"Peal" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... were overcast with heavy clouds, and torrents of rain poured down upon the face of the earth, and peal after peal of thunder boomed through the heavy heated air. Helen could not sleep; she rose, feverish and unrested from her husband's side, and paced wildly and miserably about the room. Then she went to the window and drew back the curtain, and looked out upon the storm-driven ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... favour than he had already done in that of the women, and when the contents of the two caldrons were at length set upon the coarse but clean cloth which in honour of his arrival covered the sod, it was in the midst of a loud and universal peal of laughter which some broad witticism of the young stranger had produced that the party ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... come forward; for the piece had been brought out anonymously; and I divined that Morrison himself was about to father it. And so he did; but as the lie passed his lips, and in the interval before the applause—the tiny interval between flash and peal—the lie was given him in a roar of fury from my left; there fell a thud of feet at my side, and Pharazyn was over the barrier and bolting down the gangway towards the stage. I think he was near making ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... blind man came up the path from the village. I was sitting on a stump of pine listening to the merry peal of the bells of the little village church below. He carried a milk-can, and felt his way with a long staff, with which he tapped the stones in front of him. He hesitated for a moment as he passed me, as if vaguely conscious of a disturbing presence. ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... the pair stole softly up the length of the chancel to the altar, dropped on their knees, lifted the bottom edge of the tapestry, crawled underneath it, let it fall behind them, and rose to their feet in the enclosed space between wall and tapestry at the precise moment when a great bell began to peal out its alarm note from some distant part of the building. The organist almost immediately ceased playing, and a minute later the soft pad-pad of his own and another's sandalled feet descending a wooden staircase not ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... pleasantry; wit &c. 842; quip, quirk. [verbal expressions of amusement: list] giggle, titter, snigger, snicker, crow, cheer, chuckle, shout; horse laugh, , belly laugh, hearty laugh; guffaw; burst of laughter, fit of laughter, shout of laughter, roar of laughter, peal of laughter; cachinnation[obs3]; Kentish fire; tiger. play; game, game at romps; gambol, romp, prank, antic, rig, lark, spree, skylarking, vagary, monkey trick, gambade, fredaine[obs3], escapade, echappee[Fr], bout, espieglerie[Fr]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... backstairs came the peal of the front door bell. We heard Mary Ellen drop the poker and run through the house. It was an unheard of hour for the front door bell to ring. We sat up in bed in stiffened attitudes of expectancy. Mary Ellen was mounting the front ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... his statement. The bells moved too slowly for either the second or the third peal, and we had ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... came a loud rattling peal of thunder, followed immediately by a blinding flash of lightning that zigzagged across the sky, making the dense ...
— The Torch Bearer - A Camp Fire Girls' Story • I. T. Thurston
... the way in which events are telegraphed from the inside of a house to the exterior thereof. Hardly were Mr. Somers' last words spoken, Faith was not yet out of Mr. Linden's hands, when there came a peal from the little white church as if the bell-ringing of two or three Sundays were concentrated in one. Much to the surprise of Mr. Somers; who, to speak truth, rather thought the bells were his personal property, and as such playing truant. ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... Tuscan army, Right glorious to behold, Come flashing back the noonday light, Rank behind rank, like surges bright Of a broad sea of gold. Four hundred trumpets sounded A peal of warlike glee, As that great host, with measured tread, And spears advanced, and ensigns spread, Rolled slowly towards the bridge's head, ...
— Lays of Ancient Rome • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... printed card appear behind the glass, which will tell you the day of the month and the day of the week. At the last stroke of the clock, Time will lift his scythe again into its former position, and the chimes will ring a peal. The peal will be succeeded by the playing of a tune—the favorite march of my old regiment—and then the final performance of the clock will follow. The sentry-boxes, which you may observe at each side, will both open at ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... spoke, the low rumble of thunder sounded, and deepened and deepened until it culminated in a mighty clap that seemed to shake the foundations of the earth, then followed peal after peal, and soon the rain descended in torrents, beating the waters of the pools into froth, and making a noise as of surf surging upon ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... up, for he reckoned Fritz would get the fright of his life. It's a good spirit, maybe, but I don't think it's sound on the facts. We've got two mighty great armies of fine fighting-men, but, because we've two commands, we're bound to move ragged like a peal of bells. The Hun's got one army and forty years of stiff tradition, and, what's more, he's going all out this time. He's going to smash our front before America lines up, or perish in the attempt ... Why do you suppose all the peace racket in Germany has died down, ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... found" rang through the house like a peal of bells. In an instant Flyaway Runaway was clasped in everybody's arms, and ...
— Little Folks Astray • Sophia May (Rebecca Sophia Clarke)
... bell handle. A jangling peal rang discordantly, echoing through the emptiness within. No one came. They rang again and again—but there was no sign of life. Then they walked completely round the house. Everywhere silence, and shuttered windows. If they ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... their sowies to the wall Wi' mony heavy peal But he threw ower to them again Baith piech ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang
... spoke first, and was followed by Ruth Baxter, a frail little woman, with a voice of exceeding power. The not unmelodious chant in which she delivered her admonitions rang out, at times, like the peal of a trumpet. Fixing her eyes on vacancy, with her hands on the wooden rail before her, and her body slightly swaying to and fro, her voice soared far aloft at the commencement of every sentence, gradually dropping, through a melodious scale of tone, to the close. She resembled ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... by the Crown to the Pizarros. As the martial pageant swept through the streets of Lima, the air was rent with acclamations from the populace, and from the spectators in the balconies. The cannon sounded at intervals, and the bells of the city— those that the viceroy had spared rang out a joyous peal, as if in honor ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... That very instant a peal of thunder rumbles over the city, and a trail of forked lightning splits the midnight skies. "The very heavens salute Prussia!" cries Bismarck—and the ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... of the wall. The bonfires shone bright along the whole circuit of the ramparts. The Irish guns continued to roar all night; and all night the bells of the rescued city made answer to the Irish guns with a peal of joyous defiance. Through the whole of the thirty-first of July the batteries of the enemy continued to play. But, soon after the sun had again gone down, flames were seen arising from the camp; and, when the first of August dawned, a line ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... unbroken expanse of dirty yellow haze. It reminded Wilmshurst of the efforts of an amateur painter trying to "lay on" a coat of yellow paint with a tar-stained brush. Far away to the north came the reverberations of a peal of thunder. It was Nature's signal to the ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... of contentment over and over again, until, the pipe being finished, he prepared for sleep also. But no sleep came to the old man. He was too full of thought, and too fearful of the child waking in the night and wanting something. The air was close and hot, and now and then a peal of thunder broke overhead; but a profound peace and tranquillity, slightly troubled by his new joy, held possession of him. His grandchild was there, and his daughter was coming back to him ...
— Alone In London • Hesba Stretton
... In truth it was so. And in every byre the oxen and the kine answered the strange sweet cadences with their lowing, and the great stone oxen lowed back to their kin of the meadow through the deep notes of the joy-peal. ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... purport of the signals became known, a frenzied roar of "Banzai Nippon!" went up from ships and shore, a roar that sent a shiver of excitement thrilling through me, so deep, so intense, so indicative of indomitable determination, of courage, and of intense patriotism was it. Peal after peal of "Banzais" swept over the sullen, turbulent waters of the harbour, to be taken up and repeated by the thousands who thronged the wharves ashore, and who seemed to have sprung from nowhere ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... all in line, or two suitable lines, 30,000 of them; and then, with clangorous outburst of trumpet, kettle-drum and all manner of field-music, fires off his united artillery a first time; almost shaking the very hills by such a thunderous peal, in the still afternoon. And mark, close fitted into the artillery peal, commences a rolling fire, like a peal spread out in threads, sparkling strangely to eye and ear; from right to left, long spears ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... stiff and cold. Suddenly from directly above her, there came the hideous clanking of iron chains. Connie had read ghost stories, and she knew the significance of clanking chains, but she stood her ground in spite of the almost irresistible impulse to fly. After the clanking, the loud and clamorous peal ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... a balmy evening in May. Lady Bassett was commencing her toilet in an indolent way, with Mary Wells in attendance, when the church-bells of Huntercombe struck up a merry peal. ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... A Spanish keel One of the Great Armada gay, Was blasted in Our Lady's Bay; One of the Fleet the floods conceal, Though o'er the waves was wont to peal The thunder ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... the old tower was open, and they mounted a well-conditioned flight of circular steps towards the summit. Having climbed to the top of the first flight, they passed through a door into another tower, where there hung a peal of huge bells,—one more vast than the rest, which, on being struck, gave forth a ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... retainers, and awaited the issue, intending not to begin hostilities, but to defend themselves should the French make an attack. It was agreed that if any necessity should arise for taking up arms, the bells of the various churches in the town should ring a peal and so serve as a general signal. Such a resolution was perhaps of more significant moment in Florence than it could have been in any other town. For the palaces that still remain from that period are virtually fortresses and the eternal fights between Guelphs and Ghibellines had familiarised ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the choral song Of happy birds among the forest bowers, Hears the seraphic and harmonious strains That angels chant around the eternal throne!— To him there is an anthem in the breeze, A burst of triumph in the thunder's peal, Which, slowly rolling through the troubled air, Strikes man with terror, and yet ...
— Enthusiasm and Other Poems • Susanna Moodie
... lovely peal of laughter. "Exactly what I thought all the time," said she. "I wanted to buy them; you don't know how much; but it was like buying rabbits, and white elephants, and—oh, I don't know! a perfect menagerie of things I couldn't bear to live with, and I didn't see how I could give ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... a peal. The large carriage entered the first courtyard. The gate of the principal courtyard was then opened, and Monseigneur appeared on the carriage steps which the footman lowered for him. Mother St. Alexis advanced and, bending down, kissed the episcopal ring. Mother ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... the last words in a deep and intense tone; and turning away as the joyful peal again broke ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... he had thus solemnly invoked Jupiter by name, and was about to call upon the other gods in the same manner, the clouds, which had been deepening and darkening, suddenly obscured the sun; a distant peal of thunder rolled along the heavens; and, at the same moment, from out the dark recesses of the temple, a voice of preternatural power came forth, proclaiming, so that the whole multitude heard the words,—'God is but one; the ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... day, visiting with an old aunt of her's, that I verily believe has read the Atalantis; she took a story out there, and dressed up an old honest neighbour in the second hand clothes of scandal. The young creature hid her face with her fan at every burst and peal of laughter, and blushed for her guilty parent; by which she atoned, methought, for every scandal that ran round the ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... Majesty, who on that day was dining with me. In one of the compartments the painter had depicted his hero in the guise of Bacchus; the King immediately took up a bottle of clear water and drank a big glass. I gave a great peal of laughter, and said to M. le Brun, "You see, monsieur, his Majesty's decision in ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... interest, the hopes of even the most sanguine were becoming faint, when Captain Cumming was observed to start, and point to the deck. He had heard the stifled sound of intolerable agony rise from below his feet, like a peal of distant thunder. The slaves were suffocating from want of air, and their dread of their jailers was extinguished in the immediate ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461 - Volume 18, New Series, October 30, 1852 • Various
... the tree, and beneath it I saw the fountain, and by its side the marble slab, and the silver bowl fastened by the chain. Then I took the bowl, and cast a bowlful of water upon the slab, and immediately I heard a mighty peal of thunder, so that heaven and earth seemed to tremble with its fury. And after the thunder came a, shower; and of a truth I tell thee, Kay, that it was such a shower as neither man nor beast could endure and live. I turned ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... reversed, forth came "MacGregor's" clan— Red "Dougal's" cry peal'd shrill and wild—"Rob Roy's" bold brow look'd wan; The fair "Diana" kissed her cross, and bless'd its sainted ray; And "Wae is me!" the "Bailie" sighed, "that I ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 572, October 20, 1832 • Various
... the choric peal shall end; That through the fanes hath rung; When the long lauds no more ascend From man's adoring tongue; When overwhelmed are altar, priest and creed; When all the faiths have passed; Perhaps from darkening incense freed, God ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... silence that followed there came forth a shout that sounded like a trumpet peal and startled ...
— The Martyr of the Catacombs - A Tale of Ancient Rome • Anonymous
... columns—columns of the dead That slumber on an hundred battle-fields— No bugle-blast shall waken till the trump Of the Archangel. O the loved and lost! For them no jubilee of chiming bells; For them no cannon-peal of victory; For them no outstretched arms of love and home. God's peace be with them. Heroes who went down, Wearing their stars, live in the nation's songs And stories—there be greater heroes still, That ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... little afraid of being actually suffocated, began to struggle, setting off Wilfred, and the adventure was having a conclusion, which would have accounted for the authentic existence of Perkin Warbeck, when—oh horror! there was a peal at the door-bell, and before there was a moment for the general scurry, Herbert the button-boy popped out of the pantry passage and admitted Mr. Leadbitter, to whom, as a late sixth standard boy, he had a special allegiance, ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a-throb, Harsh voises a-hallo, as beseems the mob! How good is noise! what's silence but despair Of making sound match gladness never there? Give me some great glad "subject," glorious Bach, Where cannon-roar not organ-peal we lack! Join in, give voice robustious rude and rough,— Avison ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... bell not very far off tolled three strokes, then four, then five, and then one, and an instant later it rang out in a peal. ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... admiral, so we had to go through his fire and that of two ships next to him, and received all their broadsides two or three times, before we fired a gun. It was then near ten o'clock. I observed to the admiral, that about that time our wives were going to church, but that I thought the peal we should ring about the Frenchman's ears would ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... years ago! Yet there are storied places that will never die out and the old bell of freedom has clanged many a peal, and the State House had many a Pilgrim. Truly there are numberless worthies in the great beyond, who have left behind imperishable memories even in a city that has grown anew more than once, and added ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... us rapidly; the rumble of the thunder grew momentarily louder, and soon became continuous; and presently a vivid flash of chain lightning streamed from the clouds low down upon the northern horizon, followed, in about half a minute, by a smart peal of thunder, much louder than any that we had yet heard. This was quickly succeeded by a second flash, perceptibly nearer than the first—for the interval between it and the resulting clap of thunder was noticeably ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... gratitude, Still with heart and voice renewed, To heroes living and dear martyrs dead, The strain should close that consecrates our brave. Lift the heart and lift the head! 355 Lofty be its mood and grave, Not without a martial ring, Not without a prouder tread And a peal of exultation: Little right has he to sing 360 Through whose heart in such an hour Beats no march of conscious power, Sweeps no tumult of elation! 'Tis no Man we celebrate, By his country's victories great, 365 A hero half, and half the whim of Fate, But the pith and ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... you come home with me and live with me always and sleep in my bed, you beautiful little Elf-man." And he put out his hand to catch the fairy as a child might grasp at a butterfly. But—puff!—he was off like a seed of the thistledown, and a peal of fairy laughter sounded in his ears. Then all was ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt
... a peal of laughter, and Lucile cried, "Stop stepping on my toes, Phil, for goodness' sakes! ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... smile, for he felt that he had the best of it. Be was surprised when Giovanni broke into a peal of ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... bowl we pass, And joke and wit and whim abound, When song and catch and friend and lass In sparkling wine we toast around, When Bull and Pun Rude riot run, And finding still the mirth increasing, Pealing laughter roars sans ceasing, I peal and roar and pant and say, Thus let me laugh ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... women followed the coffin; at a little distance they seemed two shadows. The helmsmen of the funeral boat now stepped to the head of the grave and opened his lips to speak, but a heavy peal of thunder drowned his voice. When it had ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... laughter rose in peal after peal. Amos's warmer, quicker laugh joined in, and in a second, laughter had spread to the group of seamen who doubled up, convulsed, fell on one another's shoulders as they wiped their eyes, and slapped their hard thighs ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... And bowed his head and waved his hand. And then, along the crowded strand, A sound of many sounds combined, That waxed and waved upon the wind, Burst like heaven's thunder, deep and grand; A lengthened peal, which paused, and then Renewed, like that which loathly parts, Oft on the ear returned again, The impulse of a thousand hearts. But as the lengthened shouts subside, Distincter accents strike the ear, Wafting across the current wide Heart-uttered ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... his head, his face beatific with joy. He resembled the youthful Saint George after slaying the dragon. She was startled. Her eyes positively lightened; he listened for the attendant peal of thunder. ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... fated to hold for him another startling anticlimax. It came one snowy morning when he had slept even later than usual, dreaming of an iridescent balloon that climbed higher and higher with Joan peeping radiantly over the edge until at the peal of the ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... scream that rends the very skies—and all this to gratify ambition, lust, pride, avarice, vanity, and other depraved feelings of the human heart.... THE WORST IS NOT GENERALLY KNOWN. Were all the miseries, the horrors of slavery, to burst at once into view, a peal of seven-fold thunder could scarce strike greater alarm."—See "Swain's ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... one of the servants into the dining-room, resolved to come to an explanation with the assailant, and either extort money from him by way of satisfaction, or provoke him to a second application before witnesses. With this view, he entered the room in a peal of clamour, to the amazement of all present, and the terror of Mrs. Trunnion, who shrieked at the appearance of such a spectacle; and addressing himself to the commodore, "I'll tell you what, sir," said he; "if there be law in England, I'll make ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... burst into a peal of merry laughter. "Oh Mags!" they cried, "we never did think before that you were conceited. You certainly overrate even your powers when you imagine that you will get Mr. Cardew ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... words little Alfred began to laugh so shrilly and so heartily that all the elderly folks irresistibly bore him company. Adam laughed too; and at the sound of this peal of laughter came bounding forward from all ends and corners Shem and Seth, Jacob and Solomon, Jonathan and David, just as a flock of sparrows comes flying down over a handful of scattered corn. They came laughing ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... of Falmouth, who laid the stone, contributed a thousand pounds towards the edifice; his mother gave three hundred pounds for a peal of bells; and others of the gentry who were present contributed; so that upwards of eighteen hundred pounds was promised that day. Just twelve months after, July 20, 1848, the same company, with many others, and ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam
... peal of laughter, in a very masculine key, broke upon Andy's ear. It proceeded from the usually undemonstrative maiden Liberia, who was bringing a pail of water from the creek when her path was crossed by the flying pair. From that hour ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... bestow* And now to the health of the brides and bridegrooms, in bumpers of champagne. Let all the attendants stand by, each with a fresh bottle, with only one uncut string. Let all the corks, when I give the signal, be discharged simultaneously; and we will receive it as a peal of Bacchic ordnance, in honour of the Power of Joyful Event,{1} whom we may assume to be presiding on this ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... having elapsed, the doctor emerged from the gloom and came up to see what progress had been made. He looked over Bert's shoulder at the crooked lines that straggled over half the page, but he could not have read more than the title, when the shadows of the great empty room were startled by a peal of laughter that went echoing through the darkness, and clapping the boy graciously upon his ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... Donal's notes explanatory and completive. As the latter reported the doings of the imagined brownie, and the commotion they had caused at the Mains and along Daurside, Gibbie's countenance flashed with pleasure and fun; and at last he broke into such a peal of laughter as had never, for pure merriment, been heard before so high on Glashgar. All joined involuntarily in the laugh—even the old man, who had been listening with his grey eyebrows knit, and hanging like bosky precipices over the tarns of his deepset eyes, taking in every word, ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... embarrassment, so far as the manner of address was concerned; for her tongue stumbled and blundered out a "Master Jimmy—er—Mr. Bean—I mean, Mr. Pendleton, Master Jimmy!" with a nervous precipitation that sent the young man himself into a merry peal ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... love and knowing not the meaning of her unrest vainly tried to find comfort in the beauty of the outer world, that only inclined her heart the more to its desire. She passed from flower to flower, endeavouring to 'suage the uprisings of Cupid. Suddenly she heard the organ peal forth, and straightway she entered the library to hear those great, soothing chords the better. She, being shaken by love, fell upon her knees and tried to pray for comfort, for she felt at the moment she had not ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... the trumpet's peal was heard, and Prince Louis, galloping off, gave the word of command ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... gazed at the painfully cut pink edges and from them to Harmony. Then she laughed, peal ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... white lightning lit up the forest aisles,—and in that moment the man saw a huge black bear standing in the trail, not ten feet distant. In that moment the eyes of the man and the eyes of the beast met each other fairly. Then the blackness fell once more; and a thin peal of midsummer thunder ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... distance; then gradually it neared us; low mutterings sounded in the air, and the tops of the tall pines a few miles away, were lit up now and then with a fitful blaze, all the brighter for the deeper gloom that succeeded. Then a terrific flash and peal broke directly over us, and a great tree, struck by a red-hot bolt, fell with a deafening crash, half-way across our path. Peal after peal followed, and then the rain—not filtered into drops as it falls from our colder sky, but in broad, blinding ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... I have given you only the milder phase of this evil. It shuts a great multitude out of heaven. The first peal of thunder that shook Sinai declared: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me," and you will have to choose between the goddess of fashion and the Christian God. There are a great many seats in heaven, and they are all easy seats, but not one seat for the ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... by inky blackness, and for the next two or three minutes the lowering angry clouds would pulsate with dazzling light that leaped upward like life-blood from the throbbing heart of the storm. Each thundering peal was followed by a momentary lull, and then spasmodic gusts shook the air, as if Nature were drawing a deep breath for another effort. Before daybreak yesterday the storm had cleared, leaving a clouded sky, but no mists about the hilltops, to prevent ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... first lieutenant showed himself upon the quarter-deck there was a general howl from the crew, and peal after peal of derisive laughter rent ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... mystic and beautiful garments. It was with poor Marie, then, as it has some time or other been with us all: when every bird that sang, every leaf that whispered, had in its tone a cadence caught from the one loved voice. I have seen the steeple strain, and rock, and heard the bells peal out in all their clangorous melody, and I have fancied that this delirious ecstacy of sound that bathed the earth and went up to heaven was the voice of one sweet girl ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... started, on his appearance, into clumsy activity and began to climb laboriously up and down his perch, calling "Joanna" with indistinct loudness and a persistent screech that prolonged the last syllable of the name as if in a peal of insane laughter. The screen in the doorway moved gently once or twice in the breeze, and each time Willems started slightly, expecting his wife, but he never lifted his eyes, although straining his ears for the sound of her footsteps. Gradually he lost himself in his ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... trembling of the building, Regina began to descend the stairs, guided by the incessant flashes of lightning, but when about half-way down a terrific peal of thunder so startled her that she missed a step, grasped at the balustrade but failed to find it, and rolled helplessly to the floor of the vestibule. Stunned and mute with terror, she attempted to rise, but her ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... ceremony in the Capella Clementina, and felt astonished, for he could hear nothing of it. As he drew near a faint breath, like the far-away piping of a flute, was wafted to him. Then the volume of sound slowly increased, but it was only on reaching the chapel that he recognised an organ peal. The sunlight here filtered through red curtains drawn before the windows, and thus the chapel glowed like a furnace whilst resounding with the grave music. But in that huge pile all became so slight, so weak, that at sixty paces neither voice nor ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... A peal of childish laughter came from without. The door opened and Betty ran in, followed by the sturdy, rosy-checked youngsters. All three ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... leaned against the door jamb while peal after peal of laughter shook her. She could just put out her hands and make motions at ...
— The Campfire Girls of Roselawn - A Strange Message from the Air • Margaret Penrose
... I first arrived at school, when my mind was filled with grief at our separation, I remember being greatly shocked at the slow, solemn, deep tones of the village church-bell. I cannot describe my feelings at the time. Sorrow at leaving home rendered the awful muffled peal more dismal to my ears: but from that night I may date my first serious thoughts of another world. I have never troubled my friends with my reflections, but that bell was as a monitor, to warn me that I ...
— The Boarding School • Unknown
... before I could think to warn her, the room trembled with the terrific clang of the Blind Spot bell. Just one overwhelming peal; no more. At the same time there came a revival of the luminous spot in the ceiling. But, with the last tones of the bell, ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... come and ride beside you," he cried, and began at once to climb up by way of the driver's seat. But, with a peal of silvery laughter, she slipped down easily over the back of the hay to escape him, and ran a little way along the road. I could see her quite clearly, and noticed the charming, natural grace of her movements, and the loving expression in her eyes as she looked over her shoulder ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... spun round, and, bursting from peal to peal of laughter, went racing out of the Calabooza; and, in mercy to ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... York in almost every kind of climatic conditions: icebergs, ice-fields and bitter cold to commence with; brilliant warm sun, thunder and lightning in the middle of one night (and so closely did the peal follow the flash that women in the saloon leaped up in alarm saying rockets were being sent up again); cold winds most of the time; fogs every morning and during a good part of one day, with the foghorn ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley
... making sounds which appalled him—he took them for sobs. And then Margaret's voice rang out in a peal of insane laughter. Trembling, he crept nearer the door. Within the room Margaret was clinging to her mother, and both were trying to ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... myself can do that same," he replied, with a modest air, which drew forth a peal of laughter. When the fiddle was produced and O'Rook struck up reels, and strathspeys, and hornpipes, with a precision of touch and time and perfection of tune that was far above the average of amateurs, the joy of the party ...
— Philosopher Jack • R.M. Ballantyne
... schedule of regulations for human conduct within thirty miles, and Monsieur le Maire would tie his tricolor scarf around him and marry us, and we would go away arm in arm and the cow-bells overhead would ring the wedding peal, and there would be just you and I and ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... With the great peal of thunder the Aphrodite trembled from head to foot, twice, as the vibration ran down the walls of the house to the very foundations and then came up again and died away, like the second shock of an earthquake. The statue trembled as ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... A peal of merry laughter rooted me to the spot and changed the current of my ideas. The lady was seized with such a fit of gayety that she could scarcely speak, but managed to gasp out my name and title ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... be distributed among the parish poor at certain seasons. The bells, ten in number, still peal as merrily as of old. In the gallery a brass plate with an inscription marks the spot where Dr. Johnson regularly sat in his attendance at service. The body of the church is filled with high old-fashioned pews, and the pulpit is a peculiarly rich bit of work ...
— The Strand District - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... with one of those swift changes of humour which made her moods at once so unexpected and so irresistible, had burst into a peal of mocking laughter. ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... of the people are described by Lady Brassey with all the interest of a novel. On their return home, "again the Battle bells rang out a merry peal of gladness; again everybody rushed out to welcome us. At home once again, the servants and the animals seemed equally glad to see us back; the former looked the picture of happiness, while the dogs jumped and barked; the horses and ponies neighed and whinnied; the monkeys ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... looking into the hotel grounds, watching the waiters running up a trail of bunting on the flagstaff and the fox terrier scampering to and fro on the sunny lawn and how, all of a sudden, she had broken out into a peal of laughter and had run down the sloping curve of the path. Now, as then, he stood listlessly in his place, seemingly a tranquil watcher of the ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... thing which deceives you, Buckingham," said the king, with a peal of laughter; "the poor ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... a moment and then broke into a peal of laughter that was taken up by the rest, and in which ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... paying any attention to Selina. All at once she began to giggle hysterically again, then cried out with a peal ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... Huntsman, take heed; they stop in full career. Yon crowding flocks, that at a distance graze, Have haply soiled the turf. See! that old hound, How busily he works, but dares not trust His doubtful sense; draw yet a wider ring. Hark! now again the chorus fills; as bells Silenced a while at once their peal renew, 250 And high in air the tuneful thunder rolls. See, how they toss, with animated rage Recovering all they lost!—That eager haste Some doubling wile foreshews.—Ah! yet once more They're checked—hold back with speed—on ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... this command was obeyed, and the almost simultaneous crack of two rifles, might well have caused the belief that she had fallen because shot through the heart; but such was not the case. The command of Lewis broke upon her like a thunder-peal, and as quick as a flash of lightning did she comprehend the fearfully imminent peril in which she was placed. So marvelously close had been the calculation of the hunter, that at the very instant she obeyed him, the rifle of the nearest Indian was pointed full at her. This did not escape ...
— The Riflemen of the Miami • Edward S. Ellis
... the clash of knightly steel on steel? Or list the throstle singing loud and clear? Or walk at twilight by some haunted mere In Surrey; or in throbbing London feel Life's pulse at highest—hark, the minster's peal! . . . Turn but the page, that ...
— The Sisters' Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... close overhead, burst into a peal of song, repeating his one favourite note, which seemed to her to cry out "Although my heart is broke, broke, broke, broke." The tears rushed into her eyes, but at a noise as of opening doors or windows at the house, terror mastered ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... inconsiderable: twelve killed, and about twenty-five wounded. During the battle, the earnest zeal of the men was occasionally relieved by moments of merriment. A coat, having been thrown on the top of one of the merlons, was caught by a shot, and lodged in a tree, at which sight a general peal of laughter was heard. Moultrie sat coolly smoking his pipe during the conflict, occasionally taking it from his mouth to issue an order. Once, while the battle was in progress, General Lee came off to the island, but, finding every thing so prosperous, ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... head drooped shyly, and her face flamed. Her word came very softly spoken, but it rang a peal of happiness in ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... instinctively, and approve them by a self-surrendering faith, there are few who can so put them forth in speech as to bring them home with a fresh conviction and an added glow; who can sum up, like AEschylus, the contrast between Hellenic freedom and barbarian despotism in "one trump's peal that set all Greeks aflame;" can thrill, like Virgil, a world-wide empire with the recital of the august ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers
... were ringing merrily as I descended the heights of Islington; and were it not that my patronymic Scropps never could, under the most improved system of campanology, be jingled into any thing harmonious, I have no doubt I, like my great predecessor Whittington, might have heard in that peal a prediction of my future exaltation; certain it is I did not; and, wearied with my journey, I took up my lodging for the night at a very humble house near Smithfield, to which I had been kindly recommended by the driver ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 380, July 11, 1829 • Various
... barking of the dogs, I heard a hearty peal of laughter. At the same time my master put his hands on my shoulders and forced me ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot
... beyond,—all had witnessed the childhood, the youth, the bridal-day of the being whose last rites and solemnities they were to witness now. The very bell which rang for her birth had rung also for the marriage peal; it now tolled for her death. But a little while, and she had gone forth from that home of her young and unclouded years, amidst the acclamations and blessings of all, a bride, with the insignia ...
— Falkland, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... little way down the path and then turned back when she heard him coming? She walked away a dozen yards and stood waiting. But he did not come. Was it possible that he was not coming? Was he ill—lying uncared for at the Peal of Bells in the village, with no one to smooth his pillow or put eau-de-cologne ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... you no harm to kill it outright," said Miss Carr, laughing—such a loud, jovial peal of merriment, which rang so clearly from her healthy lungs, that Flora, in spite of her offended dignity, was forced to ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... cooked, which we ate with the thick interior of the cocoa-nut, which may truly be called the cream, while the juice served to quench our thirst. We had a number of visitors, who all, both men and women, chatted away most merrily, especially the women, who kept up a continued peal of laughter. At night the hut was lighted up with chips of a resinous wood, called kukia, which were stuck all round on the posts which supported the roof; and when we expressed a wish to retire to rest, mats were hung up to partition off our ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... which were granted. The lake was seven miles long, by about two in breadth, so that there was abundant sea room. While they were examining the boats, and viewing the beautiful lake, the signal bell in the tower of the Institute school room sounded its warning peal, and summoned ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... pensively out upon the bright landscape, with another sigh she left the window and went about her various duties, about an hour after this, Natalie was startled by a vivid flash of lightning, and deafening peal of thunder; down came the rain in torrents, oh where is baby? how anxiously she watched, peering down the street from the front door, but no sign of Izzie, and how cold the air has turned. She orders a fire to be made in the nursery, and waits impatiently ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... their terror, they found he was far from possessing the inaction of the wooden monarch, and that no one could resist his authority with impunity. He could scold, and then his voice thundered and reverberated in the ears of the pale delinquent in such a storm-peal as was never heard before—and he could chastise the obstinate offender, when reason could not control, most tremendously. That long, black ruler—what a wand it was! Whenever he was about to use it as an instrument of punishment, ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... the shore, love, When foaming billows dash; It echoes in the thunder peal, When vivid lightnings flash. There is music by the shore, In the stilly noon of night, When the murmurs of the ocean fade In the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... sprung to her feet, seized the bell-rope before any one could hinder her, and sounded a vigorous peal. Then she rolled her eyes at Mrs. ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... and close questioning of the conduct of life, will not do with talkative professors. Ring a peal on the doctrines of grace, and many will chime in with you; but speak closely how grace operates upon the heart, and influences the life to follow Christ in self-denying obedience, they cannot bear it; they are offended ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... capacity of zealous Christian and friend of truth, took care to tell me that I was wrong. I wanted to give him a hearty kick as a punishment for his stupidity, but reflecting that common sense comes not by wishing for it I burst into a peal of laughter, and agreed that I might have made a mistake, but that my real intention was to go to Mestre. To that they answered nothing, but a minute after the master boatman said he was ready to take me to ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... insufficient to rouse these country people from their first sleep. When the carriage had stopped, Roland opened the door, sprang out without touching the steps, and tugged at the bell-handle. Five minutes elapsed, and, after each peal, Roland turned to the carriage, saying: "Don't be ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... there is anything to laugh at," said Ned, as his small friend burst into a hearty peal ...
— The Magic Soap Bubble • David Cory
... searched every where—nothing was in the apartment. Then there rushed toward the zenith one universal cat-shriek, which went echoing off on the night-wind like the reverberation of a sharp thunder-peal. ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... quickly within him, as he stood irresolute on the spot he had occupied since the first peal of thunder had struck upon his ear. Were the light and the man—one seen but for an instant, the other still perceptible—mere phantoms of his erring sight, dazzled by the quick recurrence of atmospheric changes through which it had acted? Or did he indubitably behold a human form, and had ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... forward to the whole subsequent. Because the rulers professed abhorrence of their fathers' deeds, and yet inherited their spirit, they too would have their prophets, and would slay them. God goes on sending His messengers, because we reject them; and the more deaf men are, the more does He peal His words into their ears. That is mercy and compassion, that all men may be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth; but it is judgment too, and its foreseen effect must be regarded as part of the divine purpose in it. Christ's desire is ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... cows waiting at the bars. So were Neighbor Belcher's cows also, in the adjoining pasture. Ann had her hand on the topmost of her own bars, when she happened to glance over at Neighbor Belcher's, and a thought struck her. She burst into a peal of laughter, and took a step towards the other bars. Then she went back to her own. Finally, she let down the Belcher bars, and the Belcher cows crowded out, to the great astonishment of the Wales cows, who stared over their high ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... when the sound of the bell falls on the doctor's wakeful ear. As quickly as possible he answers it in person, but another peal is heard ere ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... A peal of laughter came chokingly from his lips; he knew that his reason was tottering. For these two white hands which now moved along the wall, as though they were sidling to the room which Cairn had just quitted, were attached to no visible body; just two ivory hands were there ... ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... her arms had clasped your neck before they were crossed upon her bosom, in that long sleep which you have rendered placid, and from which your harmonious voice shall once more awaken her. Yes, Torquato! her bosom had throbbed to yours, often and often, before the organ peal shook the fringes round the catafalque. Is not this much, from ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... last the watchers dare to look, they see Theseus afar off, alone, screening his eyes with his hand, as if some sight too dreadful for mortal eyes had passed before him; but OEdipus is gone, and not with lamentation, but in hope and wonder. Even when Hamlet dies, and the peal of ordnance is shot off, it is to congratulate him upon his escape from unbearable woe; and that is the same in life. If our eye falls on the sad stories of men and women who have died by their own hand, how seldom do they speak in the scrawled messages they leave behind them as though they were ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... loading them was freezing work, during which our fingers were quite numbed. Shivering, we walked along until the sun was above the trees, then in a little its rays warmed to their work, and we would peal off now a coat, now a jersey or shirt, until in the middle of the day the heat was too great to be pleasant. Poor little Val hated the cold nights, and, as I always sleep away from a fire, she used to crawl into my blankets ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... genius still rests upon Chelsea. As we walk slowly through its winding ways, by the edge of its troubled waters, among dark and crooked turns, through curious courts, by old gateways and piles of steepled stone, where flocks of pigeons wheel, and bells chime, and organs peal, and winds sigh, we know that all has been sanctified by their presence. And their spirits abide with us, and the splendid beauty of their visions is about us. For the stones beneath our feet have been hallowed by their ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... chances. So they did in Overtown who built in the wash of Argus water, and at Kearsarge at the foot of a steep, treeless swale. After twenty years Argus water rose in the wash against the frail houses, and the piled snows of Kearsarge slid down at a thunder peal over the cabins and the camp, but you could conceive that it was the fault of neither the water nor ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin
... our clerical friends as have in their churches a peal of bells which, at the will ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 14. Saturday, February 2, 1850 • Various
... approached the heroes. As two dark streams from high rocks meet and mix, and roar on the plain: loud, rough, and dark in battle meet Lochlin and Inisfail...As the troubled noise of the ocean when roll the waves on high; as the last peal of the thunder of heaven; such ...
— The Philosophy of Style • Herbert Spencer
... my lords and gentlemen," cried the great lady, springing to her feet, "to the defence! We are witnesses of this marriage, and clashing swords must play the wedding peal. If need be, fear not in such quarrel to do your best; yea, to the shedding of blood! Though the blood were my son's, it were well shed in such a holy cause. Now then, Lucy, come! Guard the front entrance but an hour, and we shall ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various |
