunes of the king with every alternation of joy or fear, and shout advice or exhortation as though their voices could ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... cattle and join him. They galloped off as well as the horses could gallop, and perceived the stray horses and oxen still at full speed, as if they were chased by the lions. They followed in the direction, but it was now so dark that they were guided only by the clatter of their hoofs and their shoes in the distance; and after a chase of four or five miles they had lost all vestiges of them, and ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... people all went over to Holland, where the Dutch folk live and the little Dutch children clatter about with their wooden shoes. There thou wast born, Remember, and my own children, and there we lived in ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... tenement, the two listened intently. An instant before the thunder of horse's feet upon wooden planking had been plainly audible in the distance, and now the coming clatter could ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... and disappeared in the cool dim arch, and the remaining nun moved across the paved walk with the quick, noiseless, religious tread peculiar to those sacred conventual retreats where the clatter of ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... talking, there came the jingle and clatter of arms, and, looking forth, Sir Owen saw a large company of knights and men-at-arms pass down the road. And he inquired of the maiden who ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... with it. Then, as Sir Beverley clutched instinctively at the nearest chair for support, he flung savagely round on his heel, altering his purpose. There followed the loud crack of rending wood as he broke the ruler passionately across his knee, putting forth all his strength, and the clatter of the falling fragments as he ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... the cold, pale face bending over the musty books. "Poor old dad!" he murmured. Some sons would have tapped playfully at the window, but Cardo did not, he turned round the corner of the house, passing by the front door, which was closed, and did not look inviting, to the other side, where the clatter of wooden shoes and a stream of light from the open doorway made some show of cheerfulness. And there was Betto, his old nurse and his father's housekeeper, in loud, angry tones, reproving the shepherd boy who ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... it might be at Margate. Not a sign to show that they possess the things called nerves. While we were looking, there was an alarm, and long, lean figures darted out of the caves on the face of the cliffs and scooted into the firing line, stooping low as they ran along the crest. The clatter of the musketry was redoubled by the echoing cliffs, and I thought we had dropped in for a scrap of some dimensions as we disembarked upon a fragile little floating pier and were met by Birdie and Admiral Thursby. A full General landing to inspect overseas is entitled ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... clatter of falling sheet-iron cut short my words. Ferdinand had, it appeared, returned to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 7, 1919. • Various
... played many bars a clatter of hoofs announced Desmond's return. He flung himself from the saddle, cleared the verandah steps at a bound, and entered the room:—a man of magnetic vitality, with a temperament like a clear flame; a typical officer of that isolated force ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... little ones indiscriminately; it is natural for them to use without fear any word that comes to their net, no matter how formidable it may be as to size. As a result, their talk is a curious and funny musketry clatter of little words, interrupted at intervals by the heavy artillery crash of a word of such imposing sound and size that it seems to shake the ground and rattle the windows. Sometimes the child gets a wrong idea of a word which ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... the house in Park Crescent, threw the satin slipper at the departing carriage. He had been very hearty and booming all the time, the human presentment of a devil-may-care lion out for a jaunt, and his great laugh thundering cheerily above the clatter of talk had infected the heterogeneous gathering. Unconsciously dull eyes sparkled and pursy lips vibrated into smiles. So gay a wedding reception I have never attended, and I am sure it was nothing but Jaffery's pervasive influence that ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... Trinity must have been shuffling china plates like cards, from the clatter that could be heard in the Great Court. Jacob's rooms, however, were in Neville's Court; at the top; so that reaching his door one went in a little out of breath; but he wasn't there. Dining in Hall, presumably. It will be ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... of those lines of flat-faced pillared, and porticoed houses which are so prominent a product of the middle Victorian epoch in the West End of London. Next door there appeared to be a children's party, for the merry buzz of young voices and the clatter of a piano resounded through the night. The fog still hung about and screened us with its friendly shade. Holmes had lit his lantern and flashed it upon the ...
— The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans • Arthur Conan Doyle
... him in full health, all would have been lost. Cartier spared no efforts. The knowledge of his situation was concealed from the Indians. None were allowed aboard the ships, and, as far as might be, a great clatter of hammering was kept up whenever the Indians appeared in sight, so that they might suppose that Cartier's men were forced by the urgency of their tasks to remain on the ships. Nor was spiritual aid ...
— The Mariner of St. Malo: A Chronicle of the Voyages of Jacques Cartier • Stephen Leacock
... who no doubt had his reasons for looking sharply about him, soon learnt to distinguish the pony's trot and the clatter of the little chaise at the corner of the street. Whenever the sound reached his ears, he would immediately lay down his pen and fall to rubbing his hands and exhibiting ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... dogs were in the house, baying and barking, and everybody was yelling. Then for a minute the dogs stopped their clamour, and I heard a great clatter of things breaking and of teeth crunching and of the ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... late dinner, at which their appetites were pretty effectually taken away by seeing dishes of snails passed round and eaten like nuts, with large pins to pick out the squirming meat; a night's rest somewhat disturbed by the incessant clatter of sabots in the market-place, and a breakfast rendered merry by being served by a garcon whom Dickens would have immortalised, our travellers went ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... that he looked like a ghost of his former rugged beauty. Then she sank down listlessly upon the doorstep, brooding, her eyes wandering through the green fields of Desert Valley. Her musings were disturbed by the clatter of shod hoofs across the rugged plateau; she looked up quickly, her eyes brightening. Then she saw that it was John Carr returning, and into her look there came an expression much resembling that which had been so much to-day in her father's—one ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... and abandon of his years. There is danger, and very real danger, lest we should take for granted what the "Grad-grinds" tell us, that the only thing which matters is that we do work, and are not idle. Work for its own sake is not enough. It may turn men into machines—all clatter and monotony; or it may make them fussy nuisances. "A soulless activity," says Canon Ainger, "may save a man from vagrancy only by turning him into a thing; or it may keep him from idleness by making him an egotist." There is the man who, to use the common phrase, "sticks at it" with scarcely ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... the Italian merchants. Likewise there is this dwelling of mine, with plenishing which few kings could buy. My sands sink in the glass, but as I lie a-bed I hear the bustle of wains and horses in the streets, and the talk of shipfolk, and the clatter of my serving men beneath, and I know that daily, hourly, more riches flow hither to furnish ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... agree with her—too many people about, too much clatter and chatter by half." He laid emphasis on the words, and again looked James ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... little nearer her husband's, and there might have been some pleasant talk about that inexhaustible source of wonder and delight, the baby. But with Miss Granger always at hand, the dessert was as ceremonious as if there had been a party of eighteen, and infinitely more dreary, lacking the cheery clatter and buzz of company. She ate five hothouse grapes, and sipped half a glass of claret, with as solemn an air as if she had been making a libation to ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... lost in the clatter of the wheels and his warning in the secret design of Providence. The cart would pass on. He would look after it for a moment, then go his way; but the drama begun in his mind would go on unfolding ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... the view the opening pack; Rock, glen, and cavern, paid them back; To many a mingled sound at once The awaken'd mountain gave response. A hundred dogs bay'd deep and strong, Clatter'd a hundred steeds along, Their peal the merry horns rung out, A hundred voices join'd the shout; With hark, and whoop, and wild halloo, No rest Benvoirlich's echoes knew. Far from the tumult fled the roe, Close in her covert cower'd the doe; The ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... that cousin. The buried treasure he hadn't taken very seriously. In spite of all the remarkable things that had happened to him he still had moments of incredulity, and in the midst of an Ohio wheatfield, with the click and clatter of the reapers in his ears and the dry scent of the wheat in his nostrils, to dream of buried gold was ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... dinner, when, with clatter of hoofs, rattle of springs, and crush of gravel under the heavy wheels, the great Concord coach drew up before the ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... heard the cheerful clatter of crockery, accompanied by a savoury incense, and talk and laughter. He imagined the girl making fun of his sentimental reasons for staying on deck; but, too proud to meet her ironical glances, stayed doggedly where he was, resolving to be off by ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... toppled off the edge of the gangway with one of the Chittagong crew in the push to come aboard. The old lady's face puckered as she went over, but she was out in a second, and came aboard with the jolly crowd, smiling like the rest. The pretty girls drop their red and blue velvet sandals with a clatter on to our iron deck when they come up the gangway, shuffle their toes into them and waddle off to the stalls with an air. No—waddle is not the word, its a little body twist rather like that of our French cousins, and their ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... shape of broken crockery, which was generally used in financial transactions on the stage, because when the virtuous maid rejected with scorn the advances of the lordly libertine, and threw his pernicious bribe upon the ground, the clatter of the broken crockery suggested fabulous wealth. But after the play Miss Cushman, in the course of some kindly advice, said to me: "Instead of giving me that purse, don't you think it would have been much more natural ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... first day of our typhoon I went to bed wondering how long the ant-eaten supports of our house could hold out against the violent wrenchings and shakings it was getting. I had poor rest, for the howling of the wind, the noise of boards torn loose, and the clatter of wrenched galvanized iron roofing made sleep almost impossible. When I went out into the kitchen next morning, my heart sank into my boots. The nipa roof had been torn away piece by piece. The whole place ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... and their houses. I peeped into one or two of the chambers, of which the windows were open to the pleasant evening sun, and saw beds scrupulously plain, a quaint old chair or two, and little pictures of favorite saints decorating the spotless white walls. The old ladies kept up a quick, cheerful clatter, as they paused to gossip at the gates of their little domiciles; and with a great deal of artifice, and lurking behind walls, and looking at the church as if I intended to design that, I managed to get a sketch of a couple ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray
... have since asked the housemaid if she heard anything, and she says no, she was making too much noise herself. We all heard it distinctly, above the clatter of ...
— The Alleged Haunting of B—— House • Various
... volunteered to assist an old lady, and his arms were full of bundles as he guided her between the clicking teeth of a turnstile. He was helping her into a carriage when he heard the sharp clatter of hoofs upon the brick pavement, and looked up to see a fine Peruvian mare hitched to a tan-colored surrey skirting the confusion. A black coachman was driving, and there were several people in the carriage. Kirk cast it a casual glance, and just as he looked it swept into the ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... of carts dumping the ore onto the endless lifting-belt. It went a hundred feet or so up and out of the cavern's ascending shaft, to fall with a clatter into the bins ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... said at last. 'The speed and the clatter irk me. Moreover, my chela, I think that maybe we have ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... was jerked around to the compound gates. Amidst a clatter of hoofs and in a cloud of dust Stafford galloped out of sight, not once turning to glance in their direction. The two women stood and stared at each other, even Beatrice for the moment shaken out of her usual self-control by what she had seen. They ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... Such a clatter as there was when they came to the barnyard; for every thing was just awake, and in the best spirits. Ducks were paddling off to the pond; geese to the meadow; and meek gray guinea-hens tripping away to hunt bugs in the garden. A splendid cock stood on the wall, and crowed so loud and ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... cried Buck, suddenly, and as he spoke there came a clatter of feet tumbling along the stones. But the halberds were levelled in vain. The figure that rushed up was a messenger from the ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... With a clatter of wheels and cans and hoofs a milkman's wagon and team came out of the hills. Davidge stepped down from the car and stopped the loud-voiced, wide-mouthed driver with a gesture. He spoke in a low voice which the milkman did not copy. The taxi-driver ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... have filled the heart of the timid creatures when there arrived, one morning, a party of men and horses and machines, who proceeded at once, with the clatter and confusion which follows the doings of men, to lay low their green protecting walls, and expose their cherished treasures to the greed or the cruelty of their worst enemies! Not less their surprise ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... all," 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 he ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs
... spark of fire, or whatever it was, grew larger and larger. Col. Zane thought it might be a light carried by a man on horseback. But if this were true where was the clatter of the horse's hoofs? On that rocky blur no horse could run noiselessly. It could not be a horse. Fascinated and troubled by this new mystery which seemed to presage evil to them the watchers waited with that patience known ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... promise; and Kennedy, who saw no risk, in indulging him, and wished to tease the Dominie, in whose visage he read a remonstrance, caught up Harry from the ground, placed him before him, and continued his route; Sampson's 'Peradventure, Master Kennedy-' being lost in the clatter of his horse's feet. The pedagogue hesitated a moment whether he should go after them; but Kennedy being a person in full confidence of the family, and with whom he himself had no delight in associating, 'being that he was addicted unto profane and scurrilous jests,' he continued his ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Gayly dressed groups throng the balconies, and at the street-corners dark-faced men scowl, mutter deep curses, and clutch their knives. The street resounds with the heavy tramp of infantry, the rattle of gun-carriages, and the clatter of horses' hoofs. "Los Yanquies!" is the cry, and every neck is stretched to obtain a glimpse of the six thousand bemired and begrimed soldiers who are marching proudly to the Grand Plaza. On him especially ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... as if its tail had been trod on. Dead stop,—so still you could hear your hair growing. Then another jump, and another howl, as if the piano had two tails and you had trod on both of 'em at once, and, then a grand clatter and scramble and string of jumps, up and down, back and forward, one hand over the other, like a stampede of rats and mice more than like anything I call music. I like to hear a woman sing, and I like to hear a fiddle sing, but these noises they hammer out of their wood and ivory ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... no more. He tore his coat from me, and so down the stair like a madman; and I heard his horse clatter down the street, while I prayed for a soul in agony, and that she might not think ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... the long girder swung Closer to him, dropped clanging into place, Almost pushing him off. Pneumatic hammers Began their madhouse clatter, the white-hot rivets Were tossed from below and deftly caught in pails; He signalled again, and wiped his mouth, and thought A place so high in the air should be more quiet. The tree, far down below, teased at his eyes, ...
— The House of Dust - A Symphony • Conrad Aiken
... Labertouche's sudden change of attitude being sufficiently apparent in an uproar which had been raised without the least warning in the compound. The advent of a running horse seemed to have been responsible for it, for the clatter of hoofs as the animal was checked abruptly in mid-stride was followed by a clamour of drunken cries, shrieks of alarm, and protests on the part of the sepoys disturbed in the midst of their carouse. Over all this there ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... seven o'clock, and Aunt Deborah was busy in the dairy, when a clatter of hoofs was heard in the court-yard, and, looking out, she saw half-a-dozen troopers sitting stern and straight on their horses, while their leader handed a note to Joan, which was speedily brought to her. It was from her brother, telling her to give the men board and lodging and to ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... Roger and Win leading the way. St. Helier's streets are indeed crooked, and paved with cobble stones of alarming size and sonorous qualities. Numerous men and boys tramped along in wooden sabots which made a most unearthly clatter. Even little girls wore them, though otherwise their dress was not unusual. Outside one shop hung many of the clumsy foot- gear, the price explaining ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... about the cool veranda, serving the score of Americans with that perfect impersonal care found nowhere except among Oriental servitors: the subdued clatter of silver against dish and the tinkle of iced drinks was often drowned in outbursts of merriment from one or other of the little tables. Most of the Americans were mere youths, though two were evidently in their forties. Bronner noted Terry's study of a group of three ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... came to a little gray hut. Candles were burning inside, the windows being too small to let in much light. They caught the sound of violin music and the clatter of dancing feet. Still the girls paused, wonderingly. "Is it here?" they questioned. "Can any one dance here? The place looks too small to ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... said Wade. Craig nodded and replaced his pipe between his teeth. The noise became multisonous. With the clangor of the pounding wheels came the stertorous gasping of the engines, the creak and clatter of protesting metal. The uproar ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... breathing space, and time to break the bonds which place and circumstance have woven round us during the year that is past. From all our petty cares, and confusions, and intrigues; from the dust and clatter of this huge machinery amidst which we labor and toil; from whatever cynical contempt of what is generous and devout; from whatever fanciful disregard of what is just and wise; from whatever gall ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... Simultaneously the high clatter of voices ceased as if the old familiar cry of "Alerte" had sounded in the street. Involuntarily, as people in real life do act, her hands clutched her heart, her mouth opened to relieve her lungs. A Frenchman whispered beside her. ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... appearing white-haired old gentleman and a small boy were slowly walking when a change of guard occurred. The new men took their posts without words while the relieved detail turned down a long corridor that for a moment echoed with the clatter of hobnailed boots on stone. Then all was surprisingly still. Even the boy was impressed into reluctant silence as he viewed the uniformed men, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... came an awful clatter From that elder tree, When he served them on a platter Hopper-hash and brick-dust batter Trimmed ...
— The Peter Patter Book of Nursery Rhymes • Leroy F. Jackson
... that time, the rolling of wheels and the clatter of horses' feet drew me to the window. I was pleased to have an opportunity of inspecting some part of the society which I was so soon to be introduced to. First, there stopped at the hall door a pony-chaise, from which Mrs. Brandon and another woman ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... The clatter of horses' hoofs caused Meta to withdraw her hand, and Norman to retreat to his own side of the lane, as Sir Henry Walkinghame and ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... done with that infernal clatter!' cried his master. 'And don't bring the cheese, unless you want ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... a little cavalcade coming up the highway. Now it was a mere blotch moving in the sun and dust; then clearer; and then out of the cloud of light, flying sand came the clatter of hoofs on the pavement, the whir of wheels, and ahead of the rest of the party two dark Numidian outriders in bright red mantles appeared, pricking along their white African steeds. Chloe clapped her little ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... not been in his own kitchen for close upon ten years, and he did not know the way about very well. He had adventures and some moments of rigid suspense while the clatter of a kicked coal-scuttle died away in the distance. But when at last he crept noiselessly up-stairs he was assured of ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 21, 1914 • Various
... no screams, no cries, not a sound of human voices. The poor victims of the catastrophe were exhausted or frightened out of their wits, and gave no utterance to the pain they felt. Only the never-ceasing clatter of the falling stones was heard, nothing else. Awful is the voice of the elements, and dreadful their revenge on their human antagonists! The thundering heavens, the roaring sea, are awful to behold and to listen to; but most fearful of all is the voice of the earth, when, quivering in wrath, ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... shot, sounding like the report of a cannon in the confined space, smashed and extinguished the lantern, and at the same moment two hands grasped his ankles and threw him into the middle of the floor, with Charteris—as he guessed by the clatter of a revolver on the ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... amid the bales of peltries and the trading-trinkets of the Fur Company, a hidden voice is speaking and a young man listens. That young man is Alexander Mackenzie, a self-taught Scot, a Canadian bourgeois. In the noisy midday clatter of the fort he hears the voice, in the waking hours of dawn and "when evening shuts the deed off, calls the glory from the grey." He cannot get away from that haunting challenge, he would not if he could. There are interminable changes rung on the everlasting ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... a face that shone too clearly in the dark, and his thoughts revolved endlessly in words of reproach for his folly in allowing Althora's love to lead her to share his risk. From the night outside their window came a ceaseless clatter and hubbub, but to ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... the hazels with tassels, bedecked the willows with golden downy tufts, and opened the primroses and celandines beneath them, when the solitary dale was disturbed by the hasty clatter of horses' feet, and hard, heavy breathing as of those who had galloped headlong beyond their strength. Here, however, the foremost of the party, an old esquire, who grasped the bridle-rein of youth by his side, drew up ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a kind of sputtering series of small explosions began to rip along the edge of the south wall. And now, machine-guns began to talk, with a dry, hard metallic clatter. And—though whence these came, Flint could not see—grenades began flying over the wall and bursting in the court. Though unwounded, men fell everywhere these gas-projectiles exploded—fell, stone dead and stiffening ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... horses. The points of their spears are down and they are both well aimed, but each catches the other's spear fairly in the middle of his shield, and they rush together so hard that there is a great crash, and both the knights and both the horses fall to the ground with a terrible clatter of arms. But the knights are both on their feet again in a moment, and are falling upon each other with their swords, cutting and slashing and warding and advancing and retreating, till it is hard to tell which is the black knight and which the green, or whether they ...
— The Wagner Story Book • Henry Frost
... to tell your Highness," said Bianca, "if you would permit me. So as I was rubbing the ring—I am sure I had not gone up three steps, but I heard the rattling of armour; for all the world such a clatter as Diego says he heard when the Giant turned him about in ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole
... rush across the kitchen was heard, succeeded by a violent clatter of slip-shod shoes through the entry; for Martha, since the late burglary, being haunted in idea by shabby looking gentlemen with pistols in their pockets, and dark lanterns under their arms, even in broad daylight, was on the look-out for emergencies, and had every thing ready ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... forest of cork oaks, which keep their leaves all the year through, and here, by reason of the great shade, we went, not knowing whither, as if blindfold, only we were conscious of being on rough, rising ground, by the jolting of our mules and the clatter of their hoofs upon stones; but after a wearisome, long spell of this business, the trees growing more scattered and a thin grey light creeping through, we could make out that we were all together, which was some comfort. From these oaks, we passed into a wood ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... hawksters' cries, all the clatter characteristic of that town. The milk-vendor, the honey-vendor, the chestnut-vendor, each has his own traditional theme. The candlestick-maker produces a sonorous peal from two copper candlesticks, the ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... there was a sudden clatter of hoofs, a shout, and then silence. A runaway cab-horse, a dark night, a wide crossing, and a heavy burden: so death came to a poor woman. People from the house went out to help; and I heard of her, the centre of an unknowing curious crowd, as ...
— The Roadmender • Michael Fairless
... Robin, and, finding the horse no longer exhibit the same reluctance to proceed, he dashed at full speed through the haunted glen; but even above the clatter, of hoofs, and the noise of the party galloping after him, he could hear the hoarse exulting croaking ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... had returned to the house, and we were about following them, when the clatter of a horse's hoofs was heard without, and the officious voices of the negroes announced the arrival of a visitor or messenger for the Colonel, who stepped forward to meet him. A young man, clad in a coarse homespun gray uniform, scantily trimmed with red worsted, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... mutton there was enough to go round, and everybody decided that the cooks deserved proficiency badges. The servers also did their work promptly, and removed plates and dishes with the maximum of speed and the minimum of clatter. By half-past one everything was washed up and polished, and the kitchen department ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... was alive, in a panic uproar. "HONK!" cried a great voice, and "HONK!" There was a clatter of hoofs, a wild rush—a rush as it seemed towards him. Was he being charged? He backed against a rock. A great pale shape leaped by him, an antlered shape. It was a herd of big deer bolting suddenly ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... the piece that is cut out, as soon as I am through with it, master; otherwise it may fall down, as the door opens, and make a clatter that will be ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... fat old women in holiday market costumes, strong-featured, positive, who shook their heads at each other and nodded violently and incessantly, and all talked at once; the old men in rusty suits, thin, with a deprecatory manner, as if they had heard that clatter for fifty years, and perky, sharp-faced girls in vegetable hats, all long-nosed and thin-lipped. And though the day was cool, mosquitoes had the bad taste to invade the train. At the junction, a small collection of wooden shanties, where ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... shaft of sunlight pierced the thick leaves. Late violets hid shyly under canopies of May-apple; bunches of blue and of white anemone nodded from under fallen trees, and water ran like hidden music everywhere. Slowly the valley and the sound of its life-the lowing of cattle, the clatter at the mines, the songs of the negroes at work-sank beneath him. The chorus of birds dwindled until only the cool, flute-like notes of a wood- thrush rose faintly from below. Up he went, winding around great oaks, fallen trunks, loose ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.
... garden walks where all the flowers are blowing, Out about the golden fields where tall the wheat is growing, Through the barn and up the road, they cackle and they clatter; Cry the children, "Hear the hens! Why, what can be ...
— Graded Memory Selections • Various
... were absorbed in each other. Could it be, Max asked himself, that the big, rough fellow and the daintily bred girl had found an acquaintance in common? There seemed to be a gulf between them as wide as the world, yet evidently they had hit upon some subject which interested them both. Through the clatter of dishes Max caught words, or fragments of sentences, all spoken in French. The man had a common accent, but the girl's was charming. She had a peculiarly sweet, soft voice, that somehow matched the sweetness and softness of the long, straight-lashed eyes under the low, level brows, so delicately ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... was a merry meal, and the merriment was not mere vacant clatter: M. Paul originated, led, controlled and heightened it; his social, lively temper played unfettered and unclouded; surrounded only by women and children there was nothing to cross and thwart him; he had his own way, and a ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... cowboy hurried away. A minute later and they heard him shouting to Pete; and then the clatter of horses' hoofs told that the pair were galloping wildly across ...
— The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon - or The Hermit of the Cave • James Carson
... reaming swats, that drank divinely; {148d} And at his elbow, Souter Johnny, His ancient, trusty, drouthy crony; Tam lo'ed him like a vera brither - They had been fou for weeks thegither! The night drave on wi' sangs and clatter, And aye the ale was growing better: The landlady and Tam grew gracious, Wi' favours secret, sweet, and precious; The Souter tauld his queerest stories, The landlord's laugh was ready chorus: The storm without might rair and rustle - Tam didna mind ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... while the thick white mist is still hanging athwart the forest, a drummer is kicked out of bed by a white foot and bidden to sound "Reveille." Then there is a din of elephant-tusk horns and the clatter of the elephant-hide drums. The camp is astir, and it all seems as if the men are as smart and as disciplined as their brother warriors in Aldershot or Shorncliffe. But the negroes have only risen thus readily in order to light their fires and settle down to a lusty breakfast ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... road, a considerable stretch of which was visible, they heard the clatter of hoofs and saw a little cloud of dust approaching at the rate of a gallop, and disclosing, as it drew near, a hatless countryman in his shirt-sleeves, who, bending over his horse's neck, applied a cart-whip lustily to the animal's flanks, so as to incite him to ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... in mockery at his words, the long, even reverberations changed to a quick, harsh, discordant clatter and suddenly ceased. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... passages as they applied to the return of their ancient sovereign. There is something very sombre and vulgar in the French playhouses with the men's boots and the women's bonnets. Could I in an instant waft you from the solitudes of Stoke to the clatter of Paris, how you would stare to see the boxes filled with persons almost extinguished in their enormous casques of straw and flowers. I have seen several bearing, in addition to other ornaments, a bunch of 5 or 6 lilies as large ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... gratitude in his eyes, followed his guide and friend. They went through the store-room between great piles of blankets, through the wool-room filled with big bales of fleece, and up-stairs into the weaving-room amid the click and clatter and roar of three score busy and intricate looms. Pen was introduced to the foreman, and his duties as ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... sound of a bugle, followed by the tramp of feet; and the young officer, scowling fiercely, turned half-right, and as he did so let his sword down, so that the end of the scabbard might clatter against the white deck, as he marched off to where the men were assembling, while the middy burst into ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... long straight road, the artery of some capital, through which our carriage drives at a fast trot, making a deafening clatter on the pavement. Electric light everywhere. The shops are closing; it must ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... twelve o'clock that day, upward of an hundred men were three miles up the river, clearing the ships and cutting away ice, which they sawed out in large squares, and then thrust under the main mass to open up the channel. The roofing over the ships was torn off, and the clatter of the caulkers' mallets was like to the rattling of a hail-storm, loads of rigging were passed up on the ice, riggers went to and fro with belt and knife, sailmakers busily plied their needles, and the whole presented an unusual scene of stir and ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... blessing over the lupine-field, and the lupines all stood straight up again, fair and flourishing, and with ten-fold greater produce than they had at first." In a Bolognese legend the lupines are cursed by the Virgin, because, "by the clatter and noise they made, certain plants of this species drew the attentions of Herod's minions to the spot where the tired and exhausted travellers had made a brief halt" (448. 473). Another tradition, found over ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... to their use. They had even taken some mountain-guns from their enemy. Leader made me laugh with his accounts of Lizarraga shouting "Artilleria al frente!" and a couple of mules, with one wretched little piece, moving forward; and of the intimidating clatter made by three shrunk cavaliers in cuirasses a world too wide for them, and alpargatas, trotting up a village street. The alpargata is the mountain-shoe of canvas, with a hempen sole, worn by the Basque ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... presently the clatter of moving furniture fairly shook the house over Miss Evelina's head. It sounded as if Miss Mehitable did not know there was an invalid in the house, and found distinct pleasure in making unnecessary noise. The quick, regular strokes of ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... loud cheer from the steeple, and a flag floated from the top of Huntercombe House. Murmurs. Distant cheers. Approaching cheers. The clatter of horses' feet. The roll of wheels. Huntercombe gates flung wide open by a cluster of ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... huge watch- dogs sprang to the length of their rattling chains and bellowed out their deep-mouthed cries, the shrieks of frightened women rose high above the noise and were drowned again by the loud bass voices of excited serving-men. Then there was the clatter of iron shoes upon the stone pavements as the startled horses were led out into the moonlight from their warm dark stalls, the tinkle of curb chains, the wheeze of tightening leather girths, the clicking of curb and snaffle between champing teeth, the purselike ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... was finished; the pieces were ranged regularly in line one behind the other; they defiled rapidly, with a horrible clatter, and in a cloud of dust. When Jean, sword in hand, passed before his Colonel, the images of the two sisters were so confused and intermingled in his recollection that they melted the one in the other, and became in some measure the image of one and the same person. Any parallel ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... were flames in the temple of the new god Mammon. They were the signs of hucksters who had goods to sell to the crowds at a profit. The profusion of light, the rush of eager throngs to the theatres, the flash and clatter of passing carriages, the streets piled with debris, the half-finished steel skyscraper whose black ribs stood out against the stars, all brought to his imagination this evening the ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... and the clang of the music, as you listen in the great saloon, you hear from a neighboring room a certain sharp ringing clatter, and a hard clear voice cries out, "Zero rouge," or "Trente-cinq noir. Impair et passe." And then there is a pause of a couple of minutes, and then the voice says, "Faites le jeu, Messieurs. Le jeu est fait, rien ne va plus"—and the sharp ringing ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and print one's wit and humour straight away. And taking the invasion of other trades one step further one might, after an attempt to sell one's own newspaper, even get to the pitch of having to read it oneself. No; even essayists must be reasonable. If its mechanical clitter-clatter did not render composition impossible, the typewriter would still be beneath the honour of a ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... A clatter of hoofs rang out on the morning air. A two-wheeled gig drawn by a well-groomed sorrel horse and followed by a brown-haired Irish setter was approaching. In it sat a man of thirty, dressed in a long, mouse-colored surtout with a wide cape falling to the shoulders. ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... the barracks veranda, an inquisitive little group heard first the clang of the door within, and presently the clatter of hoofs coming round from the yard. Stingaree and Howie—a white flash and a bay streak—swept past them as they stood confounded. And the dwindling pair still bobbed in sight, under a full complement of stars, when a fresh outcry from the cell, and a mighty hammering against ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... shells or bullets. However, the authorities opined it was all right; so, feeling very ill, I was only too glad to crawl to bed. Just as the sun was setting, the soldiers on watch came tearing down the wooden passage, making an awful clatter, and calling out: "The gun is pointed on the convent!" As they spoke, the shell went off, clean over our heads, burying itself in a cloud of dust close to a herd of cattle half a mile distant. This did not reassure me, but we hoped it was a chance shot, which might not occur again, and that ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... rather dishes of two different sets; but the ducks, game, &c., were not only properly cooked, but were warm and good. To work everybody went, therefore, with an appetite, and for five minutes little was heard beyond the clatter of knives and forks. Then came the drinking of healths, and finally the toasts, and the songs, ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... spite of the fine weather, the good wine, and that purified atmosphere of ten thousand feet above sea-level, the breakfast was melancholy. While they heard the guides laughing and making merry apart, the table of the Taras-conese was silent except for the rattle of glasses and the clatter of the heavy plates and covers on the white wood. Was it the presence of that morose Swede, or the visible uneasiness of Bompard, or some presentiment? At any rate, the party set forth, sad as a battalion without its ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... was ever so much greater than any of the lakes they had seen in La Mancha. As the sun rose it was suddenly greeted with the ringing of bells, the din of drums, the sound of clarions, and the trampling and clatter of feet on the streets; and from the galleys along the beach a mass of streamers in varied colors waved its welcome, to the music and the noise of bugles, clarions and trumpets from shipboard. Then cannons on ship and shore began to thunder, and a ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... indeed most thankful you are well again, though I never looked on that deafness very seriously; but if you like hearing watches tick, and boots creak, and plates clatter, so be it to you, for many and many a year to come. I think I should so like to be deaf, mostly, not expected to answer anybody in society, never startled by a bang, never tortured by a railroad whistle, never hearing the nasty cicadas in Italy, nor a child ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin
... 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 and spoon ...
— The Swiss Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... for resuming the fast. This, of course, is very hard on the poor man who has to work during the day. As a precaution against oversleeping, a watchman goes about just before daybreak, and makes a rousing clatter at the gate of every Mussulman's house to warn him that if he wants anything to eat he must get it instanter. Our roommates evidently intended to make an "all night" of it, for they forthwith commenced the preparation of their morning meal. How it was despatched ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... a leg, which went by the name of Sambo, and had absorbed a good deal of his affection. He had with difficulty been consoled for Sambo being left behind, and now turned over everything with considerable clatter in search of him. Alas! Sambo could nowhere be found in the room, and Alwyn dashed off to inquire of all the household after him. His father meanwhile growled at the child's noise, and went on trying the glasses Nuttie had brought, ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... death, but as her innocent spirit ascended to heaven a great storm arose and lightning struck the statue, angrily hurling the scales from the left hand of the figure of Justice. They fell to the pavement with a clatter and in one of the shattered nests was found the pearl necklace. It had been stolen by a magpie who had cunningly woven the string of pearls into the clay wall of her babies' cradle. So the poor girl ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... final jerk that made the little craft tremble to her keel, the big single sail filled, and the felucca careened to her bearings, as her canvas caught the full pressure of the wind. At the same instant I heard an oar-blade clatter as it was hastily laid in, and an exultant cheer arise from ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... cannon rumbling along the eastern horizon as they had rumbled, nearer and nearer, for a fortnight, were now beyond the outer line of forts and within striking distance of the town. That night, an hour or two after midnight, in my hotel by the water-front, I awoke to the steady clatter of hoofs on cobblestones and the rumble of wheels. I went to the window, on the narrow side street, black as all streets had been in Antwerp since the night that the Zeppelin threw its first bombs, and looked out. It was a moonlight ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... the farmers; they sprang from their beds and looked out. They could not see the speeding horse, but they heard the clatter of its hoofs far down the road, and they understood the cry, "Up! ...
— Fifty Famous People • James Baldwin
... sight. The heavy wooden box seemed to dissolve, to collapse and to crumple up like one of paper, and ere the last rays of the illuminating bullet faded, the watchers saw the splinters of wood fall back with a clatter in a little heap on the spot where ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton
... forty-three years ago, is not very flattering to our American pride, but it simply shows the working of Democratic institutions in dealing with the "raw material" of society and life at that time. The movement of 1840 was necessarily transient and provisional, while underneath its clatter and nonsense was a real issue. It was unrecognized by both parties, but it made its advent, and the men who pointed its way quietly served notice upon the country ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... cross the fence in the heavy shadow, hardly discernible even to her straining eyes that had grown accustomed to the dark. She heard the light clatter of his feet and knew that he was running, with the speed and desperation of a hounded deer, then she straightened and lifted her eyes to the rustling masses of cool ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... happened! In another moment the barrel on which Russ sat fell apart, and with a clatter and clash of staves he toppled in on Laddie. Then the chairs, behind the barrel, where Rose, Vi and Margy and Mun were sitting, toppled over. In another instant the whole steamboat load of children was all upset in the middle of the playroom floor, having made ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandma Bell's • Laura Lee Hope
... noise in the street, and at two in the morning he heard his mistress' carriage far away on the boulevard. His heart beat vehemently under his silk waistcoat as the gate turned on its hinges. He was about to behold the heavenly, the glowing face of his Esther!—the clatter of the carriage-step and the slam of the door struck upon his heart. He was more agitated in expectation of this supreme moment than he would have been if his fortune had ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... hay to new grass, danced over the rough ground so that the running gear of the wagon, with its looped log-chain, which would later do duty as a brake on the long grade down from timber line on the side of Spirit Canyon, rattled and banged over the rocks with the clatter that could be heard for half a mile. Lorraine looked after her father enviously. If she were a boy she would be riding on that sack of hay tied to the "hounds" for a seat. But, being a girl, it had never ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... study in village still life. In Gorley silence and race suicide are equally common and not noticed except by strangers. Up in the fifth flat we got away from the world almost as well, except that the clatter of our dish-washing and the thumping of our disagreeing opinions would at times sound like the whirr of industry, for Jim and I did our own housework, our own thinking and lived as cheaply as monopoly will permit (monopoly, that is the thing I am against as a political economist, ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... hunter who sleeps with his gun at his pillow is awake in an instant, with all his faculties alert, when the sacred spider breaks a twig in the jungle? You remember how the handsome highwayman, at the first far clatter of hoofs on the great North Road, is up and out on the scullery roof of the inn before you have turned the page, and is deep in Lonely Copse (wearing the serving-wench's stomacher) before his first fat pursuer has said, "Open in the name of the Law," below his window? Well, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, July 25, 1917 • Various |
