"Whirr" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... strange the air abounds, The whirr of birds is dying out, The swart mechanic's lusty shout Amid the clang of ...
— Fleurs de lys and other poems • Arthur Weir
... about the house and put past her blankets, and out with a spinning-wheel and into a whirr of it, with a hummed song of the country at her lips—all in a mild temper, or to keep her confusion from ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... Therefore I hate to hear of stagnant societies who think because they have made butter well that they have crowned their parochial generation with a halo of glory, and can rest content with the fame of it all, listening to the whirr of the steam separators and pouching in peace of mind the extra penny a gallon for their milk. And I dislike the little groups who meet a couple of times a year and call themselves co-operators because they have got ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell
... always comes in that snow-washed northern land, with a ramp of the ice loosening its grip from the turbulent waters, and a whirr of the birds winging north in long, high, wedge-shaped lines, and a crunching of the icefloes riding turbulently out to sea, and a piping of the odorous spring winds through the resinous balsam-scented woods. Hudson and the loyal members of the crew ...
— The "Adventurers of England" on Hudson Bay - A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North (Volume 18 of the Chronicles of Canada) • Agnes C. (Agnes Christina) Laut
... the report of the rifle and the moaning whirr of the bullet over their backs recalled memories of a host of things, and Neewa settled down to that hump-backed, flat-eared flight of his that kept Miki pegging along at a brisk pace for at least a ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... than the vibrations of the hamlet bell, louder than the bird-notes and the tumult of the voluptuous insect whirr, there rang the thud, thud of cruel blows falling ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... at a signal from the station-keeper, who watched with paternal pride all the movements of the little prodigy, we dashed off at a pace rarely attained by post-horses. He had the faculty of emitting a peculiar sound—something between a whirr and a whistle—that appeared to have a magical effect on the team and every few minutes he employed this incentive. The road was rough, and at every jolt he was shot upwards into the air, but he always fell back into his proper position, and never lost for a moment his self-possession or ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... trellis, along which meander the cord-like tendrils of bignonias, aristolochias, and orchids, the flowers of which, drooping over windows and doorways, shut out the too garish sunlight, while filling the air with fragrance. Among these whirr tiny humming birds, buzz humble bees almost as big, while butterflies bigger than either lazily flout and flap about on soft, ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... This was a feeling he had never before experienced. He knew that winter was following him closely and the river would soon be freezing behind him; yet that could scarcely account for the unusual desire for haste. The moment he heard the whirr of the little alarm clock, he was up. Hurriedly swallowing breakfast, he slipped into the river for another ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... It was really shameful. But the partridge seemed to gain strength as the fox put forth his, and after a quarter of a mile race, racing that was somehow all away from Taylor's Hill, the bird got unaccountably quite well, and, rising with a decisive whirr, flew off through the woods, leaving the fox utterly dumfounded to realize that he had been made a fool of, and, worst of all, he now remembered that this was not the first time he had been served this very trick, though he never knew the reason ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... lifted themselves up as if in angry surprise. Then for the first time thrilled in Mr. Bernard's ears the dreadful sound that nothing which breathes, be it man or brute, can hear unmoved,—the long, loud, stinging whirr, as the huge, thick-bodied reptile shook his many-jointed rattle and flung his jaw back for the fatal stroke. His eyes were drawn as with magnets toward the circles of flame. His ears rung as in the overture to the swooning dream of chloroform. Nature was before man ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... was always a very silent habitation,—situated as it was on so lofty and barren a crag, it was far beyond the singing- reach of the smaller sweet-throated birds—now and then an eagle clove the mist with a whirr of wings and a discordant scream on his way toward some distant mountain eyrie—but no other sound of awakening life broke the hush of the slowly widening dawn. An hour passed—and Alwyn still remained in the same position,—as pallidly quiescent ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... Long ere the whirr, and buzz, and rush Became a harvest sound, Or monsters trailed their tails of spikes, Or ploughed the ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... together, too; none of those chivalrous magnanimities which one reads so much about —one courtly rascal at a time, and the rest standing by to see fair play. No, they came in a body, they came with a whirr and a rush, they came like a volley from a battery; came with heads low down, plumes streaming out behind, lances advanced at a level. It was a handsome sight, a beautiful sight—for a man up a tree. I laid my lance in rest and waited, with my heart beating, till the iron ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Ajax still, unwearied, long'd to hurl His spear at Hector of the brazen helm; But he, well skill'd in war, his shoulders broad Protected by his shield of tough bull's hide, Watch'd for the whizzing shafts, and jav'lins' whirr. Full well he knew the tide of battle turn'd, Yet held his ground, his trusty friends ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... girls not to talk over their work. The more work they had in them, the more talk; it was a test, like a steam-gauge. Only the poor, pale, worn-out ones, like Emma Hollen, who coughed and breathed short, and could not spend strength even in listening, amidst the conflicting whirr of the feeds and wheels,—and the old, sobered-down, slow ones, like Miss Bree and Miss Proddle, button-holing and gather-sewing for dear life, with their spectacles over their noses, and great bald places showing on the tops of their bent ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... mounted the garden steps to the house, she heard the whirr of a motor in the street. It stopped in front of the house, and as Margaret waited she heard Mrs. Hillyer's thin voice: "I am so sorry! Please tell Mrs. Pole that I came over from Lancaster to get her for dinner." Presently the motor whirled away in the ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... flight of a falcon pouncing down upon its prey. It seemed descending not in a straight line, but in an acute parabolic curve, like a thunderbolt or some aerolite projected toward the surface of the sea. But the bird, with a whirr like the sound of running spindles, was going in a definite direction, the point evidently aimed at being the head ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... Danny wasn't going to let Pearlie go away; Danny would run away and get lost and runned over and drownded, now! Pearl's heart melted, and sitting on the sidewalk she took Danny in her arms, and they cried together. A whirr of wheels aroused Pearl and looking up she saw the kindly face of the ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... throb of her engine and a whirr of her propeller, the aeroplane rolled swiftly over the level starting ground and took the air like a ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton
... love.—All these things passed through Lewis Ferrier's mind as he prepared for that black journey. A dark wave swung the boat very high. "Will she turn turtle?" No. But she was half full. "Bale away, sir." Whirr, went the wind; the liquid masses came whooping on. One hundred yards more would have made all safe, though the boat three times pitched the oars from between the tholepins. A big curling sea struck her starboard quarter too sharply, and for a dread halfminute ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... by those beckoning arms, and the slow enchantment of that tinkling voice, and the look in those eyes, which, lost in the unknown, were seeing no mortal glen, but only that mazed wood, where friendly wild things come, who have no sound to their padding, no whirr to the movement of their wings; whose gay whisperings have no noise, whose eager shapes no colour—the fairy ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... in front of her, moved away to the smoking car; and the woman in gray listened to the creak and whirr of the wheel of torturing dread, upon which some malignant fate once more bound her. Bertie had been safe in his mountain fastness, until her ill-starred advertisement coaxed him within reach of the police Briareus. Could she discern the hand of merciful warning in this fortuitous ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... struck a muffled note of grey. On the left the ribbon of road glistened white between the sentinel poplars silhouetted against the sky. The hot smell of the earth filled the air like spice. A thousand elfin sounds, the vibration of leaves, the tiny crackling of cornstalks, the fairy whirr of ground insects, melted into ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... fat boy, when with a sudden whirr a partridge arose close beside them, and flew away ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... to the edge of a wall with a little sunk glade beyond, and was looking across some blackberry bushes when I heard a rifle-shot, and the whirr of a bullet. I had just time to notice that the whirr came with the gunshot—if it had been in the opposite direction it would have followed it—when I was struck on the head and fell. It was the fall that knocked me insensible, but it was the gunshot that was responsible for ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... became boss of the gang, and could contract for men of his own. There was larger life in the land of resin and pine-logs. No tune in all broad Scotland was so merry as the whirr of the sawmill, when the little flashing ribbon of light runs before the swift-cutting edge of the saw. It made Sylvanus remember the pale sunshine his feet used to make on the tan-coloured sands of North Berwick, when he walked ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... ticking fast and lightly over the belts of the rough jeans pants. Whirr, whirr, yes, and Miss Sophie was actually humming a tune! She felt ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar
... meadowsweet by the brook, now and then bee and beetle span homeward through the air, booming a deep note as from a great organ far away, and from the verge of the wood came the "who-oo, who-oo, who-oo" of the owls, a wild strange sound that mingled with the whirr and rattle of the night-jar, deep in the bracken. The moon swam up through the films of misty cloud, and hung, a golden glorious lantern, in mid-air; and, set in the dusky hedge, the little green fires of the glowworms appeared. He sauntered slowly up the lane, drinking in ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... a wonderful trunk. So soon as any one pressed the lock the trunk could fly. He pressed it, and whirr! away flew the trunk with him through the chimney and over the clouds farther and farther away. But as often as the bottom of the trunk cracked a little he was in great fear lest it might go to pieces, and then he would have flung a fine somersault! In that way ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... ravine in which the trapper has his irons cunningly set out for the betrayal of the stone-marten and the glossy-backed "fisher-cat,"—but the breeze in it is quite as wholesome as a brandy-smash. The whirr of the sage-hen's wing, as she rises from the fragrant thicket, brings a flavor with it fresher far than that of the mint-julep. It is cheaper than the latter compound, too, and much more conducive to health. Continuing to indulge our fancy in cool images connected with fur and its finders, we shall ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the fence, and disappear in the hazel thickets. The Bob Whites didn't mind the boys, unless Nip happened to be along, nosing about in search of some mischief to get into. But as yet no little white egg lay in the nest, and when Nip cocked his impudent little ears at them, they were off with a whirr that sent him, scampering, startled and scared, after the boys. From the trees to which they had flown, the Bob Whites watched the movements of the boys with some anxiety. "They might, you know," whispered Mrs. Bob, "be after that brood of our cousin's beyond ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... careless, youth is fleet, With heart and wing of bird! The lark flew up beneath our feet, To his copse the pheasant whirr'd; ...
— The Vigil of Venus and Other Poems by "Q" • Q
... motor-bonnet, surrounded by five men, one of them the somewhat notorious Maharajah of Indorwana. Vanno retreated hastily, and went on toward the steps which led up to the Rock of Monaco; but he had not gone far when a combination of sounds stopped him: the whirr of a propeller and the throb of an engine. Carleton was evidently on the point of trying his machine, the curious invention which could be used, it was said, on land as well as in air and ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... flash of the Allies' guns and the Turks' answering could be picked out without great difficulty. Added to this the air was still; the dull thud of the field guns at work there was different from the resounding boom of the naval guns, and the whirr of the machine guns could ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... the girl had to do was to go to the storehouse, and to sift the corn through a sieve. While she was busy rubbing the corn she heard a whirr of wings, and a flock of sparrows flew ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... there are some who regret this, who associate national greatness with the whirr and buzz of many wheels, the smoke of factories and with large dividends; and others, again, who wish that our simple minds were illuminated by the culture and wisdom of our neighbours. But I raise the standard of idealism, ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... chimney of an evening with the greatest regularity. Every time that he poked his fire they knew from the vehemence or deliberateness of the blows the precise state of his mind; and when he wound his clock on Sunday nights the whirr of that monitor reminded the widow to wind hers. This transit of noises was most perfect where Loveday's lobby adjoined Mrs. Garland's pantry; and Anne, who was occupied for some time in the latter apartment, enjoyed the ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... "Whirr away!" said Roger to her. "You can't go far. You will have to light again upon my island. You all belong to me—you swarming creatures! You may run about awhile, and flutter away a bit; but you will all belong to me at last, with ...
— The Settlers at Home • Harriet Martineau
... breakfast, smothered with herbs and mystery, we hired a fancy phaeton and voluble driver to whirr us around the principal streets, parks and buildings of the rushing, brilliant city, everything moving as if the devil were out with a search warrant for some of the stray citizens of ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... about twenty Belgians, who had got through and occupied the grounds of a villa on the edge of the village. We stopped the car, and I got out and went ahead, they remaining with leveled rifles, in their usual hospitable manner. When I got to within twenty feet of them we heard the whirr of a machine gun—which the Belgian soldiers call a cinema—and a German armoured car poked its nose around the corner for a look-see. It was firing high to draw a return fire and locate any Belgians there might be in the town, but they all scurried behind cover, closely followed by me. They ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... flowers! I will crown my head for the death-fight. And the lyre too, reach me the lyre, that I may sing a battle-song. . . . Words like flaming stars, that shoot down from the heavens, and burn up the palaces, and illuminate the huts. . . . Words like bright javelins, that whirr up to the seventh heaven and strike the pious hypocrites who have skulked into the Holy of Holies. . . . I am all joy and song, all sword and flame! Perhaps, too, all delirium. . . . One of those sunbeams wrapped in brown paper has flown to my brain, and set my thoughts aglow. In ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... From the halls below rose only the whirr and quiet ticking of the numerous clocks. The blind by the open window behind us flapped out a little into the room as the draught ...
— The Damned • Algernon Blackwood
... berths being furnished simply with cane-bottoms, a pillow, and one unclean sheet. Those who were decoyed into these staterooms endured them with disgust while the boat was at anchor; but when the paddle-wheels began to revolve, and dismal din of clang and bang and whirr came down about their ears, and threatened to unroof the fortress of the brain, why, then they fled madly, precipitately, leaving their clothes mostly behind them. But I am anticipating. The passengers arrived and kept arriving; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... window and pushed aside one of the short, calico curtains. She looked out on the court. A tall woman had just pulled up a bucket of water from the well and had emptied it into a pitcher. She finished, let the bucket drop with a whirr and a clash, and raised her head. For a second she and Jasper Morena's wife looked at each other. Betty nodded, smiled, and drew the ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... movements of the horses and the rattle of their harness were all the sounds he could hear. Naab returned to his seat; the team started, now no longer in a trot; they were climbing. After that Hare fell into a slumber in which he could hear the slow grating whirr of wheels, and when it ceased he awoke to raise himself and turn his ear to the back trail. By-and-by he discovered that the black night had changed to gray; dawn was not far distant; he dozed and awakened to ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... a second's silence, then a faint moaning, a crescendo wail, the whirr and rush of a snarling, shrieking skyrocket overhead, and a crash, like all the thunders of the universe rolled into one, when the shell struck, followed by the roar of falling brick as a neighboring house came pouring ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green
... the hum and whirr of two high-powered motors chugging in unison stole upon the air and rapidly increased in volume. Ben craned his neck from the window ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... the folder we then may grow bolder, And form and groove pans with our consciences clear; Drive each of the turners with skill beyond learners, And put in stout wire with our hearts full of cheer. Then take a burr and make it whirr, As the bottoms spin round like a "top;" And fit these tight, which is but right If we wish a ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... watching the laboring trio from safe vantage points now rose with a soft whirr of wings and a quick chorus of twitters as Farvel opened the door from the Church and came out. A long black gown hung to his feet, but this only served to accentuate the paleness of his newly-shaven cheeks. "Ah, fine!" he greeted ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates
... in from their roosting place in the palmyra jungle beside the dry sand river; the cattle are strolling out from behind various enclosures where they share the family shelter; all around is the whirr of bird and insect as the teeming life of the tropics wakes to ...
— Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India • Alice B. Van Doren
... those wondrous tales that have neither beginning nor end, puszta adventures, the atrocities of vagabonds and their fellows, the sad love stories of poor deserted maidens and such like. And all the while the wheels of the spindle whirr-whirr-whirred monotonously, and Henrietta felt like a little child whose nurse sits beside her bed and lulls her to sleep with fairy tales. For weeks she had not enjoyed so quiet and dreamless a slumber as she had that night beneath the roof of the csarda in the midst ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... man do I think well of it. Ho! for the twang of bowstrings! the whirr and whistle of well-sped shafts loosed from the ear! Ha! as an archer and a man 'tis an adventure that jumpeth with my desire. But—as a soldier, and one of much and varied experience, as one that hath stormed ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... not the worst time or place in the world to read the Bible. But how all the voices of nature seemed to flow in and mix with the reading, I cannot tell, no more than I can number them; the whirr of a bird's wing, the liquid note of a wood thrush, the stir and movement of a thousand leaves, the gurgle of rippling water, the crow's call, and the song-sparrow's ecstasy. Once or twice the notes of a bugle found their way down the hill, and reminded me that I ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... weights with a grate and a whirr that made audible conversation quite out of the question, she formed a study, in clothes and visage, that might have stepped direct from a Franz ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... such a state of diseased susceptibility that the most innocent words from Captain Wybrow would have been irritating to her, as the whirr of the most delicate wing will afflict a nervous patient. But this tone of benevolent remonstrance was intolerable. He had inflicted a great and unrepented injury on her, and now he assumed an air of benevolence towards her. This was ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... of voices in the room outside, but it soon ceased. With no third person to praise the feast it was probably dull work congratulating each other on its success. By and by—I don't know when it happened—I heard the electric entrance-bell whirr in the tiny hall, and the Skeptic go to answer it. Then I heard voices again—men's voices. There was an interval. Then came a small knock at my door. ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... curious bay. All around us was admirably green. The strong sea-breeze had suddenly fallen, and was succeeded by a perfect calm; the atmosphere, now very warm, was laden with the perfume of flowers. In the valley resounded the ceaseless whirr of the cicalas, answering each other from one shore to another; the mountains reechoed with innumerable sounds; the whole country seemed to vibrate like crystal. On our way we passed among myriads of Japanese junks, gliding softly, wafted by imperceptible breezes on the unruffled ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... staircases were rotten, while its flooring was, as I knew, heavily broken away in spots, making it a dangerous task to walk about its passage-ways, or even to enter the large and solitary rooms which once shook to the whirr ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... foe. Then, raising his voice to such a pitch, that it sounded above the cries and groans of the fighting men, the words of command, the neighing of the horses, the crash of overthrown chariots, the dull whirr of lances and swords, their heavy blows on shields and helmets, and the whole bewildering tumult of the battle—with a loud shout he drew his bow, and his first arrow pierced ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... off for the Red Dragon. This machine he selected because, with the exception of the Dart, it was the fastest and lightest of the aeroplanes they had with them. Farmer Hutchings had hardly closed his mouth from its gaping expression of surprise when a whirr of the motor announced that the Red Dragon was off. Its lithe body shot into the ...
— The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly • Margaret Burnham
... unceasing, unending. It goes on like the whirr of the wheels of a great clock that can never run down—a melancholy complaint against the hardships of destiny—a raucous protest ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... the ever-open dusty staircase jostling against a spruce, handsome young fellow who was hurrying down. He looked back with a sudden conviction that it was his son. His heart swelled with pride and affection; but ere he could cry 'Yankely' the young fellow was gone. He heard the whirr of machines. Yes, she had kept on the workshop, the wonderful creature, though crippled by his loss and the want of capital. Doubtless S. Cohn's kind-hearted firm had helped her to tide over the crisis. ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... brown, of tree-tops from which the snow had fallen. The river-banks, which yesterday had seemed chiselled out of solid marble, were to-day tunnelled and scarred with tiny rills and watercourses which groped their way feebly riverwards. As he stood in silence meditating, he was startled by the whirr of wings, and looking southward descried the advance-guard of the first flock of ducks. "Ha, the spring has come," he cried; but immediately he checked his ecstasy, for his eyes had again caught sight of ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... shots, music, songs, laughter, rattle of dice, whirr of wheel and clink of glasses—assailed me discordant. The scores of tents and shacks stretching on irregularly had become pocked with dark spots, where lights had been extinguished, but the street remained ablaze and the ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... that whirring, singing sound? Was that a new signal that Barney was trying? Was it—Whirr, s-st! Down like a shot dropped Tam's head, and like an arrow he leaped forward, swerving sideways to escape the danger he had scented,—the danger of a lariat flung by ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry
... he came upon the end of one which looked fairly open, and which ran in the direction of the oast-house on the hill, Richard was about to plunge down this, when, all at once, there was a sharp, thin sound, followed by the loud whirr of wings, as an early covey of strongly-pinioned partridges, alarmed by the crack, sprang up, and flew over the tops of the poles, completely ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... The whirr of the machinery and the strong breeze made by the boat's motion, made it certain that no one could hear us, and so I began my attack: "Mr. van Tuiver, I am a friend of your wife's. I came here to help her in this crisis, and I ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... The faint whirr of a buzzer and the patter of a maid's feet along the hall, checked Carr's speech. He did not resume. Instead he reached for a box of cigars, and lighted one. By that time Tommy Ashe ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... sun To lustre touched the tremulous water-drops. Alone, nor whistling as his fellows do In fabling poem and provincial song, The ploughboy shouted to his reeking train; And at the clamor, from a neighboring field Arose, with whirr of wings, a flock of rooks More clamorous; and through the frosted air, Blown wildly here and there without a law, They flew, low-grumbling out loquacious croaks. Red sunset brightened all things; streams ran red Yet coldly; and before the unwholesome east, Searching the bones and ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris
... forehead, but I thought of Hastur and of my own rightful ambition, and I remembered Mr. Wilde as I had last left him, his face all torn and bloody from the claws of that devil's creature, and what he said—ah, what he said. The alarm bell in the safe began to whirr harshly, and I knew my time was up; but I would not heed it, and replacing the flashing circlet upon my head I turned defiantly to the mirror. I stood for a long time absorbed in the changing expression of my own eyes. The mirror reflected a face ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... Pau-Puk-Keewis reached the edge of the lake and besought a brant (or wild goose) to change him into one of themselves, and to make him ten times larger than the others. Straightway they changed him into an enormous brant, and, with a whirr of wings, the whole flock rose in the air and flew northward. "Take good heed and look not downward, lest some great mishap befall you," cried the other birds to Pau-Puk-Keewis, and he heeded their words. But on the morrow, as they continued their flight, Pau-Puk-Keewis heard a great ...
— The Children's Longfellow - Told in Prose • Doris Hayman
... their departure. The pellucid and comforting light of the blinded sun grew warmer; the hum of industry in the town behind rose cheerfully upon the quiet air, and as the calling of the April bluebird in the fields grew more faint, the splash of the oars and the whirr of the gray water-fowl began to be accompanied by a low distant sound as of ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... woodpecker was tapping on a tree, well toward the north; that a little gray bird almost as far to the south was singing with great vigor and sweetness; that a rabbit was hopping about in the undergrowth, curious and yet fearful; that an eagle with a faint whirr of wings had alighted on a bough, and was looking at the three; that the eagle thinking they might be dangerous had unfolded his wings again and was flying away; that a deer passing to the west had caught a whiff of them on the ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... where the scholar is studying; Leave not the bridegroom quiet—no happiness must he have now with his bride, Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, ploughing his field or gathering his grain, So fierce you whirr and pound, you ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... the bird was singing its best, and the emperor was lying in bed listening to it, something gave way inside the bird with a 'whizz.' Then a spring burst, 'whirr' went all the wheels, and the music stopped. The emperor jumped out of bed and sent for his private physicians, but what good could they do? Then they sent for the watchmaker, and after a good deal of talk and examination he got the works to go again somehow; but he said it would have ...
— Stories from Hans Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... would roam, Where fed the timid deer, And where the partridge's drum, or whirr, Brought music to ...
— Canada and Other Poems • T.F. Young
... household-clock with its whirr Rang midnight within as he stood, He heard the low sighing of her Who had striven from his birth for his good; But he still only asked the spring starlight, the breeze, What great thing or small ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... ceased, the sky cleared, and a fair half-moon of silvery brightness shone out above the tops of the white gum forest. Fifty yards or so away, in front of the door, a shallow pool had formed in a depression of the hard, sun-baked soil, and as the soft light of the moon fell upon it there came a whirr of wings as a flock of night-roving, spur-winged plover lit upon its margin. I could have shot half a dozen of them from where I sat, but felt that I could not lift gun to shoulder and slaughter when there was no need, and their ...
— "Five-Head" Creek; and Fish Drugging In The Pacific - 1901 • Louis Becke
... The whirr and snort of a taxi broke the thread of her thoughts. With a grinding of brakes the cab came to a standstill at the entrance to the block of flats, and after a few minutes Emily, the unhurried maid-of-all-work, whom Nan's sense of fitness ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... mine amusement: wherever I find such clocks I shall wind them up with my mockery, and they shall even whirr thereby! ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... Dutch clock in the next room, after a grumble and whirr, struck eleven, as if reproving the old couple for sitting up so late to read a novel. Before the ringing of the last stroke died away, footsteps were heard descending the stairs. Mrs. Morgan gave her husband a significant glance, saying in a low tone, "John was right; you have ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... first. Butter, eggs, chickens, etc., were classed as luxuries, to be collected and sent by any opportunity offering to the nearest point of shipment to hospital or camp. Fruits were gathered and made into preserves or wine "for the sick soldiers." Looms were set up on every plantation. The whirr of the spinning-wheel was heard from morning until night. Dusky forms hovered over large iron cauldrons, continually thrusting down into the boiling dye the product of the looms, to be transformed into Confederate gray or ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... know, is best society, and short retirement urges sweet return. Various travels or voyages of discovery may be undertaken, and their grand object attained in little more than an hour. The sudden whirr of a cushat is an incident, or the leaping of a lamb among the broom. In the quiet of nature, matchless seems the music of the milkmaid's song—and of the hearty laugh of the haymakers, crossing the meadow in rows, how sweet the cheerful echo from Helm-crag! ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... asleep, and, knowing they were very tired, I did not wake them, but got my gun, and, wrapping myself in my blankets, sat up by the fire to watch the varmints and warm my feet. Presently I heard a long wild howl down in the woods, and knew by the "whirr-ree, whirr-ree" in it that it proceeded from the throat of the dreaded buffalo wolf, or Kosh-e-nee, of the prairies. There was another howl, then another, and another, and, finally, a loud chorus of a ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... a frightful monster, whose black smoke-stack of a snout, with its blacker breath coming out, and the flaming eyes of the engine glaring through the smoke, completed the picture of a wild beast watching her. Within, the whirr and tremble of shuttle and machinery were the purr and ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... house came on a sudden the click of metal and the swift whirr of wheels. Somewhere a clock was in labour—an old, old timepiece, to whom the telling of the hours was a grave matter. A moment later a thin old voice piped out the birth of a ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... to the shaded light. The central floor had been left free for dancing, but the slender pillars ranged on either side formed separate little alcoves banked with flowers and plants. It was in one of these refuges from the whirr and confusion of gay dresses and white uniforms that Stafford took up his watch. He had arrived late, thanks to Travers, who had detained him at his bungalow in a long and earnest conversation. The two men had subsequently driven ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... with red dabs on his shoulders, as he darts slantingly by—the sounds that bring out the solitude, warmth, light and shade—the quawk of some pond duck—(the crickets and grasshoppers are mute in the noon heat, but I hear the song of the first cicadas;)—then at some distance the rattle and whirr of a reaping machine as the horses draw it on a rapid walk through a rye field on the opposite side of the creek—(what was the yellow or light-brown bird, large as a young hen, with short neck and long-stretch'd ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... save only I; their hearts Beat warm with love and joy, beat full thereof: They cannot guess, who play the pleasant parts, My heart is breaking for a little love. While beehives wake and whirr, And rabbit thins his fur, 20 In living spring that sets ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... and moved farther along the trail, stopping again to gaze at the shadowed valley below while I mused on the centuries it had seen and the brief moment of a man's life. Standing thus, I was like to lose my own, for suddenly I heard a whirr like that of a shrapnel shell on its murderous errand, and at my feet fell ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... would turn their heads so as to look at me, first with one eye, then with the other, and shoot up at last, with a sharp Burr! of their tiny wings, to a branch over my head. There they would watch me keenly, for a wink or a minute, according to their curiosity, then swoop down and whirr their wings loudly in my face, so as to make me move and ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... the wheel flew round swiftly under her graceful manipulations. Listening to its whirr, whirr, whirr, she scarcely heard a sudden knock at the street-door, and was quite startled when the servant, ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... certainly, and the boys acted upon it. They walked up and down the banks of the river admiring the beautiful scenery, but seeing nothing of wild animals. They heard the whirr of a flock of birds overhead, alarmed by the apparition of two human beings, but the luxuriant vegetation allowed but a glimpse of ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... the lonely two lived a quiet life in the brown house. Everything was so still and fair—no sound but the coming and going tide, and the swaying wind among the pine-trees, and the tick of the clock, and the whirr of the little wheel as Mrs. Pennel sat spinning in her door in the mild weather. Mara read the Roman history through again, and began it a third time, and read over and over again the stories and prophecies that pleased her in the Bible, and pondered the wood-cuts and texts in a ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... in his bed listening to the bird which was singing its very best. Suddenly it stopped with a jerk, and bang! something had snapped in its inside, and all its wheels ran down with a whirr, and then there was ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... moon rose high among the clouds; the busy hum of the city ceased; the din of war and warriors' roar was hushed. The music of the cricket, the whirr of the owlets, might easily have been heard, when the holy Dame and the Palmer met. The Abbess had chosen a solemn hour, ...
— The Prose Marmion - A Tale of the Scottish Border • Sara D. Jenkins
... let us ride fast." cried Squire Thornton in his loud hearty voice. As he spoke there was a whirr of loud wings, and a dark cloud of foul birds rose into the air from ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... feathery whirr of motors, the echo of footsteps, the immense, indefinable breathing vibration of the iron monster, drowsing on its rock between three rivers and the sea, ceases utterly. And a vast stillness reigns, mournful, ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... The noise she heard was not the grating noise of a car backing, it was the scream of a car getting away; it dropped to a heavy whirr and diminished. ...
— The Romantic • May Sinclair
... Else to yon depths profound it you will hurl. A murky vapour thickens night. Hark! Through the woods the tempests roar! The owlets flit in wild affright. Hark! Splinter'd are the columns that upbore The leafy palace, green for aye: The shivered branches whirr and sigh, Yawn the huge trunks with mighty groan. The roots upriven, creak and moan! In fearful and entangled fall, One crashing ruin whelms them all, While through the desolate abyss, Sweeping the, ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... the chorus—Horatio multiplied by a dozen or so—to make you feel Hamlet's long indecision, and to allow you no escape from the knowledge that Claudius' crime would bring about its karmic punishment. It is a unity: one thunderbolt from Zeus;—first the growl and rumbling of the thunders; then the whirr of the dread missile,—and lo, the man dead that was to die. And through the bolt so hurled, so effective, and with it—the eagle-bark—Aeschylus crying Karma! ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... moved silently along. No word was spoken; each was wrapped in thought. Now and again a stray prairie chicken would fly up from their path with a whirr, and speed across the mire, calling to its mate as it went. The drowsy chirrup of frogs went on unceasingly around, and already the ubiquitous mosquito was on the ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... a loud whirr of wheels, a buzz of internal mechanism, and all the little figures would stop dead with arms outstretched, whilst the beheaded doll rolled off the board and was lost to view, no doubt preparatory to going through the same gruesome ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... clatter of hoofs and a whirr of wheels, the fire engine dashed around the corner. The driver was crouched low in the seat. He was driving ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... fly, as I expect, to the adjoining common, where they are marked down on a brow thickly clothed with furze. Marching towards them with spaniels at heel, up jumps a hare under my nose, then another, then a rabbit. I reload rapidly, and on reaching the gorse 'put in' the dogs. Whirr! there goes a partridge! The spaniels drop to the report of my gun, but the fluttering wings of the dying bird rouse two of his neighbours before I am ready, and away they fly, screaming loudly. The remainder are flushed in detail and I succeed in securing the greater part of ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... to as the "Buzzard" was to be expected that night, and that the German aviator would look for signals from the straw-stack, plans were made for his reception, and this part of the drama was witnessed from the village as well as from the camp. The night was clear, and at about eleven o'clock the whirr of a motor was heard in the distance. The Doctor, who had returned late from a visit to a sick patient in an adjoining village, heard it, and at once gave the alarm. Out of their beds tumbled the sleepy people of Fontanelle, and, wrapping themselves in blankets or any ...
— The French Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... Once he heard the whirr of little wings. He had flushed a covey of quail; but as his mind was at the time set on nobler game, and the chance for a shot not particularly good, he did not attempt to fire; though naturally his gun flew up to his shoulder through the ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... flashed up into the tree and around from branch to branch. As the rays traveled through the cedar there was a sudden wild cry from the animal, and then came a swish and a whirr as the wildcat sprang to the outer end of a limb and ...
— The Rover Boys on a Hunt - or The Mysterious House in the Woods • Arthur M. Winfield (Edward Stratemeyer)
... position to attack, but found that the Boers had evacuated the ground in front of us. Up and on at a great rate over the grassy veldt, the guns now marching in four columns and keeping a broad front. At about 1 p.m. sudden firing in front and the familiar whirr of Boer shells made us come into action at 4,500 yards on Almond's Nek Pass, through which our road lay. The Boers were evidently in possession, judging by the warm greeting of Pom-poms and the Creusot 5", which played on us without much damage. The troops were now all halted, and formed up for ...
— With the Naval Brigade in Natal (1899-1900) - Journal of Active Service • Charles Richard Newdigate Burne
... raised his machine at the same time, but, thinking to save the left turn and unconsciously slowing in a little on the plane in front, was reminded that he would be wise to change course a bit. The ominous whirr of pieces of projectile told him that the German "Archie" had fired a shot with good direction. He knew that shell might be closely followed by another at a better elevation, so turned right, climbing, until he had regained his eight hundred feet ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... undergrowth, the lizard glittering by the stone, the fish leaping in the stream, the plaint of the whippoorwill, the call of the bluebird, the golden flash of the oriole, the honk of the wild geese overhead, the whirr of the mallard from the sedge. And, more than all, a human voice declaring by its joy in song that not only God looks upon the world and finds ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the re-enacting of Greek plays, but from a keen emotion felt towards things and people living to-day, in modern conditions, including, among other and deeper forms of life, the haste and hurry of the modern street, the whirr of motor ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... the wide fields, sparkling on the heights and blue in the hollows. The brown bushes by a hidden stone-wall broke the sheen entrancingly; here and there a dry leaf fluttered, but only enough to show how still such winter stillness can be, and a flock of little brown birds rose, with a soft whirr, and settled further on. Mrs. Wadleigh pressed her lips together in a voiceless content, and her eyes took on a new brightness. She had lived quite long enough in the town. Rounding a sweeping bend, and ploughing sturdily along, though it was difficult here to find the roadway, she kept her ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... ditch border the starry stitchwort lifted its childish faces, and chorused in lines and masses. Never had I seen such a symphony of note-like flowers and tendrils and leaves. And suddenly in its depths, I heard a chirrup and the whirr of startled wings. ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... absorbing interest was generally to see whether the prayer would be over before the eight-day clock struck nine, or whether the loud whirr which preceded that event would be suddenly and deafeningly let loose upon Uncle Reuben in the middle of his peroration, as sometimes happened when the speaker forgot himself. To-night that catastrophe was just avoided by a somewhat ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... that I am rather like your father," she said. "I don't understand;" and in the silence which followed upon her words Feversham heard something whirr and rattle upon the table. He looked and saw that she had slipped her engagement ring off her finger. It lay upon the table, the ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... eye on our friend when the shriek and the whirr of the express from the north was heard. Lopez walked quickly up towards the edge of the platform, when the pundit followed him, telling him that this was not his train. Lopez then ran a few yards along the platform, not noticing the man, ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... up and went to the telegraph instrument, which intermittently clicked away in its box. As he did so he made some casual remark and then sat down again. After the 10.40 had gone through, there followed a period of silence which seemed almost oppressive. All at once the stillness was broken by the whirr of the electric bell, which sounded so sharply in our ears that we both ...
— A Master of Mysteries • L. T. Meade
... merits and deserts; I came down again and comforted the people, saying, "The Lord hath given us a sign, and He will feed us, as He fed the people of Israel in the wilderness; for He has sent us a fine flight of fieldfares across the barren sea, so that they whirr out of every bush as ye come near it. Who will now run down into the village, and cut off the mane and tail of my dead cow which lies out behind on the common?" (for there was no horsehair in all the village, seeing that the enemy had long since carried off or stabbed ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... when we heard a whirr overhead, followed by a volley of mitrailleuse. High up in the blue, over the centre of the dead city, flew a German aeroplane; and all about it hundreds of white shrapnel tufts burst out in the summer sky like the miraculous ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... against a background of green wheat and green leaves. A little later, and the ripe harvest would pale our sparks from red to yellow, until we got the dark newly-turned land for a background again, and they were red once more. By that time, we should have ground our way to the sea cliffs, and the whirr of our wheel would be lost in the breaking of the waves. Our next variety in sparks would be derived from contrast with the gorgeous medley of colours in the autumn woods, and, by the time we had ground our way round to the heathy lands between Reigate and Croydon, doing ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... doors, in a dull light, that at mid-day was almost dark with a long-continued snow-storm. Evening was coming on, and the wood fire was more cheerful than any of the human beings surrounding it; the monotonous whirr of the smaller spinning-wheels had been going on all day, and the store of flax down stairs was nearly exhausted, when Grace Hickson bade Lois fetch down some more from the store-room, before the light so entirely waned away that it could not be found without a candle, and a candle ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell |
