"Thumping" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... being the only place where patients were treated like wild beasts. Mrs. Mary Humieres, formerly housekeeper in a private asylum at Bethnal Green, gave evidence to an attendant "kicking the patients and thumping them sadly," and "beating one in his shirt with a pair of boots, in a most dreadful manner." She named a female patient who, when in a state of irritation, "was confined in a place in the yard which was originally a pig-sty; it was run up high on purpose for her. I have ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... logging season he would annex Joyce Birkdale to his few belongings—the cabin, his dog and gun. The idea had not roused him much, but it had been a pleasurable conclusion to arrive at; and now? Every nerve was aching and the boy's heart was thumping heavily. Again he dropped his head, and he cursed everything his thought touched upon—even the girl he meant, in some way, ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... a minute—the man on the divan, the girl at the piano—and Theron listened for what he felt must be the audible thumping of his heart. ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... with hearts thumping against their ribs, feeling certain that they must have been heard; but not a sound followed. After waiting nearly a minute, a fresh movement was made, Nic stepping softly to the window on his left, the perspiration streaming down his face, ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn
... cried Elsie, thumping the table, and getting very red. "It isn't a ghost at all, so ...
— Under Padlock and Seal • Charles Harold Avery
... was within a few hours of ending. Till the last moment they had hoped for a reprieve; but the accommodating Streffy had been unable to put the villa at their disposal for a longer time, since he had had the luck to let it for a thumping price to some beastly bouncers who insisted on taking possession at the ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... stop Mrs. Anerley from seeing to the bedrooms. She kept them airing for about three hours at this time of the sun-stitch—as she called all the doings of the sun upon the sky—and then there was pushing, and probing, and tossing, and pulling, and thumping, and kneading of knuckles, till the rib of every feather was aching; and then (like dough before the fire) every well-belabored tick was left to yeast itself a while. Winnie, the maid, was as strong ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... him in a six weeks' tour on the Continent during the year he believed fatal to him, or perhaps it may have been the year previous; anyway, he was suffering from that horrible complaint, superstition. He first made me aware of it the night we arrived in Paris by thumping at my door in a terrible state to implore me to change rooms with him—his number was 56, and it terrified him! Next day we travelled in a carriage numbered 56, and my friend was miserable. At the theatre his seat was 56, the ticket for his coat was ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... a confusion and noise of struggling on board, and angry voices, as if people were trying to force their way up the hatchways from below; and a heavy thumping on the deck, and a creaking of the blocks, and rattling of the cordage, while the mainyard was first braced one way, and then another, as if two parties were striving for the mastery. At length a voice hailed distinctly "We are captured ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... people here interested in adventure, I talked the matter over before my first audience in a little hall by the country road. A piano having been brought in from a neighbor's, I was helped out by the severe thumping it got, and by a "Tommy Atkins" song from a strolling comedian. People came from a great distance, and the attendance all told netted the house about three pounds sterling. The owner of the hall, a kind lady from Scotland, would take ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... Shawn's favourite mount in those days, and no one could mistake the sound of her delicate feet in the distance. There, with her ear to the night, Mary O'Gara had listened and listened, her heart thumping so fast sometimes that she could not be sure if she heard the horse's hoofs. Only, as she used to say joyously afterwards, there was really no mistaking Fatima's ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... trustworthy persons should cautiously walk together along the front of the French ramparts under cover of night, one of them carrying a mallet, with which he was to hammer the ground at short intervals. The French sentinels, it seems to have been supposed, on hearing this mysterious thumping, would be so bewildered as to give no alarm. While one of the two partners was thus employed, the other was to lay his ear to the ground, which, as the adviser thought, would return a hollow sound if the artful foe had dug ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... was a great noise in our house,—a thumping and battering and grating. It was my own self dragging my big trunk down from the garret. I did it myself because I wanted it done. If I had said, "Halicarnassus, will you fetch my trunk down?" he would have asked me what trunk? and what did I want of it? and would not the other one be better? ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... swelled to a weird chorus of baying hounds which the banjo and the musician's voice made most realistic. Next the fox was spied and there were cries of "Hello! Ho! Here he is!" "There he runs," with the banjo thumping like mad! Then the medley shaded down into a wild, monotonous drumming from the strings and the voice, which represented most thrillingly the chase at full height. At last the fox was caught with dogs ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins
... Schildburgers, evidently, carrying into her cottage sunshine in a sieve, there being no window in the house: he cuts out a window for her and is well paid for his trouble. He next comes to a house where an old woman is thumping her goodman on the head with a beetle, in order to force over him a shirt without a slit for the neck, which she had drawn over his head: he cuts a slit in the shirt with a pair of scissors, and is amply rewarded for his ingenuity. ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston
... intense darkness until his fingers touched a lantern, took it down from the nail where it hung, and lighted it. He carried it farther down the rude passage between the stalls, hung it high upon another nail, and turned to the great oats box, from within which came a vigorous thumping and the sound ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... front door, and she thought it might be Toby at last. It was nearly a quarter to seven. Her guess had been right. It was he. Seeming not to have heard him, she ran lightly down the stairs as he heavily mounted them. Her heart was thumping so that she felt quite sick and faint. She could no longer run, but could only totter down towards the inevitable confrontation. It was there, and it was past—a plain, boorish "Evening." She managed the rest of the flight at a run; but when ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... the verandah and enjoyed the fun. Pao-yue therefore found the entrance shut. He gave a rap at the door. But as every one inside was bent upon laughing, they naturally did not catch the sound; and it was only after he had called and called, and made a noise by thumping at the door, that they at last heard. Imagining, however, that Pao-yue could not be coming back at that hour, Hsi Jen shouted laughing: "who's it now knocking at the door? There's no one to go ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... He then got off his back, and led him into the road, which he had some difficulty in accomplishing, and when there he would not go a bit better than in the field. He had no preference to the turnpike road, and George, after fatiguing himself, and getting into a violent heat by beating and thumping the animal's impenetrable skin, considered that he had better get him back again into the field, and there leave him. But here again the stubborn beast perplexed him; he would not budge an inch, no, not even when George pulled and dragged ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... the wrongs of her injured husband, to paint the agonies of his bleeding heart (if Mr. Advocate gets plaintiff's brief in time, and before defendant's attorney has retained him), and to show Society injured through him. Let us console that martyr, I say, with thumping damages; and as for the woman—the guilty wretch!—let us lead ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... chair, and tried to appear at her ease; but her heart was thumping tumultuously. The man was going to propose, she knew—she knew; and she was not ready for him. She felt that she would break down ignominiously if he pressed ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... evenings during my stay at Suez was enlivened by a triple wedding. There was a long and slow procession. Some carried torches, and others were thumping drums and firing pistols. The bridegrooms came last, all walking abreast. My only reason for mentioning the ceremony (which was otherwise uninteresting) is, that I scarcely ever in all my life saw any phenomena so ridiculous as the meekness and gravity of ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... acts through the nerves that control the heart's action. Under its baneful influence the motions of the heart are irregular, now feeble and fluttering, now thumping with apparently much force: but both these forms of disturbed action indicate an abnormal condition. Frequently there is severe pain in the heart, often dizziness with gasping breath, ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... Miss Erema, from being truly accurate in my testimony. What with walking the floor, and thumping his back, and rattling of the rings to please him—when they put me on the Testament, cruel as they did, with the lawyers' eyes eating into me, and both my ears buzzing with sorrow and fright, I may have gone too far, with my heart in my mouth, for my mind to keep out of contradiction, wishful ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... Minnie. "Hark at 'im!" and relapsed into a condition that urgently demanded back thumping. "Don't be so silly," said ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... Bhula!' No sacrifice is offered to him, but the Ojha then and there takes a few grains of rice, rubs them in charcoal and throws them at the flame of his lamp, saying, 'Take this, Bhula, and go away.' Murkuri is the thumping bhut. Europeans to show their kindness and familiarity thump people on the back. If this is followed by fever or any kind of sickness it will be ascribed to the passing of Murkuri from the body of the European into the ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... yellow bird flew into one of the empty rooms, of which there are half a dozen on the lower floor, and could not find his way out again, flying at the glass of the windows, instead of at the door, thumping his head against the panes or against the ceiling. I drove him into the entry and chased him from end to end, endeavoring to make him fly through one of the open doors. He would fly at the circular ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... it please your Honour": and as the clerk got to his feet with a slip of paper in his hand and bawled out a name, Hale wheeled with a thumping heart. The crowd vibrated, turned heads, gave way, and through the human aisle walked June Tolliver with the sheriff following meekly behind. At the railing-gate she stopped, head uplifted, face pale and indignant; ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... a quarter Jan scorched all she knew. The angry blood was thumping in her ears and she exclaimed indignantly at intervals, "How dared he! ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... the painful conclusion was come to, that with the slender resources available, it was impracticable to repair the damage done to the Uranie, especially as the original injury had been aggravated by the repeated shocks occasioned by thumping on the beach. "What was to be done?" Should the explorers calmly wait until some vessel chanced to put in at Berkeley Sound? This would be to leave the sailors with nothing to do, and this enforced idleness would open the door to disorder ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... the Isle of Wight I had noticed now and then, when the waves tossed more than usual, that a dull, heavy, thumping sound was heard aboard the yawl, and gradually I concluded that her iron keel had been broken by the rock at Bembridge, and that it was swinging free below my boat. This idea increased my anxiety to get in safely; and ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... his life for music. He got up an orchestra in his nursery, which came to smash because his younger brother filled all the wind instruments with soap-suds. Later on he was always scraping, or blowing, or thumping, scooting about from one concert to another, making expeditions to the shrine of WAGNER as he called it, composing songs, and symphonies, and operas, and Heaven only knows what besides. He came into the old place in Essex when his brother died, about a year ago, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, February 11, 1893 • Various
... with noise. Red noises, an almost tangible din that he could nearly feel as well as he could see and hear it. And after a while his breath came raspingly, and there was a thumping sound that was the beating of his heart and the ...
— Happy Ending • Fredric Brown
... after that, one day at school, when Jean-Christophe was spending his time watching the flies on the ceiling, and thumping his neighbors, to make them fall off the form, the schoolmaster, who had taken a dislike to him, because he was always fidgeting and laughing, and would never learn anything, made an unhappy allusion. Jean-Christophe had fallen down himself, and the schoolmaster said he seemed ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... returned with his reindeer within the allotted time, and we took our leave of the encampment. A strong south wind had arisen, but did not dissipate the fog, and for two hours we had a renewal of our past experiences, in thumping over hard ridges and ploughing through seas of snow. Our track was singularly devious, sometimes doubling directly back upon itself without any apparent cause. At last, when a faint presentiment of dawn began to glimmer through the ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... it a good compensation to be safe there, so far were they from acting violently at that time. But there was all that which upheld among the common people an artificial fright, so that every one almost fancied a popish knife just at his throat; and at the sermon, beside the preacher, two thumping divines stood upright in the pulpit, to guard him from being killed while he ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... message," he managed to say, and splashed his soup. This was not the place to take the feelings out of his thumping heart and examine them. ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... I said, thumping my heart and forehead and other seats of the emotions. "I don't happen to see rats there, and if I don't see them I can't write about them. Anyhow, they wouldn't be secular rats, like the ones I ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... while bad thoughts Were troubling Edward's rest; But soon they heard his hard quick pants, And the thumping in his breast. ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... himself up to such a frenzy of rage that he was fairly purple of face, and he shrieked the last words at the top of his voice, emphasizing his remarks by a loud thumping of the table with one huge fist, and shaking the other ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... storm-wind. Robin glanced at her with a half-jealous, half-anxious look, but her face was turned away from him. He lifted his tankard and, bowing towards her, drank the contents. When the toast was fully pledged, Farmer Jocelyn got up, amid much clapping of hands, stamping of feet and thumping on the boards. He waited till quiet was restored, and then, speaking in strong resonant ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... remembered having had "The Frost Fairies" read to me. I felt in every question the doubt and suspicion that was in their minds, and I felt, too, that a loved friend was looking at me reproachfully, although I could not have put all this into words. The blood pressed about my thumping heart, and I could scarcely speak, except in monosyllables. Even the consciousness that it was only a dreadful mistake did not lessen my suffering, and when at last I was allowed to leave the room, I was dazed and did not notice my ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... purified with Thiocamp. It was a little stiff at first; but, as Mr. G. says, there's no rest like variety of occupation. When I got tired of Eucalyptozone, I turned to with Thiocamp, and then went through a course of taking up carpets and thumping hair-cushions. Quite sorry ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 30, 1891 • Various
... sharply, wheeled to the right of the obstruction, and became once more a solid mass, leaving the barricades behind them, the Chief of Police at the head of the line forcing the mob back to the curbstone, laying about him with his club, thumping heads and cracking wrists as he ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... and father tride to look as if he dident know who he meant and i said my speach over soft, to be sure i had it rite. then old Francis said i have selected as a present for this boy a book, and the name of this boy is, and then he stoped a moment and i cood almost hear my heart thumping, and then he said Johnny Chickering. Gosh i had forgotten all about Chick Chickering living on Coart Street. when he said that aunt Sarah and Keene and Cele sat rite back in there chairs and father ...
— 'Sequil' - Or Things Whitch Aint Finished in the First • Henry A. Shute
... a tremendous thumping. There was no way of avoiding a meeting, unless he turned tail and fled before her. That was not to be thought of. It was the first time they had come face to face since the unforgettable morning in ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... of work do you do in my house, Mary Ann!" Then there was silence, save for the thumping of his own ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... heard the sound of voices. Ten minutes passed while he crouched in the mud, listening. There was another brief instant of moonlight, this time brighter, and the shadows cast by the trees seemed living, moving things. Tom could feel his heart thumping. ...
— Tom of the Raiders • Austin Bishop
... Ha, ha, ha, I must have leave to laugh to think how neatly I shall defeat this Son of a Whore of a thunder thumping Hector. ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... wolves! In vain did the stalwart jennet defend itself with its shod hoofs, in vain did its rider lay round him with his whip: for not only did the Spanish mules assail him with their teeth, but, turning tail as well, they sent their heels whistling around his head, and now and then thumping against his legs, until his leather boots and breeches ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... moment there was a rattling and thumping at the cabin door, as if something was being removed; and as the prisoners listened, the skipper's voice was ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... they took a drink or two, and sprinkled to their several huts, and Black Hat was at peace, There were no dogs or cats to make night hideous—no uneasy roosters to be sounding alarm at unearthly hours—no horrible policemen thumping the sidewalks with clubs—no fashionable or dissipated people rattling about in carriages. Excepting an occasional cough, or sneeze, or over-loud snore, the most perfect peace reigned ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... disposition.[95] Berghem's wife would never allow that excellent artist to quit his occupations; and she contrived an odd expedient to detect his indolence. The artist worked in a room above her; ever and anon she roused him by thumping a long stick against the ceiling, while the obedient Berghem answered by stamping his foot, to satisfy Mrs. Berghem that he was ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... ocean, which rose and tossed to meet the coming storm. Surely no wind ever had a voice so wildly mournful. How the good ship rolled, and groaned, and creaked, and strained her old timber joints! What rocking, thumping, falling, banging of heads at the low entry of the cabin! Water falling into berths, people rolling out of them. What fierce music at night, as the wind, like a funeral dirge, swept over the ocean, the rain falling in ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... his phials to his cages, and from his cages back to his flasks. While he told Pentaur of the state he had found his room in on his return home, he wandered about in feverish excitement, unable to keep still, now kicking over a bundle of plants, now thumping down his fist on the table; his favorite birds were starved to death, his snakes had escaped, and his ape had followed their example, apparently in his fear ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... time, and searched every corner of the house; but discovering nothing, he went to bed again. He was no sooner snug under the clothes than the noise began again more furiously than ever, sounding very much like a "thumping and drumming on the top of his house, and then by degrees going off ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... neither the original vase or Prince Napoleon's catalogue, I feel some diffidence in throwing my half-ounce of doubt on this pound—good, thumping weight—of fact. However, I have seen the reproduction of the drawing as given by Mr. Fleming in his book, "Violins, Old and New," and, since he makes such a feature of this Grecian Ravanastron, I feel safe in assuming that it ...
— The Bow, Its History, Manufacture and Use - 'The Strad' Library, No. III. • Henry Saint-George
... leopard had a terrible beauty all his own. As he stood with head raised, eyes glaring, mouth slightly parted and his long tail lashing his sides with a force that made the thumping against his glossy ribs plainly audible, his pose was perfect. What ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... saw Ralph before he went away. He seemed very down on his luck, poor dear! He's been trying to persuade Penelope to say yes and to fix an early date for their wedding, as he's got the offer of a very good short tour in America—really thumping fees—and he won't accept it unless she'll marry him first and ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... many songs you couldn't decide which was which to save you; it was just a pouring jumble of robins, larks, doves, blackbirds, sparrows, everything that came that early; the red and the yellow birds had not come yet, or the catbirds or thrushes. You could hear the thumping wings of the roosters in Sills' barnyard nearest the schoolhouse, and couldn't tell which was whipping, so you had to sit there and wonder; and worst of all you must stand Miss Amelia calmly telling you to pay attention to your books or you would be kept in, and all the time you were forced to ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... around the neck to shut off further alarm. As those muscular fingers closed in upon her throat, it seemed suddenly as if her head were about to burst. Then as the thumping in her ears almost completed the deadening of her auditory nerves, she indistinctly heard these words uttered in a ...
— Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains - or, A Christmas Success against Odds • Stella M. Francis
... was thumping wildly and he was tempted to shout to the intruder. Hastily banishing the impulse he watched the man. The dim outline of his figure was distinctly seen. Perhaps the intruder had been startled by the discovery of the ...
— Go Ahead Boys and the Racing Motorboat • Ross Kay
... neeburs, ye micht hae heard a pin fa' tae the ground, and ma heart was thumping in ma briest; a' wudna come thro' the like o' yon again for half ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... strange thumping at my ribs when I had the garron at the door, and would be tramping the long yellow straw from his forefeet, and I led him out of the yard and we were on the shoulder of the black hill when the moon was beginning to go down. And now there were no thoughts of ghosts or bawkins in my head, ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... old man Ryer, still stiff from his long, cold bath, hobbled out, and Pete ran before him. Yes, it was mother, the children and all the animals! For the first time in his life, the mean old sinner felt his heart thumping, in grateful emotion, under his woolen jacket, with its two gold buttons. Something like real religion had finally oozed out from ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... make for Harwich and cross over to the Continent, avoiding the usual English routes and English steamers. We want to get there as quietly as we can. It wouldn't be healthy to arrive in Upper Burmah thumping a drum to let 'em know we were on their track. They've got ways of their own of gettin' rid o' people they want ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... glanced at the next seat and there, sitting right beside her, was—whom do you suppose? Ann! The same pretty little Ann who had been lost on the boat. Immediately Mary Jane forgot all about being afraid and thumping hearts and strangeness and everything and began to like school. The two little girls had much to say about what they would do at recess and where did they live and everything, so the time before school began ...
— Mary Jane's City Home • Clara Ingram Judson
... In this costume the maskers jig it as well as the heavy unwieldy disguise allows them to do. But the dance consists in little more than running round and round in a circle, with an occasional hop; the orchestra stands in the middle, singing and thumping drums. Sometimes two or three of the masked men will make a round of the village, pelting the men with pebbles or hard fruits, while the women and children scurry out of their way. When they are not in use the masks are hidden away in a hut in the ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... I, whipping old Rene smartly. And in another minute we were thumping and bumping over great paving-stones, too noisily for conversation to be carried on, and getting into a melee of carts, wagons, and horsemen, all bound for Beaucaire. The women were now in great delight, looking from side to side, commenting on the dress of one, the equipage of ...
— Jacques Bonneval • Anne Manning
... Garvey, thumping the bar. "There ain't no law west o' the Pecos! And he's west o' the Pecos now! The only law here is this kind," ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... thumping. He had thought it would be easy and delightful to tell the news of his engagement, but it struck him suddenly that these two, Angelo and Marie, were utterly absorbed in each other. Perhaps they would not care as much as he had hoped. ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... which the modern tourist is enabled to descend by a spiral iron staircase. The Serapeum itself is lit with electricity, and in the Tombs of the Kings at Thebes nothing disturbs the silence but the steady thumping pulsation of the dynamo-engine which lights the ancient sepulchres of the Pharaohs. Thus do modern ideas and inventions help us to see and so to understand better the works of ancient Egypt. But it is perhaps a little too much like the Yankee at the Court of King Arthur. The ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... "He's all alone with his dog these dark nights, and loneliness cuts to the heart of a man like Jim. I'm glad I have you, Virginia. I couldn't do without you now. The rain is getting heavier every minute. Sounds like it was thumping on the door. Listen to ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... swain," and in the marvelous mental and spiritual exhilaration born of the supreme moment he almost grasped that impossible last note. His heard could hardly hold its burden of rapture when he caught the well-known gleam of the white birches. He turned into the familiar path, boy's blood thumping in old man's veins. The past week had been a dreadful dream. A few steps more and he would be within sight, within touch of home,—home at last! No—what was wrong? He must have gone beyond it, in his reckless haste! Strange that he could have forgotten the beloved spot! Can lover ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... this ridiculous occasion in the noted items of her beauty. Le compte y etait, as they used to say in Paris—every one of them, for her immediate employment, was there; and there was something in it after all. It didn't necessarily, this sum of thumping little figures, imply charm—especially for "refined" people: nobody knew better than Julia that inexpressible charm and quotable "charms" (quotable like prices, rates, shares, or whatever, the things they dealt in down-town) ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... announcement read by the lawyer. He felt as though life was suspended for many minutes, when it was proclaimed that he, Luke Tarboe, would inherit the property. Although he knew of the contents of the will his heart was thumping like a sledge-hammer. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... all fun. Strong came presently thumping back from beyond the store. He had borrowed Craney's Pinto pony and had been visiting the southward posts, and Pinto had been clipped by a bullet and was half frantic with the smart and scare combined. Moreover, Strong's fighting face was red and mad, as he thrashed the ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... with a thumping heart—found the name of a young author he had barely heard of, saw the title of a play, a "poetic drama," dance before his eyes, and dropped the paper, sick, disgusted. It was true, then—she was "game"—it was not the manner but ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... the 7th Sept.—Captain Semmes writes—we had a rough, ugly night of it, with a continuance, and even increase of the gale, and a short and abrupt sea, in which the ship occasionally rolled and pitched with violence, frequently thumping my cot against the beams overhead and awaking me. Shipped large quantities of water through the ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... truth—thees honor of the Beeg Snows!" said Jan again, and his moccasined feet fell in heavy, thumping tread ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... the mirth is wild and furious, and the din that salutes one's ears on entering is almost deafening. The object of every one is to make as much noise as possible, and every kind of instrument for this purpose is sold at the booths. There are drums beating, tamburelli thumping and jingling, pipes squeaking, watchmen's-rattles clacking, penny-trumpets and tin horns shrilling, and the sharpest whistles shrieking everywhere. Besides this, there are the din of voices, screams of laughter, and the confused burr and buzz of a great crowd. On all sides you are ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... to knee, picking over a bushel of beans, and commanding a view of the dandelion-starred, green yard below, and of the winding, sandy road that led to the village, two miles away. Some captive bees were scolding among the cobwebs of the rafters overhead, or thumping against the upper panes of glass; two calves were bawling from the barnyard, where some of the men were at work loading a dump-cart and shouting as if every one were deaf. There was a cheerful feeling ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... of welcoming hands had greeted him; and then—the darkness—the hesitating leave-taking of the building, and the lingering walk across the deserted campus toward his room—the walk he knew so well he would take no more. A brief time of waiting—a blank—and then the bitter, thumping ride across two States toward his home, when he could only think, and think, and try to adjust himself—and fail; and at last the end. And again, at the little station, when he felt the touch of his mother's hand, and heard her choking "Guy, my ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... the others. In the next ten miles there were, perhaps a dozen more. They'd been hard to start, perhaps, and so left later than the rest. Jill wasn't in any of them. There was one car traveling slowly, making thumping noises. Its driver made the best time he could, following ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... and sprang to the door. The cat passed me like a demon, and the tallow dip went out, but my long knife flew swifter than she, and I heard her screech, and I knew that my knife had found her. For a moment I listened to her tumbling and thumping about in the darkness, and then when her frenzy ceased, I lighted a lamp and raised it over my head. Mr. Wilde lay on the floor with his throat torn open. At first I thought he was dead, but as I looked, a green ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... up for help," he cried above the thumping of the engine. Slim was so softhearted he could not bear to see a creature in distress, and the sight of that arm thrown up in a wild gesture filled him with a quivering horror. He could not bear to look at it and turned ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... as before, and endeavoured to compose myself to sleep. In about an hour's time I had well-nigh succeeded in doing so, when the thumping of the boxes re-commenced, and ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... you Tom or Jack, And proves, by thumping on your back His sense of your great merit, Is such a friend as one had need Be very much his friend, indeed, To pardon or to ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... to be her house companions, but that was a comparatively slight affair compared with the ordeal of her introduction to the school as a whole. In spite of her outward appearance of sangfroid, she felt her heart thumping a little as she marched into the large lecture hall for "call over". It needs a certain courage to face seventy-two critical strangers, and her past experience had taught her that a new girl on her first ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... by the way To watch a Potter thumping his wet Clay: An with its all obliterated Tongue I murmur'd-"Gently, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... seven. Langbourne thanked him, and came back again to beg the clerk to be careful and not have him called in the morning, for he wished to sleep. Then he went up to his room, where he opened his window to let in the night air. He heard a dog barking; a cow lowed; from a stable somewhere the soft thumping of the horses' feet came ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... think. It was no use trying to. The thumping of her heart beat down her thoughts. Her brain swam in a warm darkness. Every now and then names drifted to her out ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... a dark room, an icy wind and a feeling of being "watched" were other discomforts in Mrs. Rokeby's lot. After 1876, only occasional rappings were heard, till Mr. Rokeby being absent one night in 1883, the noises broke out, "banging, thumping, the whole place shaking". The library was the centre of these exercises, and the dog, a fine collie, was shut up in the library. Mrs. Rokeby left her room for her daughter's, while the dog whined in terror, and the noises increased in violence. Next day the dog, when let out, rushed forth ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... Edgeworth's Irish postilion and “Knockecroghery,” could scarcely have afforded us more amusement than our Sarde driver and his horse, whose good qualities he ludicrously vaunted, alternately cursing and glorifying, thumping and coaxing, the vicious beast, while we heaved at the wheels. Our united efforts at length succeeded in extricating the vehicle from the sandy hollow; and after jolting for awhile over the new-formed road, the material having become solid and compact, we ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... felt his heart thumping against his ribs. "Why, of course, I accept," he cried. "But your terms are so generous, to a man without a profession, that I must ask you one thing? Is the affair such as an honest man can ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... by the moose, who had lately found out where Nanahboozhoo was stopping. The rabbit was such a timid creature that when he came near to Nanahboozhoo he was much afraid that he would not be welcomed. However, his case was desperate, and although his heart was thumping within him with fear he hurried along to have the thing over as soon as possible. To his great joy he found Nanahboozhoo in the best of humor and he was ...
— Algonquin Indian Tales • Egerton R. Young
... messenger came clattering down the silent streets, the sound of his pony's hoof-beats echoing from the compound walls and arousing the whole quarter, there was a prodigious thumping on the big outer gate before a sleeping watchman could be made to roll out of his wadded quilts; but finally, after prolonged consultation, the despatch was taken in to the I.G., the messenger calmed with tea and a pourboire, ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... from among the trees, the musicians scraped, tinkled, or blew, each according to his various kind of instrument, more inspiringly than ever. A darkchecked little girl, with bright black eyes, stood by, shaking a tambourine set round with tinkling bells, and thumping it on its parchment head. Without interrupting his brisk, though measured movement, Donatello snatched away this unmelodious contrivance, and, flourishing it above his head, produced music of indescribable potency, still dancing with frisky step, and striking the tambourine, and ringing ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... or more he had heard, both in front and rear, the thumping of horses' hoofs, and occasionally a word or two spoken in ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... heart was thumping pretty hard and his breathing was uncertain, as though he had raced the length of the field with a pigskin tucked in the crook of his arm, and his gaze sought the floor for fear those two would read the almost tragic ecstasy that shone in them. ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour
... and, coming to the table, found the jug empty, therefore out I went to the place beyond where I judged was the pump, and here found a bucket brimming with water wherewith I filled the jug. Creeping back to the kitchen, I stopped at once, my heart thumping, for to my wonder and dismay I beheld the prisoner on his feet, free of his bonds and rubbing and chafing his wrists and hands and arms. Then all at once this pitiful creature leapt to swift and terrible action, for at one bound, as it seemed, he had reached the chair ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... a deal! a deal!' resounded through the room, accompanied with clapping of hands, thumping of the table, and dancing of glasses. 'You owe me a guinea,' exclaimed one. 'I want half a sovereign of you,' roared another. 'Here's my half-crown,' said a third, handing one across the table to the fortunate winner. A general settlement took place, in the ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... in the morning, they were awakened by the arrival of the truck and the thumping of boxes, tables and supplies as the Salvation Army truck drivers unloaded and set up the paraphernalia of the canteen. The girls opened their eyes and looked about them, and there all around the building were American soldiers, a head in every shell hole, ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... season, sitting there in the warm evenings, I could hear the pheasants utter their peculiar roost-cry, and the noise of their wings as they flew up in the wood: the vibration is so loud that it might almost be described as thumping. ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... It seemed like a lifetime waiting there. My nerves were strung up to a high pitch; my heart was thumping like a steam-hammer. I gave a quick glance at an officer close by. He was mopping the perspiration from his brow, and clutching his stick, first in one hand then in the other—quite unconsciously, I am sure. He looked at his watch. Another three ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... and go to Yves's rescue; he must not be allowed to go on thumping in that manner. Let us take a lantern, ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... where there is music. The Prince was playing such a lively tune, that presently the strings of sausage broke away from the ceiling and fell clattering to the floor, where they danced about furiously. Not being able to see where they were going, they bumped against the giant and his wife, thumping them on their heads and backs, and pounding them so severely that the woman became frightened and hid under the table, while the giant ...
— The Surprising Adventures of the Magical Monarch of Mo and His People • L. Frank Baum
... bitter shame, he had had similar morose awakenings after a dissipated night, his heart, his brave heart thumping against the passionate form, often lean and sallow, of some satiated ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... if the Frenchman had kept faith, he might get safely away. Boileau would surely never fail him. Hampered and constantly tripped up by roots and tangled undergrowth, confused by the blackness of the night, the boy toiled on with thumping heart and shortening breath; and at last, looming above him, was the welcome outlines of the great rock. But on neither side of it could he find sign of the trader or of his canoe. And already by the rustlings in the woods and the occasional ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... Mac received a good thumping, and I doubted not in the least that he deserved it. The wonder of the affair, however, was the fact that no one appeared to know what had made the Rube so furious. The porter would not tell, and Mac was strangely reticent, ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... With a heart thumping against his ribs at this strange and amazing coincidence, the American ducked his head carefully under the port hood and ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... cry in the night! The weird, haunting screech of an owl! He ridiculed himself for the sudden wild thumping of his heart. But would they never call him? This suspense was tearing at the very roots of ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... a sound of muttering and of faint thuds somewhere near by arrested his attention. They proceeded from Mr. Smith's room, he perceived. It was very extraordinary. "He's talking to himself," he thought. "He seems to be thumping the bulkhead with his fists—or ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... safe. He leaned against Koa, his heart thumping wildly. For a moment or two he couldn't ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage
... exert themselves under Mr. Touchwood's new system of rewards and surveillance; and the minister, half unconscious of the cause, reaped the advantage of the exertions of his busy friend. Sometimes he lifted his head, when he heard workmen thumping and bouncing in the neighbourhood of his study, and demanded the meaning of the clatter which annoyed him; but on receiving for answer that it was by order of Mr. Touchwood, he resumed his labours, under the persuasion ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... Sit tight, scarce caring if they swim or sink. Silent they bear it, as they quietly think The end approaching to their life at last, And face each other, with a smile or wink Outwardly stoic, tho' their hearts beat fast As, thumping down, great shells ...
— Over the Top With the Third Australian Division • G. P. Cuttriss
... for Granny Tucker gave such starts when she heard the sounds, that twice her spectacles fell off her nose into her lap, and Master Ratsey seemed to be trying to mask the one noise by making another himself, whether by shuffling with his feet or by thumping down his prayer-book. But the thing that most surprised me was that even Elzevir Block, who cared, men said, for neither God nor Devil, looked unquiet, and gave a quick glance at Ratsey every time the sound came. So we sat till Mr. Glennie ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... from another, and thinks it is superior to feel like that. He does not care for me, he does not care for flowers, he does not care for the painted sky at eventide—is there anything he does care for, except building shacks to coop himself up in from the good clean rain, and thumping the melons, and sampling the grapes, and fingering the fruit on the trees, to see how ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... realisation of the day brought with it the physical consciousness that her heart was thumping—steadily thumping, which is quite a different matter from the ordinary beating—at the realisation of what had come at last. An event which a year ago the wildest dream could not have depicted for her was to-day an actual fact; a fortune such ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... nor beautiful nor high-born, there is but one way to proceed. She must bribe right and left. No rotten borough absorbs more cash than the fashionable world. Its recognition is merely a question of money. All its distinctions have their price. It exacts from the pushing woman a thumping entrance-fee in the shape of a sumptuous concert or ball. Nor is it only the first push which costs. Every subsequent advance is as much a matter of purchase as a ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... animals. Clouds of dust. Screaming, raging men. A black-armored rider charged into Hector, waving a battle-ax over his head. He chopped savagely, and the Watchmans's shield split apart. Another frightening swing—Hector tried to duck and slid completely out of the saddle, thumping painfully on the ground, while the ax cleaved the air where his head had ...
— The Dueling Machine • Benjamin William Bova
... tranquil; otherwise, a seaman's ears would have given him the alarm. When I arose, I found the ocean glittering like a mirror, with no other motion than that which has so often been likened to the slumbering respiration of some huge animal. The wreck was thumping against the ship's bottom, announcing its presence, before I left the mattress. Of wind there was literally not a breath. Once in a while, the ship would seem to come up to breathe, as a heavy groundswell rolled along her sides, and the wash of the element told the circumstance ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... now.' Some folks may laugh, but it won't do for 'em to say where Jack Halloway can hear 'em that thar's nothing in the Christian religion. I know better, 'cause I've got it right there!" exclaimed the trapper, thumping his heart. ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... 4 immediately, in a very commanding voice, and thumping the table with the head of an old wooden ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty
... the first to recognise it was the old dog lying in his corner. Flame began suddenly uttering sounds of pleasure, that "something" between a growl and a grunt that dogs make upon being restored to their master's confidence. Dr. Silence heard the thumping of the collie's tail against the floor. And the grunt and the thumping touched the depth of affection in the man's heart, and gave him some inkling of what agonies the ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... Gambetta, when someone remarked that he was very lucky in having conquered renown by a single speech, broke out impetuously, "I was years preparing that speech—twenty times I wanted to deliver it, but did not feel that I had it here (touching his head), though it palpitated here (thumping his breast) as if it ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... the piano, playing for her, when he became conscious that another lady had entered the room, and, turning, saw Nellie Travers. He rose and bowed to her, extending his hand as he did so, and knowing that his heart was thumping and his color rising as he felt the soft, warm touch of her slender fingers in his grasp. She, too, had flushed,—any one could see it, though the lamps were not turned high, nor ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... Starvation is no cooler, it is an inflamer, and they know it—as parrots know truths, but can't apply them: for they know that burning fever rages in ivery town, street, camp, where Famine is. As for blood-letting, their prime cooler, it is inflammatory; and they know it (parrot-wise), for the thumping heart and bounding pulse of pashints blid by butchers in black, and bullocks blid by butchers in blue, prove it; and they have recorded this in all their books: yet stabbed, and bit, and starved, and mercuried, and murdered on. But mind ye, all their sham coolers are real weakeners (I wonder ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... the street I heard a thumping; and I knew it was the stumping Of the Corporal, our old neighbor, on that wooden leg he wore, With a knot of women round him,—it was lucky I had found him,— So I followed with the others, and ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... and his simple heart was set thumping in his bosom. But his face was serious, and his eyes quite calm ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... animation and earnestness. As he paused I heard in an adjoining room known to me as his "machine- shop," which no one but himself was permitted to enter, a singular thumping sound, as of some one pounding upon a table with an open hand. Moxon heard it at the same moment and, visibly agitated, rose and hurriedly passed into the room whence it came. I thought it odd that any one else ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... sensation in the region of the heart. He did not attach any importance to it at first, but as time wore on, the fluttering increased. He grew anxious. For about a week, his health remained the same, when one day, after dinner, he was quite alarmed to feel his heart thumping vigorously against his chest. "What is this coming ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... him uncertainly. She was quivering all over with nervous apprehension. His manner frightened her. She was not sure that the man was absolutely sober. But it would be absurd, ridiculous, she told her thumping heart, to take offence, when it might very well be that the insult existed in her imagination alone. So, with a desperate courage, ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... were not out of my mouth before there was a thumping upon the floor outside, and the voice of ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... endeavoured to avoid their contact that, on one occasion, when she and Sally had been climbing up to the second floor, and the door of his room was opened, through which his voice had sounded, calling to Sally, she had run hurriedly up the stairs out of sight, her heart thumping with excitement when he had ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... is?" asked every one, and listened with all their might to get a hint, if possible. But what they heard only whetted their curiosity and mystified them more and more. Bab's voice cried in a loud whisper, "Isn't Ben beautiful?" Then there was a thumping noise, and Miss Celia said, in an anxious tone, "Oh, do be careful," while Ben laughed out as if he was too happy to care who heard him, and Thorny bawled "Whoa!" in a way which would have attracted attention if Lita's head had not popped out of her box, more than once, to survey the invaders ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... the pitmen's village, all shut up and silent now, and through the turnpike; and then they were out in the real country, and plodding along the black dusty road, between black slag walls, with no sound but the groaning and thumping of the pit-engine in the next field. But soon the road grew white, and the walls likewise; and at the wall's foot grew long grass and gay flowers, all drenched with dew; and instead of the groaning of the pit-engine, they heard the skylark saying his matins high up ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... Rochester had come. There was no one in sight, no sound except the twittering of birds overhead, and the rustling of the leaves. He sank on one knee, and his hand closed upon the gun. The blood surged to his head. There was a singing in his ears. He felt his heart thumping as though he were suddenly seized with some illness. Rochester's figure, tall, graceful, debonair, notwithstanding the looseness of his shooting clothes, and his somewhat rigid attitude, seemed suddenly to loom large and hateful before his eyes. He saw nothing else. ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... they said but the two men who I knew were detectives showed the old gentleman the paper and asked him what it meant. First he seemed kind of flustered and angry and I know Pee-wee's heart was thumping-anyway it would have been thumping, except that it was ...
— Roy Blakeley • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... woman at the ranch. Helen awaited her expectantly, wondering who and what she might be. Then through her window she saw Angela come shuffling into the patio. She was an old woman, Mexican or Indian, her hair grey and black in streaks, her body bent over her thumping stick and wrapped in a heavy shawl. Never had Helen seen such night-black, fathomless, inscrutable eyes; never had she looked upon a face so creased and lined or skin so like dry, ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... it now. [He takes IVANOFF'S hand and presses it against his breast] Can you feel it thumping? That means that it is weak and that I may die suddenly at any moment. Would you be sorry if ...
— Ivanoff - A Play • Anton Checkov
... their drums ascending past me, and the fife ever and anon piercing through,—these things have wakened a warlike fire, peaceful though I be. Close to their rear marches a battalion of schoolboys ranged in crooked and irregular platoons, shouldering sticks, thumping a harsh and unripe clatter from an instrument of tin and ridiculously aping the intricate manoeuvres of the foremost band. Nevertheless, as slight differences are scarcely perceptible from a church-spire, one ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the door the mystery of the thumping noise which he and the Backslid Baptist had heard was explained. In a low falsetto the parrot was repeating the two military commands ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley
... prairie air, that took the tragedy out of my homecoming. There were gladness and trust in those deep-throated howls of greetings. He even licked the snow off my overshoes and nested his head between my knees, with his bob-tail thumping the floor like a flicker's beak. He sniffed at the Twins rather disgustedly. But he'll learn to love them, I feel sure, as time goes on. He's too intelligent ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... I am the soul of taciturnity," Adrian boasted, expanding his chest, and thumping it. "This bosom is a sealed sanctuary for the confidences of those who confide in me. Besides, when I 'm with Madame Torrebianca, believe me, we have other subjects of conversation than the poor Squire ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... come out, the tom-tom in his lap, and he thumped and he thumped and he thumped, and the more he thought of the great honor that had been done to him, the more he thumped, all alone among the elephant fodder. There was no tune and no words, but the thumping made him happy. ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... thumping of heavy feet on the landing, and a moment later a young country girl entered. It was Betty, one of the serving girls whom Dame Burton had ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... so," said the young lord thumping the table, "where have I got the money from?" This was an argument that the rector could not answer;—so he merely shook his head. "I am bound to acknowledge them after ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... She could not say more, her heart was thumping so, but her small twining fingers in the doctor's palm told ...
— The Heiress of Wyvern Court • Emilie Searchfield
... Bill was thumping along, talking, and Tony listening, as usual. They came through the double swinging doors of the dormitory on the way to the shop and passed a small group of upper classmen in the hallway, Malatesta among them, holding forth. The two went down the basement stairway, a door closed behind them ...
— Radio Boys Loyalty - Bill Brown Listens In • Wayne Whipple
... adjusted his mask of gauze, but, as Burns recalled it, this was a common matter with many surgeons, and it might easily have been characteristic of Leaver himself, even though Burns had not remembered it. His own heart was thumping heavily in his breast, as it had never thumped when he had been the chief actor ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond
... and a taste to be honoured and encouraged—the taste for reading novels. She put her own romantic construction on the extraordinary compliment which the doctor's jesting humour had paid to her. As he walked out, grimly smiling and thumping his big stick on the floor, a new idea illuminated her mind. Her master admired her; her master was no ordinary man—it might ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... out of sight of unfriendly eyes, from his own garden. Above the extraordinary rumor that drifted to him through the arches of the bridge he heard the wailing of pipes, raucous blasts of cow horns, the thumping of drums; while dogs barked incessantly, and all night long the caravans of Mesopotamia jingled to and fro. Then the cannon would thunder out its climax, and the city would fall anew under ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... and over the bank in time to see a huge Range-bull make a deadly charge at what he doubtless took for a yellow dog. In a moment all would have been over with Frizzle, for he had missed his footing on the bank; but there was a thumping of heavy feet, a roar that startled even the great Bull, and, like a huge bounding ball of yellow fur, Mother Grizzly was upon him. Him! the monarch of the herd, the master of all these plains, what had he to fear? He bellowed his ...
— The Biography of a Grizzly • Ernest Thompson Seton
... "Gassharamminy!" he shouted, thumping with a scarred fist. With a poultice on his eye he looked like a swashbuckler home from the wars; and as he had not troubled to shave himself, the effect was heightened. "What sort of company sits when a titled lady enters!" He seized a big spoon and rapped on the ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... was silence but for the thumping of his heart, and the slop of the water about her sides as the little Tremendous footed it ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... honours of his faux-pas, and of sneaking quietly home as soon as the hounds hit off the scent; but unluckily, just as they were crossing the lane, what should heave in sight, cantering along at his leisure, but the redoubtable Multum in Parvo, who, having got rid of old Leather by bumping and thumping his leg against a gate-post, was enjoying a line of ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... her heart thumping in a very uncomfortable manner. The bedroom which she and her mother shared together—that is, when Maggie was with her mother—was at the back of the drawing-room. Mrs. Howland remained there for about five minutes, and during that time Maggie helped herself to a cup of ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... a little field of broken ice, and that she would go clear presently, and I finished arming myself for the weather; but the knocking continuing, I went into the cabin where I heard it very plain, and walked as far as the lazarette hatch, where I stood listening. The noises were a kind of irregular thumping accompanied by a peculiar grinding sound. In a moment I guessed the truth, rushed on deck, and by the dim light in the air saw the long tiller mowing to and fro! The beat of the beam seas had unlocked the frozen bonds of the rudder, and there swung the ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... making of hay, leaving the body at night fit only to be devoted to sheets and pillows, and not to grave or even friendly epistolary intercourse. Oh friends! live upon faith, say I, as I pitch into bed with the ghosts of Sunday morning resolutions of letters tickling my sides or thumping my back, and then sink into dreams where every day seems a day in the valley of Ajalon, and innumerable Joshuas command the sun and moon to stay, and universal leisure spreads over the universe like a great wind. Then comes morning ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... for it rite on the square, And carry it off per saltum, jauntily Propria quae maribus, gentleman's property now (Agreeable to the law explained above). In proprium usum, for his private ends, The boy he chucked a brown i' the air, and bit I' the face the shilling; heaved a thumping stone At a lean hen that ran cluck-clucking by, (And hit her, dead as nail i' post o' door,) Then abiit—What's the Ciceronian phrase? Excessit, evasit, erupit—off ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... in the chimney-corner thumping the ribs of a cattle-pup, and pinching its ears to make it savage. He had been training the pup ever since its ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... sociability, as though horses and coachman and groom were comrades who had been absent for long months instead of half an hour. An indiscriminately affectionate puppy lay flat and whimpering at Yeovil's feet, sending up little showers of gravel with its wildly thumping tail, while two of the terriers raced each other madly across lawn and shrubbery, as though to show the blue roans what speed really was. The laughing-eyed young groom disentangled the puppy from between Yeovil's legs, and then he was ushered into the ...
— When William Came • Saki
... for spreading the good news of personal religion among the depressed millions of the human race. For even at this present time the lasting work of the Salvationist, the work which makes him so noble and so useful a figure in the modern world, is not accomplished by pageantry and tub-thumping, but by the intimate, often most beautiful, and very little known work of its slum officers, particularly ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... Dinah's thumping heart gave a great start and seemed to stop. "Oh yes," she gasped desperately. "Yes, I couldn't possibly—be ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell |
