"Clatter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ye heare how he doth clatter? What neede ye to rehearse all this matter. ye know that we twayne afore any other. Lyberty must nedes haue styll. Lybertie on vs is glade to wayte ye stande to farre in your owne conceyte I wys lybertye ye ran make no bayte To catche vs ...
— The Interlude of Wealth and Health • Anonymous
... machines as they could and returned to work. The clatter of mowing machines filled the valley; the horses were speeded up to recover lost time. Transley and Y.D. rode about, carefully scrutinizing the short grass for iron stakes, and keeping a general eye ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... what he was about—certainly before he could get hold of the Riot Act—he found the stable lantern made over to him, and Griff's sword flashing in light, as, making all possible clatter and jingling with their accoutrements, the two yeomen dashed among the throng, shouting with all their might, and striking with the flat of their swords. The rioters, ill-fed, dull- hearted men for the most part—many dragged out by compulsion, and ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... I suppose means soup. I look up meekly at the functionary. He glowers contemptuously upon me. He recommends me to an underling, and bustles off to guests more important. There are in the dining-hall French, German, Italian, English and Japanese. Tongues, plates, knives and forks clatter inside—wheels roll, rumble and clatter over the stony pavement outside. I wait for my soup. Hours seem to lag by. I appeal in vain to other waiters. Life is too busy and important a matter with them to pay any ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... glitter of the Pioneer Dance Hall opposite. A noisy band was splitting the air with discordant notes, a loud-voiced "barker" yelling through the uproar, but Keith, accustomed to similar scenes and sounds elsewhere, strode through the open door of the hotel, and guided by the noisy, continuous clatter of dishes, easily found his way to the dining-room. It was crowded with men, a few women scattered here and there, most of the former in shirt-sleeves, all eating silently. A few smaller tables at the back of the room ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... the shouting had died away in a confused clatter of hoofs, and the pistol cracklings were coming only at intervals and from an increasing distance, that the corridor door opened and the night despatcher's off-trick man came in with a ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... Polly hear her father's gouty footsteps approaching the parlor door, accompanied with the stiff clatter of Feathertop's high-heeled shoes, than she seated herself bolt upright, and innocently began warbling ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... well-intended efforts had thwarted justice and might yet fasten crime upon innocence, Mr. Middleton pointed a pistol at the upper pane of the window where shone the bicycle lamp. There was a roar that shook the air, followed by a crash of glass and the clatter of a dozen bullets upon the brick wall of the house, and a shriek of terror from the householder and the bicycle lamp instantly vanished. With a heart strangely at peace in the midst of the dangers that encompassed ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... a frolic. Even William, roused from his after-dinner doze by peals of laughter, was sometimes inveigled into activities that left him breathless, but curiously aglow. While Pete, polishing silver in the dining-room down-stairs, smiled indulgently at the merry clatter above—and forgot the teasing pain in ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... into birds and reguler animls. Our teacher says we had ougt to obsurv so I obsurv there is three kinds of birds Jingle birds Squeek birds and Clatter birds. Jingle birds has fat rusty stumacks. I have not the trouble ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... shouts were drowned in a long, rippling roar of musketry from each side of the khor. The bastion-like cliff was fringed with gun-barrels, with red tarbooshes drooping over the triggers. From the other lip also came the long spurts of flame and the angry clatter of the rifles. The raiders were caught in an ambuscade. The Emir fell, but was up again and waving. There was a splotch of blood upon his long white beard. He kept pointing and gesticulating, but his scattered followers could not understand what he wanted. Some ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... rapid and peculiar glance around him. "But mill it has been, notwithstanding one might wish it a nobler origin. The windy situation the pillars to keep off the invading vermin, the shape, the air, the very complexion, prove it. Whir-r-r, whir-r-r; there has been clatter enough here in time past, I warrant you. Hist! It ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... even passing comment. In the night there comes a sharp bark of an automatic or the shattering roar of a hand-grenade (which, since the war proved its efficacy, has become the most recherche weapon for private use in these regions), a clatter of feet, and a "Hello! Another killing." That is all. Life is the cheapest thing there ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... drew her chair over to the window and sat there long quarter hours, watching the electric cars. They announced themselves from a great distance by a low singing on the overhead wire; then with a rush and a rumble the big, lighted things dashed across the void, and rumbled on with a clatter of smashing iron as they took the switches recklessly. The noise soothed her; in the quiet intervals she was listening for sounds from upstairs. The night was still and languorous, one of the peaceful nights ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... tree creaked, and our clothing tore on the thorny projections of limbs that seemed to have grown there since we climbed. To make matters worse, I stepped off the lowest branch, imagining there was another branch beneath it, and fell headlong, rifle and all, with a clatter and thump that should have alarmed the village half a mile away. And Will, not knowing what I had done but alarmed by the noise I made, jumped down on top ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... turned over, and stretched out for a long sleep, with a delicious sense upon me of being done with bother, and grief, and anxiety, and doubt, and fear, forever and ever, and listening with comfortable and increasing satisfaction to the sexton's work, from the startling clatter of his first spadeful on my coffin till it dulled away to the faint patting that shaped the roof of my new home-delicious! My! I wish you could try it to-night!" and out of my reverie deceased fetched me a rattling slap with ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... intoned 'Amen' came from the vestry just then, the organ played a voluntary, and the vicar and curate marched in at the end of a procession of little surpliced country boys, whose boots made a very undevotional clatter over the brasses ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... of dinner-parties. "I dislike large dinners exceedingly. This herding together of men and women for the purpose of eating, this clatter of knives and forks, is barbarous. What can be more horrible than to see and hear a person talking with his mouth full? But Landor has strange notions, has he not, Giallo? In fact Padrone is a fool if we may believe what folks say. Once, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... third summer there fell a hot night, a night issue, and a strained waiting for something to be telegraphed from the other side of the world, exactly as had happened before. A few great men had died in the past two years, the machines worked with more clatter, and some of the trees in the office garden were a few feet taller. But that was all ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... me upon the waters" And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street. O City city, I can sometimes hear Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street, 260 The pleasant whining of a mandoline And a clatter and a chatter from within Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls Of Magnus Martyr hold Inexplicable splendour ...
— The Waste Land • T. S. Eliot
... the church the mass was nearly over. The Indians, on entering, made quite a noise, and clatter. They would' not remove their hats or head-dresses, they Would not shut the door, nor remain silent, in fact, they did anything they considered provoking and ugly. The good priest, the ill-fated Father Fafard, turned upon the altar, and addressed them. He warned them of the danger of excitement ...
— Two months in the camp of Big Bear • Theresa Gowanlock and Theresa Delaney
... offensive form of pride, in the externals of humility and rotten with innate malignity, groaned audibly through his clenched teeth; and with shut eyes and crossed hands, as in prayer, sought to pass a practical rebuke upon the less devout exhibitions of those around him. The cant and the clatter, as it prevails in the crowded mart, were here in miniature; and Charity would have needed something more than a Kamschatka covering to have shut out from her eyes the enormous hypocrisy of many among ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... answer to the doctor—she could not. Besides, what could she say, with Patty's big blue eyes, bigger and bluer than ever in her thin face, looking at her so wistfully? She dared not say it was impossible. But Aunt Emma had no such scruples. With a great clatter and racket, that lady fell upon the dishes that held Patty's almost untasted dinner and whisked them away while her tongue kept ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... lounged about the open door of the Green Tree, a popular tavern on the bank of the Monongahela, in Pittsburg. The proprietor had found difficulty in providing refreshment for the swarm of hungry mechanics, farmers and boatmen who elbowed their way to a seat at his famed dining-table. To the clatter of dishes was added the clamor of voices making demands upon the decanters, which yielded an inexhaustible supply of rum, whiskey ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... suffice to intimidate such robbers. One was accordingly fired in the direction of the town, which fairly shook the island, as they said, and it was not long before we saw that the rogues were fully aroused, for the clatter of gongs and voices that came over the water, and the motion of lights, convinced me that the pistol would be forthcoming in the morning. In this I was not mistaken, for at early daylight I was awakened by a special ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... ending with a steamboat, which it seemed our fate to behold only at daybreak on winter mornings, when (in the days before continental railroads), just sufficiently awake to know that we were most uncomfortably asleep, it was our destiny always to clatter through it, in the coupe of the diligence from Paris, with a sea of mud behind, and a ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... But you reminded me of a cartoon back home where the cat's in the kitchen and has upset some pots and pans and is trying to catch them before they fall and make a clatter." ...
— Hunters Out of Space • Joseph Everidge Kelleam
... soon, however, fell into an absorbed and moody reverie; and his followers imitating the silence of their chief, in a few minutes the clatter of their arms and the jingle of their spurs, alone disturbed the stillness of the wide and gloomy plains across which they made towards Terracina. Montreal was recalling with bitter resentment his conference with Rienzi; and, proud ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... had pushed the curtains aside; the crashing of the orchestra had prevented our hearing the clatter of the rings. He had pushed by the man standing there, had come in ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... not live on the avenues suffer in their sympathetic imagination much more than the actual martyrs to the "L" road suffer in fact. Imagination makes cowards of us all. For my part, I endured agonies from the rush, whirl and clatter of New York before I left London; but here I find nothing that, to healthy nerves, is not rather enjoyable than otherwise. Neither up town nor down town is the traffic so dense, the roar and bustle so continuous, as that of London; while the service of trains and cars is ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... wood-smoke mounted from a cottage chimney and went drifting slowly down the valley in level layers; or on still summer afternoons, when there came up from the hollow the sounds of hay-making—the scythe shearing through the grass, the clatter of the whetstone, the occasional country voices. The dialect, and the odd ideas expressed in it, worked their elusive magic over and over again. To hear a man commend the weather, rolling out his "Nice moarnin'" with the ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... seeing after the horses and men when a "crisis" might have occurred at any moment! Luckily, however, dignity was preserved. Land at last "hove in sight" as the grey morning grew paler and clearer. What busy-looking quays! More clatter of disembarkation. No time to ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... of red and white peppermint and turned to the toys. There was a tiny sailboat with a little wooden sailor on deck; but Robin would always be dabbling in the water if he got that. A tin horse and cart caught his eye. That would make such a clatter on the bare ...
— Big Brother • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... scullery, before the cook had missed him, Early in the morning his labours he began: Once again to clean the shoes and clatter with the water-pail, Once again to scrub the jack ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... white shot before her eyes, something inky black and dusky white was snatched at and seized by those nervous, slender, but determined little hands. Something dropped with clash and clatter on the resounding floor. Something ripped and tore as an agile, slippery, squirming form bounded from her grasp over the casement to the veranda, over the sill into the street, and when Brent and the doctor and the women-folk came rushing in and lamps were brought ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... note-books, but only what he considers really important and worth knowing. The fact, again, that he does not load his pages with references and learned notes has been treated like a crimen loesae majestatis; and yet, with all the clamor and clatter that has been raised, few authors have had so little to alter or rectify in their later editions as Mommsen. To have produced two such scholars, historians, and statesmen as Niebuhr and Mommsen, would be an honor to any kingdom in Germany: how much more to the small duchy of Schleswig-Holstein, ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... the wedding was already fixed for July 7, and yet there was no joy in her heart, she was sleeping badly, her spirits drooped. . . . She could hear from the open windows of the basement where the kitchen was the hurrying servants, the clatter of knives, the banging of the swing door; there was a smell of roast turkey and pickled cherries, and for some reason it seemed to her that it would be like that all her life, with no change, no end ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... much clatter, the gardener's son brought a rope, and then, under Mr. Franklin's directions, they bound the man in the ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... toward a tin pail of eggs on the table. "Seven dollars a clatter, though," he confessed, after ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... Abbe, Madame de la Baudraye's counselor, was dead; he would certainly have prevented her rushing into public life. But three years of work without recognition weighed on Dinah's soul, and she accepted the clatter of fame as a substitute for her disappointed ambitions. Poetry and dreams of celebrity, which had lulled her grief since her meeting with Anna Grossetete, no longer sufficed to exhaust the activity of her morbid ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... into his pocket, drew out the revolver, and hurled it through the open window. They could hear it clatter on the cliffs below and then splash into the ocean. Instinctively, Koltsoff's eyes had followed the flight of the weapon. When he turned his head Jack was close at his side. The Russian stepped back. Jack ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... the steps and hammered again on the door. No one answered his knock. There was a clatter of footsteps, and Henri and the locksmith, a burly, bearded man, his bag of tools slung over his shoulder, came hurrying up. He was not long getting to work, but it was not an easy job. The lock ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson
... degeneracy in the farmer's face Kenny barricaded the door with a loose plank from the upper step, made sure it would fall easily with a clatter, examined his revolver and had his sleep out, thanks to the fact that the day proved cloudy. He awoke to flies and disillusion. His head ached. His back ached. There was a spider in his hat. He wanted water. He wanted a brook equipped with a shower-bath and he wanted the luxury of eating what he ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... join their heads and their bodies; you join all," he said. "I will spit once and they will appear as if they were not cut at all. I will whip my perfume which is banowes, they quickly breathe. I whip my perfume which is alikadakad (clatter), and they quickly stand up. I whip my perfume which is dagimonau (monau—just awakened) and they quickly recover." [201] "Oh, how long we have slept," they said. "How long we have slept, you say, and you have been dead." "Oh, ...
— Traditions of the Tinguian: A Study in Philippine Folk-Lore • Fay-Cooper Cole
... wave of the white-gloved hand, a few gentle tips of the wand, and then a sweep which seemed to draw out the long, rich opening chord of the Dream Song and set it drifting away among the trees till it lost itself in the rattle and clatter of the ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... as he, who hears the tumult wide, And clatter of church-bells, ere he espy The raging fire, concealed from none beside Himself, to him most dangerous, and most nigh; Such was King Charles; who heard, and then descried The new disaster with his very eye. Hence he the choicest ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... crossing it swiftly, in the direction of the theatre. A head was, now and then, thrust out of a shop-door, but I never before witnessed such a calm in this place, which is usually alive with people. Passing part of the way through one of the glazed galleries, I was started by a general clatter that sprung up all around me in every direction, and which extended itself entirely around the whole of the long galleries. The interruption to the previous profound quiet, was as sudden as the report of a gun, and it became general, as it were, ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the sleepers were awakened by the ringing of a bell and the clatter of hoofs. It was the cavallada returning to camp, under the charge of Benito, who had thus kept his promise. The travellers were soon upon their feet, but it was soon perceived that the two trappers were not amongst them. These had gone away ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... Uncle John broke in on his meditations. Then there was a clatter as a briar pipe dropped on to the floor of the boat, and his uncle ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... 193. "The it, together with the verb to be, express states of being."—Cobbett's Eng. Gram., 190. "Hence it is, that the profuse variety of objects in some natural landscapes, neither breed confusion nor fatigue."—Kames, El. of Crit., i, 266. "Such a clatter of sounds indicate rage and ferocity."—Music of Nature, p. 195. "One of the fields make threescore square yards, and the other only fifty-five."—Duncan's Logic, p. 8. "The happy effects of this fable ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... when his speed began to slacken, and Captain Vinton, commander of the charging squadron, came alongside, gave the command, "Halt" which was twice repeated. My horse swerved to the right and, when brought to a standstill, was a little way in the woods. The clatter of hoofs behind had told me that I was followed, and I supposed it was by my own troopers. Not so, however. Vinton either did not hear, or was too much "under the influence of a pardonable excitement and zeal" to heed the order to halt, and continued on down the road to and ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... slaves, black and white, were in attendance with their masters' litters. Here lictors kept back the sight-seeking crowd, officers were lounging against the pillars, and the Roman guard were just assembling with a clatter of arms, to the sound of a trumpet within the door, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... attitude he had taken towards her and her friends, he lingered in the school-house until late. He had occupied himself in drawing up a statement of the facts, with an intimation that his continuance in the school would depend upon a rigid investigation of the circumstances, when he was aroused by the clatter of horses' hoofs. The next moment the school-house was surrounded ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... for pastime and for passion; he goes for wooing and for wantoning; for marriage and for murder. He goes in D sharp with pomp, pride, and power, and we can distinguish the tread of his servants' feet, the clatter of arms, and the hurrying together of his escort and retinue. He goes again in B flat minor, stealthily and unattended, the orchestra giving the motive with muted violins and subdued brass. We seem to hear naught but the soft pad-pad of his felt bedroom slippers ...
— Bluebeard • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... of the foregoing narrative, had galloped away, with a prodigious clatter, upon Grandfather's stick, and was not yet returned. So large a boy should have been ashamed to ride upon a stick. But Laurence and Clara had listened attentively, and were affected by this true story of the gentle lady who had come so far to die so soon. Grandfather ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... morning till night. It was hard labor, as she had to work with her feet as well as her hands, producing slop clothing at the rate of a yard a minute. Never for an instant might her eyes wander from the seam; and all this severe work was done in the midst of an ear-splitting clatter, which alone would have worn out a person not thoroughly accustomed ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade
... pretty well weeded out now. I say, how good civilisation is!" he went on, his eyes dwelling lovingly on the interior of the restaurant. "Tophole, isn't it, Lutchester—these smart girls, with their furs and violets and perfumes, the little note of music in the distance, the cheerful clatter of plates, the smiling faces of the waiters, and the undercurrent of pleasant voices. Don't laugh at me, please, Miss Van Teyl. I've three weeks more of it, by George—perhaps more. I don't go up before my Board till Thursday fortnight. Dash it, I ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... King," a momentary silence fell upon the company, contrasting strangely with the clatter of ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... of mine, My wife and children's ghosts will haunt me still. I cannot strike at wretched kerns, whose arms Are hired to bear their staves; either thou, Macbeth, Or else my sword, with an unbatter'd edge, I sheathe again undeeded. There thou shouldst be; By this great clatter, one of greatest note Seems bruited. Let me find him, fortune! And ...
— Macbeth • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... Gibberts stood grasping the poker by the middle, then he flung it with a clatter on the fender, and, sitting down, gazed moodily into the fire, without moving, until Shorely had ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... blind? We should say deaf, I think. The blind always enjoy the merry clatter of tongues. Why did ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... many colours that you saw, O Mac Roth,' said Fergus, 'are the eyes of the warriors from their heads which have shone to you like sparks of fire. The thunder and the din and the noise(?) that you heard, was the whistling of the swords and of the ivory-hilted weapons, the clatter of arms, the creaking of the chariots, the beating of the hoofs of the horses, the strength of the warriors, the roar of the fighting-men, the noise of the soldiers, the great rage and anger and fierceness of the heroes going in madness to the battle, for the greatness of the ...
— The Cattle-Raid of Cualnge (Tain Bo Cualnge) • Unknown
... plain that he was "not receiving" that morning. But Virginia had come to call, and call she would. Nothing daunted by his coolness, she hopped in. The robin was amazed; then declared war in his peculiar way,—first a hop of six inches, with wings spread, then a savage clatter of the bill. His guest met this demonstration quite calmly. She lowered her head, to defend herself if necessary, but made no other movement. Her calmness filled the robin with horror; he fled ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... had returned to the house, and we were about following them, when the clatter of a horse's hoofs was heard without, and the officious voices of the negroes announced the arrival of a visitor or messenger for the Colonel, who stepped forward to meet him. A young man, clad in a coarse homespun ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... to be performed, I grew terribly out of humour, and shut myself up in a chamber of the inn, which, to complete my misfortune, was crowded with human lumber. Instead of a delightful symphony, I heard nothing for some time but the clatter of plates and ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... when a tremendous din and clatter nearly deafened him, and set the whole tower trembling. It ...
— The Master Key - An Electrical Fairy Tale • L. Frank Baum
... on. You should hear the machines whir and the tongues clatter in the sewing room. Our most cowed, apathetic, spiritless little orphan cheers up and takes an interest in life when she hears that she is to possess three perfectly private dresses of her own, and each a different color, chosen by herself. And you should see how it encourages their sewing ability. ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... are surrounded, and look back at the house, which, from a little distance, seems almost, like Shakespeare's moonlight, to 'sleep upon the bank,' I can hardly conceive how so gentle-looking a dwelling can continue to send forth such an incessant clatter of obstreperous sound through its honeysuckle-fringed windows. It really reminds me of a pretty shrew, whose amiable smiles would hardly allow a casual observer to suspect the possibility of so fair a surface being ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... A clatter of approaching wheels caused Anton to look up. It was the buggy, with his father whipping the pony to full speed, returning along the road to find out what accident had happened. Anton shouted, but did ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... his mistress' carriage far away on the boulevard. His heart beat vehemently under his silk waistcoat as the gate turned on its hinges. He was about to behold the heavenly, the glowing face of his Esther!—the clatter of the carriage-step and the slam of the door struck upon his heart. He was more agitated in expectation of this supreme moment than he would have been if his fortune ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... which could possibly interest the congregation—being, in fact, some controversial homily, which Mr. Dumdrum had composed and preached years before. And when this discourse was over, there was a loud universal grunt, as if of release and thanksgiving, and a great clatter of shoes—and the old hobbled, and the young scrambled, ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... the imprisonment of Roberto; and why and how the provisor went, with great clatter of weapons and constables, to arrest a brother ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... ox is not here, nor the fatted calf, nor any of the mere advantages of the table; but there is the varied harvest of the sea, and all the freshness of an isle clean and green. The heat, the clatter, the stuffy odours, the toilsomeness, the fatigue of town life are abandoned; the careless quiet, the calm, the refreshment of the whole air, the tonic of the wide sea are gained. From the moment the sun illumines our hills and ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... reached the door, Leneli sat down on the step, and Mother Adolf put the baby in her arms and went at once into the quiet house. Then there was a sound of quick steps about the kitchen, a rattling of the stove, and a clatter of tins which must have pleased the cuckoo, and soon she reappeared in the door with a bowl and ...
— The Swiss Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... music-hall song, everlastingly quoted, and sung at all hours of the day and night, and treasured by the street boys as an unfailing resource for six months together. He went out into the streets, and tried to forget his enemy in the jostling of the crowds, and the roar and clatter of the traffic; but presently he would find himself stealing quietly aside and pacing some deserted byway, vainly puzzling his brains, and trying to fix some meaning to phrases that were meaningless. It was a positive relief when Thursday came, and he remembered that ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... had stopped, four rifle-shots rapped out in quick succession not far ahead. De Wet, we at once conjectured. In the darkness on our left we heard an impatient corporal turning out his sleepy guard, and a stir and clatter of arms. One of our companies of infantry was also turned out, and a party formed to patrol the line, outposts having reported some Boers tampering with the rails. The rest of the train was sound asleep, but we, ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... whose soul he was once responsible; perhaps, being (in spite of his Nones and Vespers) a human soul, he is glad of an opportunity of opposing the counsels of his successor, Talavera. In a word, he will use his Influence. Then follow much drafting of letters, and laying of heads together, and clatter of monkish tongues; the upshot of which is that a letter is written in which Perez urges his daughter in the Lord in the strongest possible terms not to let slip so glorious an opportunity, not only of fame and increment to her kingdom, ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... the New Bridge affords the same wonder and delight. For it entices like the old, from stifling streets to the haunts of Pan. There do you find leafy walks, and dells of shade, and pathways by the great cool river leading to sequestered spots where you may sit and forget the clatter of flagstones and the stuffy apartment above them for which the rent is due; where the air of early June is perfumed by wild thyme and marjoram and the far-flung sweetness of new mown hay, and where the nightingales sing. So, whenever it can, all Avignon turns out, as it has turned out for ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... were suddenly thrown aside, and a footman entered announcing the newly-arrived guest. From the hall beyond came the sound of a departing motor, and the clatter of luggage being brought in. The footman stood on ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... singular agitation visible in the multitude. The sky was veiled with a portentous gloom, and currents of excitement seemed to flash through the crowd like the thrill which shakes the forest on the eve of a storm. A secret tide was sweeping them all one way. The clatter of sandals, and the soft, thick sound of thousands of bare feet shuffling over the stones, flowed unceasingly along the street that leads to the ...
— The Story of the Other Wise Man • Henry Van Dyke
... heard the cheerful clatter of crockery, accompanied by a savoury incense, and talk and laughter. He imagined the girl making fun of his sentimental reasons for staying on deck; but, too proud to meet her ironical glances, stayed doggedly where he was, resolving ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... passed over him. He had sat so long without moving that his legs bent under him. There was a pail of water with a dipper in it on a bench. He caught up a dipperful of water, drank it empty, and let it fall in the pail again with a clatter. ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... day w'en Brer Rabbit wuz fixin' fer ter call on Miss Coon, he heerd a monstrus fuss en clatter up de big road, en 'mos' 'fo' he could fix his years fer ter lissen, Brer Wolf run in de do'. De little Rabbits dey went inter dere hole in de cellar, dey did, like blowin' out a cannle. Brer Wolf Wuz far'ly kivver'd wid mud, en ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... and seated himself on the broad sill of one of the dormer windows. He took a book from his pocket and began energetically to read it, judging by the precision and frequency with which he turned the leaves. The sewing-machine made a resounding clatter in the room; it was of a ponderous, by-gone make. In the lulls, Robert and his mother exchanged bits of ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... day they were at the top of exhilaration. There was one broad grin from one end of the column to the other; it might soon have been a caravan of elephants instead of camels, for the ivory and the blackness; the chatter and the laughter almost drowned the tramp of feet and the clatter of equipments. At cross-roads and plantation gates the colored people thronged to see us pass; every one found a friend and a greeting. "How you do, aunty?" "Huddy (how d'ye), Budder Benjamin?" "How you find yourself dis mor-nin', ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... belly, and its head larger than all the rest of its body; well mouth-cloven however, having a goodly pair of wide, broad jaws, lined with two rows of teeth, upper tier and under tier, which, by the magic of a small twine hid in the hollow part of the golden staff, were made to clash, clatter, and rattle dreadfully one against another; as they do at Metz ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... boy, who had the same sort of blue eyes and golden hair that made Flossie such a pretty little girl, came tumbling up the steps with a clatter and a bang, falling down at Bert's feet. The older boy caught his small brother just in time, or there might have been a ...
— Bobbsey Twins in Washington • Laura Lee Hope
... and tell us why he is forever sad. The Lycian Apollo might strike his lyre; and, at the first vibration, that other Faun in red marble, who keeps up a motionless dance, should frisk gayly forth, leading yonder Satyrs, with shaggy goat-shanks, to clatter their little hoofs upon the floor, and all join hands with Donatello! Bacchus, too, a rosy flush diffusing itself over his time-stained surface, could come down from his pedestal, and offer a cluster ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... XIV., who had only almost waited. In her feverish impatience Madame Phellion had just given the bell a third and ferocious reverberation, when, judge of her confusion, a little coupe drew up with much clatter at the door of her house, and a lady descended, whom she recognized, at this untimely hour, as the ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... and noted how the level sun stood in a haze beyond, and how it shadowed and brought out the slight irregularities of the road, was a cart drawn by a galloping donkey, which came at and passed me with a prodigious clatter as I dragged myself forward. In the cart were two nuns, each with a scythe; they were going out mowing, and were up the first in the village, as Religious always are. Cheered by this happy omen, but not yet heartened, I next met a very old man leading out a horse, and asked him if there ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... by vigorous riding and driving, which caused a great clatter and drew forth many leering faces from darkened doorways, we debouched into that long main street down which I had shot so few days before in such an agony of doubt. Hurrying homeward in the same direction, we now met bands of our siege converts in groups of forty and fifty strong. These ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... by. They could hear the rush of feet and chatter of voices on the deck outside, then excited cries of recognition and greeting, as the boat swung into the dock, and finally the clatter of the gangplank as it was run into place. Almost at once there came a tap at the door. Vard sprang to open it and found Pachmann and the ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... of his one hundred and fifty dollars would be coming to him if he still held to his haughty resolve to take no more than he had earned. Two thirds of one hundred and fifty, less sixty-odd dollars overdrawn... He was recalled from his occupation by Brauer's voice rising above the clatter of carelessly ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... actors—and some of them of Elliston's own stamp—who shall have agreeably been amusing you in the part of a rake or a coxcomb, through the two or three hours of their dramatic existence; but no sooner does the curtain fall with its leaden clatter, but a spirit of lead seems to seize on all their faculties. They emerge sour, morose persons, intolerable to their families, servants, &c. Another shall have been expanding your heart with generous ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... the light she had brought with her on a packing-case, she was groping about among the boxes, when she perceived, to her astonishment, that the flame of the candle had suddenly turned blue. She then felt icy cold, and was much startled on hearing a loud clatter as of some metal instrument on the stone floor in the far-off corner of the cellar. Glancing in the direction of the noise, she saw, looking at her, two eyes—two obliquely set, lurid, light eyes, full of the utmost devilry. Sick ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... five miles, she discovered that the men had seen her. For the trails were growing close together now—not more than half a mile of slightly broken country stretched between them, and she could see the men waving their hats; could hear their voices above the whir and clatter of ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... take it and to shake it I do. It is often I gave myself a promise the time there will be no sound from it, I will give in to nourish myself, I will rise out of misery. But every time I will try it, I will hear a little clatter that tells me there is some space left; some small ...
— New Irish Comedies • Lady Augusta Gregory
... was the sound of a bugle, followed by the tramp of feet; and the young officer, scowling fiercely, turned half-right, and as he did so let his sword down, so that the end of the scabbard might clatter against the white deck, as he marched off to where the men were assembling, while the middy burst ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... scattered furs along the benches showed where sleepers might have rested. But from outside, a clatter of hurrying feet and excited voices broke suddenly upon her. Did it mean a battle? She sat up, straining eye and ear. The jubilant voices shouted greetings that just missed being intelligible. The sun, glancing from moving weapons, flashed ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... run down this country, doctor? It's a glorious country, a magnificent country. I declare I hate the clatter and racket and rush of Chicago more and more every time I go back ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... to the carriage, and so extend about ten yards, on slippery pavement, through very narrow streets, extremely crowded with women and children; then they will flog their horses to full speed, and clatter along without fear or shame. Nothing happens; I have remarked that nothing ever does anywhere ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... heaps of stone show the corners and boundaries of the church and other buildings. Ivy-stems, coils of green gigantic pythons, climb about the walls and broken doorways; pigeons nest on the window-ledges and clatter like frightened genii out over ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... sea and from the continent."(3) Meanwhile the Megarians, who were beginning to die of hunger, begged the Lacedaemonians to bring about the abolition of the decree, of which those harlots were the cause; several times we refused their demand; and from that time there was horrible clatter of arms everywhere. You will say that Sparta was wrong, but what should she have done? Answer that. Suppose that a Lacedaemonian had seized a little Seriphian(4) dog on any pretext and had sold it, would you have endured it quietly? Far from it, you would ...
— The Acharnians • Aristophanes
... sang those words, she passed on. She had heard enough of the four girls' talk, even were they not now interrupted by a sudden clatter inside Monsignor's house—a sound of calling, of quick heavy feet, of cries and the flinging down of a man, and then a noise as of dragging a bound prisoner out. . . . Monsignor appeared for an instant at the window as she, coming from the Duomo, passed his ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... this martial ceremony. Suddenly an unknown young man approached the Imperial gallery, and shouted: "Down with the Emperor! Liberty or death!" This ardent Republican was at once arrested. His voice had been lost in the music and clatter ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... and the pipe of the wind took a more sonorous sound; an expression or two in tones that seemed to indicate a feeling of relief and satisfaction passed between the persons overhead, and then a string of orders pealed forth from one of them, followed by the clatter of ropes thrown down on the deck, and the cries of the crew as they made sail upon the vessel. The movements of the craft now rapidly grew more lively; she heeled still more steeply under the pressure of the wind; the splash and rush of water alongside grew momentarily more confused; ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... word from Durward they galloped briskly away, the clatter of their horses' hoofs arousing and bringing to the window Mrs. Graham, who had a suspicion of what was going on. Pushing aside the silken curtain, she looked uneasily after them, wondering if in reality her son cared aught for the graceful creature at his side, and ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... head, and asked the goldfinch to come up in the bush and see which was stronger. The greenfinch and the chaffinch shrieked with derision; the wood-pigeon turned his back and said "Pooh!" and went off with a clatter. The sparrow flew to tell his mates on the house, and you could hear the chatter they made about it right down at the brook. But the wren screamed loudest of all, and said that the goldfinch was a painted ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... repentance before his goddess, what time she was but a lonely girl in the clatter of New ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... dancing proceeded there was a noisy clatter of glasses and a mutter of voices in the neighborhood ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... many fish have to be given for a bed, or whether a load of onions is good value for a chair, you can imagine that there has to be a good deal of argument. Besides, the Egyptian dearly loves bargaining for the mere excitement of the thing, and so the clatter of tongues is deafening. Here and there one or two traders have advanced a little beyond the old-fashioned way of barter, and offer, instead of goods, so many rings of copper, silver, or gold wire. A peasant who has brought in a bullock to ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Ancient Egypt • James Baikie
... roar Of the monster guns; And the sharp bark Of the lesser guns; The whine of the shells, The rifles' clatter Where the bullets patter, The rattle, rattle, rattle Of the mitrailleuse in battle, And the yells Of the men who charge through hells Where the poison gas descends. And the bursting shrapnel rends Limb from limb In the dim Chaos and clamor of the ...
— The Red Flower - Poems Written in War Time • Henry Van Dyke
... But not a whit cared Barney For cross or coaxing word; And clatter, clatter, clatter still, His ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... his hands and let them down with a clatter against his thighs. I was silent, Virginia alarmed, while the officers consulted together in low murmurs, and the priest filled up the rest of his forms out of his own head. Presently the tall ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... of girls and boys belonging to Riverport had gathered early, having seats adjacent. And how merrily the tongues did clatter as Cissy Anderson called attention to the clever way in which Sid Wells carried himself, which remark would of course reach the boy's ears in good time, as his sister, Mame, who felt almost like crying because she could not be in line with ...
— Fred Fenton on the Track - or, The Athletes of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... practising on themselves. They learn to understand themselves. They learn to know what they want. Their taste becomes surer and surer as their experience lengthens. They do not enjoy to-day what will seem tedious to them to-morrow. When they find a book tedious, no amount of popular clatter will persuade them that it is pleasurable; and when they find it pleasurable no chill silence of the street-crowds will affect their conviction that the book is good and permanent. They have faith in themselves. What are the qualities in a book which give keen and lasting pleasure ...
— LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT |
