"Thumping" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... comedy, with a whistled accompaniment on the drawing-room piano. There seemed to be nothing else audible in the house, in spite of the large party it contained. Amid the general hush, unbroken by a voice or a laugh, the "funny bits" that Peter was defiantly thumping or whistling made a kind of goblin chorus round a crushed and weary man, as he pushed past the door of the drawing-room to the ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... was thumping. It was horrible that there should be some one in the world—a lurking, mysterious some one—who planned in secret to do her dreadful harm. The incident seemed unreal. Whom did she know, on this side of the world, who could hate her so bitterly? She was afraid, as of eyes ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... war I was convoying supplies through the passes, when we were set upon by Afreedees, hillmen, and robbers. I had fifty men of the 27th Native Infantry under me, with a sergeant. Among the Afreedees was a thumping big chief, who stood among the rocks with that very knife in his hand, the long one, shouting insults at our fellows. Our sergeant was a smart little nigger, and this cheek set his blood up. Be jabers! he chucked his gun down, pulled out that curved dagger—a Ghoorkha knife it ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... With a heart thumping against his ribs at this strange and amazing coincidence, the American ducked his head carefully under the port hood and ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... toward the soldier again, my heart began a queer thumping, for he was leading no other than the woman who had met us at the gate, and she was carrying our white rabbit, which we had released early that morning a long way from ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... to us and to his own good humour—once again boon comrade of the twins and me! He jumped from his chair; and with a "Tra-la-la!" and a merry "Hi-tum-ti-iddle-dee-um!" he fell into a fantastic dance, thumping the boards with his stockinged feet, advancing and retreating with a flourish, bowing and balancing to an imaginary partner, all in a fashion so excruciatingly exaggerated that the twins screamed, "Don't, father!" and Davy Roth moaned, "Oh, stop, zur, please, zur!" while the crimson, perspiring, ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... impatient. But as that did no good, he cocked himself for a laugh. Then his mouth puckered to a brisk attention, and at the last word he jumped to his feet. "Damme!" he said, and went thumping down the steps again. He splashed through the water on deck, minding the stiff wind not at all, and dived into ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... calling myself a different kind of fool for every step I took. I kept assuring myself, over and over, that it was only Edith, and that there was no need to get excited about it. But all the while I knew, down deep down in the thumping chest of me, that it wasn't Edith. Edith couldn't make all that disturbance in my circulatory system, not in a ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower
... safe. He leaned against Koa, his heart thumping wildly. For a moment or two he couldn't speak; ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin
... thing I knew, was the loud thumping of a handspike on deck as the watch was called again. It was now four o'clock in the morning, and when we got on deck the first signs of day were shining in the east. The men were very sleepy, and sat down on the windlass without ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... flopping into a chair, "my heart haven't been in such a thumping state of uproar since I used to sit up on old Midsummer- eves to see who my husband ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... nearer of the two, missy," decided Captain Dresser, thumping his malacca cane down to give greater effect to his words. "Strange to say, you've almost hit upon the very name; for, the fisher- folk hereabouts and down the coast call the things 'mermaids' purses.' ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... the road, or obliquely backward, I ran obliquely forward, in the direction from which they had come. When I was nearly out of breath, I stopped to listen, and was glad to hear no sounds save those that were made by my thumping heart. The pursuit had ended, and I lay down to rest and to recover my wind,—not unlike the stag that had been chased ...
— Reminiscences of a Rebel • Wayland Fuller Dunaway
... can even grow accustomed to the whistling of a bullet, that is to say, accustomed to concealing the involuntary thumping of your heart." ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... am sure. But I don't actually mean sitting down and thumping the piano with her. When did you last think about her and make plans for her and ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... lyrical and singing element, which, if fantastic and daring, had a sweet, bright charm very fascinating. He writes in one of his treatises: "Methinks music ought appeal directly to the heart, and in this no performer on the piano-forte will succeed by merely thumping and drumming, or by continual arpeggio playing. During the last few years my chief endeavor has been to play the piano-forte, in spite of its deficiency in sustaining the sound, so much as possible, in a singing manner, and to compose for it accordingly. This is ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... thumping away with the hammer, I noticed that it was growing dark. At first I thought that it was merely a darker cloud above the smoke that had drifted over the sun, and said nothing; but the sky continued to darken, and ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... out on Mr. Appel and he thought that surely the thumping of his heart must attract their attention. In such mortal terror as he never had experienced or imagined he quaked while he speculated as to whether the bear that first discovered him would disembowel him with one stroke of his mighty paw, and leave him, ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... the Snake's Wife began licking the doors. But meanwhile they all heated iron pincers, and as soon as she had sent her tongue through into the smithy, they caught tight hold of her by the tongue, and began thumping her with hammers. And when the Snake's Wife was dead they consumed her with fire, and scattered her ashes to the winds. And then they went home, and there they lived and enjoyed themselves, feasting and revelling, and ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... business out there like that, alone!" he muttered, rising to an elbow and thumping his hard pillow viciously. "Good Lord! Haven't ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... man kept Ranny many minutes, thumping, sounding, intimately and extensively overhauling him. For more minutes than Ranny at all liked, he played about him with a stethoscope. Then he fired off what Ranny supposed ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... expelling the devil, and advised that, in view of the known connection between serpents and Satan, it would be well to try beating the patient with these. The advice was taken, and many stripes were laid upon him. Massage was also tried, and other homely expedients, such as bandaging and thumping with the fists, ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... marvelled, the boys envied, and Andramark, his head very high, his heart thumping, passed among them and went home to his mother and repeated what ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... "Go, go," she chortled, thumping the prostrate form of Mr. Clark with her slippered feet and smiling with excusable ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith
... do you do in my house, Mary Ann!" Then there was silence, save for the thumping of his own ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... looked quite miserable, but sounds of thumping at the back door drew her away from the parlour, and stopped any further confidences. Mavis ate ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... upturned mass rose above the gunwale, smashed in the bulwarks, and deposited half a ton of ice on deck. Scarcely had this danger passed when a new enemy appeared in sight ahead. Directly in their way, just beyond the line of floe-ice against which they were alternately thumping and grinding, lay a group of bergs. There was no possibility of avoiding them, and the only question was, whether they were to be dashed to pieces on their hard blue sides, or, perchance, in some providential nook to find ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... whom there were nearly a thousand, were not in the charge, and when retreat began they went in panic. We could hear calls and yells, the clatter of arms, and a thumping of the earth; the strain of men tugging cannon ropes; the swift withdrawal of a ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... Save Energy and Appearance. Watch yourself and see if you are not in the habit of moving your hands, thumping something with your fingers or twirling your mustache. Some have the habit of keeping their feet going, as, for instance, tapping them on the floor. Practice standing before a mirror and see if you are in the habit of frowning or causing wrinkles to appear in the ...
— The Power of Concentration • Theron Q. Dumont
... me, and with streaming eyes and screaming voice called the family up to bid them good-by; she said she was dying—that I had killed her. I sprang from my bed in such a horror of terrible suffering, mental and physical, as never swept over the body and soul of mortal man. I felt my heart thumping and beating as though it would burst forth from my bosom; the hot, hissing blood rushed to my aching, fevered brain, and a torrent of sweat burst forth on my icy forehead. I could not have suffered more physical agony ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson
... thumping heart—found the name of a young author he had barely heard of, saw the title of a play, a "poetic drama," dance before his eyes, and dropped the paper, sick, disgusted. It was true, then—she WAS "game"—it was not the manner but the matter ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... more—what shall I call it?—more contemporaneous. I should have had a wife and children, and I should not be in the way of making, as the French say, infidelities to the present. Of course it's a great gain to have had an escape, not to have committed an act of thumping folly; and I suppose that, whatever serious step one might have taken at twenty-five, after a struggle, and with a violent effort, and however one's conduct might appear to be justified by events, there would always remain a certain element ...
— The Diary of a Man of Fifty • Henry James
... in the seats behind broke into a wild uproar of stamping, thumping, and clapping which lasted for nearly five minutes, and, of course, raised more dust to thicken ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... awake since five o'clock, and it's no use thumping me in the back," grunted an injured voice from the next bed. "It's too early yet to get up, and I wish ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... there were plenty of other creatures in the sea to keep me company. Mercy on us! Such a scuttling and rushing, such a whisking and a whacking, flying and plunging, I for one never saw before. There was actually a chorus of flapping fins and thumping tails as we ...
— Lord Dolphin • Harriet A. Cheever
... Maidens, come and cook for us!' They—shamming love—beseech. 'Oh, tell us about Saxon times! The course of history teach!' But what they really want is 'tin;' A thumping ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 17, 1892 • Various
... Ladies, wrapped closely in white veils, were carrying water on their heads. Long rows of dromedaries loaded with luggage were moving stately forward. Donkeys at full canter, one white man riding, and two black men driving and thumping the poor brutes most unmercifully with short thick sticks, were winding their way through the throng. Ladies enveloped in flowing robes of black silk, and veiled up to the eyes, were sitting stride-leg on richly-caparisoned ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various
... this place whenas the elfin knight Approached, him seemed that the merry sound Of a shrill pipe, he playing heard on height, And many feet fast thumping the hollow ground, That through the woods their echo did rebound; He nigher drew to wit what it mote be. There he a troop of ladies dancing found Full merrily and making gladful glee; And in the midst a shepherd piping he ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... the piece which had been broken off. For a moment he stared at the fragment in amazement, while the others looked on in silent consternation. There was an ominous pause. Jimmie, turning pale, could feel his heart thumping violently against his ribs. ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... for a long time, tingling all over with nervousness. Then I began to grow calmer, and was getting drowsy almost in spite of myself when I was aroused by the unmistakable sound of Bock's tail thumping on the floor—a sure sign of pleasure. This puzzled me quite as much as his growls. I did not dare strike a light, but could hear him sniffing at the door of the van and whining with eagerness. This seemed very uncanny, and again I crept stealthily out ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... whole body tense with expectancy, stood Harry. He had killed time by walking up and down the long strip of carpet between the front door and the staircase, measuring his nervous steps to the length of the pattern, his mind distracted by his fears for the outcome—his heart thumping away at his throat, a dull fright gripping him when he thought ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... the attendant was thumping and kneading him on the slab, Tanno went on talking a cheerful monologue of frothy gossip. I ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... their hands, which they kept shaking, and danced [Note 89 at end of para.] with a measured tread, keeping the right foot always in advance of the other as in a galopade, and singing a low solemn dirge, which was vehemently beat time to, by the natives behind thumping on the ground. Upon arriving at the boy, the leading native fell down on his knees close to him, and took hold of the diseased leg, the other two still dancing and singing around the patient. In a little ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... murdered guest; Weare in the death-grip of Thurtell; and a score besides of famous crimes. The thing was as clear as an illusion; he was once again that little boy; he was looking once again, and with the same sense of physical revolt, at these vile pictures; he was still stunned by the thumping of the drums. A bar of that day's music returned upon his memory; and at that, for the first time, a qualm came over him, a breath of nausea, a sudden weakness of the joints, which he must instantly ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... ascent up the River Leeba, we reached the village of Manenko, a female chief, of whose power of tongue we soon had ample proof. She was a woman of fine physique, and insisted on accompanying us some distance with her husband and drummer, the latter thumping most vigorously, until a heavy, drizzling mist set in and compelled him to desist. Her husband used various incantations and vociferations to drive away the rain, but down it poured incessantly, and on our Amazon went, in the very lightest marching order, and at a ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... wild stare, look up and slide away. An empty chest clattered turning over; a man fell head first with a jump, as if lifted by a kick; and farther off, indistinct, others streamed like a mass of rolling stones down a bank, thumping the deck with their feet and flourishing their arms wildly. The hatchway ladder was loaded with coolies swarming on it like bees on a branch. They hung on the steps in a crawling, stirring cluster, beating madly with their fists the underside of the battened hatch, ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad
... Garvey, thumping the bar. "There ain't no law west o' the Pecos! And he's west o' the Pecos now! The only law here is this kind," ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... necessity drove him to it. And this necessity bore down upon him like the wind. The pack, whether guided by man or beast, was driving straight at him, and it was less than a quarter of a mile away when Philip drew himself up in the spruce. His breath came quick, and his heart was thumping like a drum, for as he climbed up the slender refuge that was scarcely larger in diameter than his arm he remembered the time when he had hung up a thousand pounds of moose meat on cedars as thick as his leg, and ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... boy, Toots, to come on and keep watch here when Grody is unable to do so. Till he gets here, Grody, I want you to watch Nemo like a hawk. I hardly think the whelp will try another trick, but there is no telling. I gave him a bad thumping." ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... and industry. Perhaps the German Reichstag is as fairly representative as our own House of Representatives, though both assemblies show the babyhood of civilization which still votes for flashing eyes, thumping fists, hollering patriotism, and smooth phrases. The surprising feature of elective assemblies is that here and there Messrs. Self-Control, Ability, Dignity, and Independence find seats at all. The members are paid, since 1906, a salary of 3,000 ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... frivolous, campus-cluttering, infinitesimal atom of nothing, you labor under the insane delusion that college life is a continuous vaudeville show. You absolutely refuse to take your Bannister years seriously, you banjo-thumping, pillow-punishing, campus-torturing nonentity. You will never grasp the splendid opportunities within your reach! You have no ambition but to strum that banjo, roar ridiculous songs, fuss up like a tailor's dummy, and pester your comrades, or drag them down to Jerry's for the eats! You won't ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... Edgeworth's Irish postilion and “Knockecroghery,” could scarcely have afforded us more amusement than our Sarde driver and his horse, whose good qualities he ludicrously vaunted, alternately cursing and glorifying, thumping and coaxing, the vicious beast, while we heaved at the wheels. Our united efforts at length succeeded in extricating the vehicle from the sandy hollow; and after jolting for awhile over the new-formed road, the material having become solid and compact, we rolled at our ease across the plain. I remarked, ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... stern with the impetus of her speed. He followed her fine, gliding form with eyes growing big with incredulity, wild with horror. The cries on board of her came to him only as a dreadful and confused murmur through the loud thumping of blood in his ears, while she held on. She ran upright in a terrible display of her gift of speed, with an incomparable air of life and grace. She ran on till the smooth level of water in front of her bows seemed to sink down suddenly ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... not Irish enough was it him managed it this time I wouldnt put it past him like he got me on to sing in the Stabat Mater by going around saying he was putting Lead Kindly Light to music I put him up to that till the jesuits found out he was a freemason thumping the piano lead Thou me on copied from some old opera yes and he was going about with some of them Sinner Fein lately or whatever they call themselves talking his usual trash and nonsense he says that little man he showed me without the neck is very intelligent the coming man Griffiths ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... to have more company than that," said Nan, thumping her pillow energetically. "I'm not going to mope here alone all the afternoon, with you off having a jolly time at the picnic. Write a little note for me to Florrie Hastings, will you? I'll do as much for you when you sprain ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... heating apparatus in railway carriages could be turned either to OFF or ON without any consequent infiltration of steam, thereby saving passengers from the peril of death by suffocation. It was he who, thumping the table with an iron fist, had insisted vehemently that caged parrots travelling in the rack should, if capable of speech, be compelled to pay the full fare. It was he who effected one of the greatest economies that the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 24, 1920 • Various
... Chanoinesse, but goes into the world in roses and pink ribbons nevertheless, and is very agreeable, moreover, and with M. Le Baron, an officer in the Swiss Guards, an old bachelor, to St. Sulpice, to hear M. Fressenus. He preached in the Kirwan style, but with intolerable monotony of thumping eloquence, against les Liberaux, Rousseau, etc.; it seemed to me old stuff, ill embroidered, but it was much applauded. Mem.: the audience were not half so attentive or silent at St. Sulpice as they were at the ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... until he had got well on his way, sitting tense with shining eyes and thumping heart, then, snatching off her helmet, she brought it down with a resounding smack on the hindquarters of the servant's horse, stampeding it in the direction of the camp, and, wheeling Silver Star, headed for the north, deaf ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... slashing the butt of the gun downwards. The lead was false. He hurtled jarringly into the door jamb, the gun thumping against the floor. The wind was knocked from him; the nausea of his wound swept him again with a surge of dizziness. But the painful scuffle of unseen feet ahead pulled him up once more; like a punch-drunk fighter he staggered out from the cubby to the ladder and hauled himself up the steps. He ...
— Raiders Invisible • Desmond Winter Hall
... place for amusement, though uttered in a very grave and tranquil manner, produced that instantaneous effect which admonitions from great rogues generally work upon little. Messieurs the ravmpers ceased from their amusements; and the ringleader of the gang, thumping Paul heartily on the back, declared he was a capital fellow, and it was only a bit of a spree like, which he hoped had not given ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... old heart was thumping painfully. He forgot the people, he forgot Corinth, he forgot everything but the boy who had come to him that day on ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... in self-defence.'—'No fear o' that,' thought I.—'I see how it'll be,' observed Alsatia, 'everybody'll pay his debts, and only think of such a state of things as that.'—'It's not to be thought of,' says I, thumping the table till every glass on it jingled; 'and I know a way as'll prevent it.'—'What is it, Mint?' asked all three.—'Why, hang every bailiff that sets a foot in your territories, and you're safe,' says I.—'We'll do it,' said they, filling their glasses, and looking as fierce as King George's ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... from being the only place where patients were treated like wild beasts. Mrs. Mary Humieres, formerly housekeeper in a private asylum at Bethnal Green, gave evidence to an attendant "kicking the patients and thumping them sadly," and "beating one in his shirt with a pair of boots, in a most dreadful manner." She named a female patient who, when in a state of irritation, "was confined in a place in the yard which was originally a pig-sty; it was ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... very lucky in having conquered renown by a single speech, broke out impetuously, "I was years preparing that speech—twenty times I wanted to deliver it, but did not feel that I had it here (touching his head), though it palpitated here (thumping his breast) as if ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... the evenings during my stay at Suez was enlivened by a triple wedding. There was a long and slow procession. Some carried torches, and others were thumping drums and firing pistols. The bridegrooms came last, all walking abreast. My only reason for mentioning the ceremony (which was otherwise uninteresting) is, that I scarcely ever in all my life saw any phenomena so ridiculous as the meekness and gravity ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... could perceive a confusion and noise of struggling on board, and angry voices, as if people were trying to force their way up the hatchways from below; and a heavy thumping on the deck, and a creaking of the blocks, and rattling of the cordage, while the mainyard was first braced one way, and then another, as if two parties were striving for the mastery. At length a voice hailed distinctly "We are ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... and the rolling and dashing of the waves against the side of the vessel were so incessant and violent that I could hardly remain in my berth. At two o'clock the vessel was put about, when I heard such a banging and thumping of the rudder, that I ran on deck to ascertain the cause. I found the wheel deserted, there being only two men on deck, and both engaged in hauling round the yards. I took the wheel, in night-shirt and night-cap only, without shoe or slipper, till the yards were round; fortunately not a long ...
— Extracts from a Journal of a Voyage of Visitation in the "Hawk," 1859 • Edward Feild
... as if he were quite unable to contain himself. There had recurred to his mind, with fearful clearness, the moment when he stood at the door with the hatchet in his hand. There he was, holding the bolt, and they were tugging and thumping away at the door. Oh, how he itched to shriek at them, open the door, thrust out his tongue at them, and frighten them away, and then laugh, ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... he gave a hitch to his trousers, which Is a trick all seamen larn, And having got rid of a thumping quid, He spun ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert
... Langbourne thanked him, and came back again to beg the clerk to be careful and not have him called in the morning, for he wished to sleep. Then he went up to his room, where he opened his window to let in the night air. He heard a dog barking; a cow lowed; from a stable somewhere the soft thumping of the horses' feet ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... themselves.—The other day a little yellow bird flew into one of the empty rooms, of which there are half a dozen on the lower floor, and could not find his way out again, flying at the glass of the windows, instead of at the door, thumping his head against the panes or against the ceiling. I drove him into the entry and chased him from end to end, endeavoring to make him fly through one of the open doors. He would fly at the circular light over the door, clinging to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... seen something of the world, and finding people here interested in adventure, I talked the matter over before my first audience in a little hall by the country road. A piano having been brought in from a neighbor's, I was helped out by the severe thumping it got, and by a "Tommy Atkins" song from a strolling comedian. People came from a great distance, and the attendance all told netted the house about three pounds sterling. The owner of the hall, a kind lady ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... that was coming down to drink. The mud-turtle said to the horse: "Just as I get sound asleep you are sure to come past and wake me up. We always used to have a good quiet time down here in the swamp till you got in the habit of thumping along this way. I am conservative and like to keep in my shell. I have been pastor of thirteen other mud-turtles, and we always had peace until you came, and next week at our semi-annual meeting of mud-turtles we shall either ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... dear!" softly, putting the fingers in her own, close to her breast, crying and sobbing quietly. "Thee hand be a'most as soft as a baby's foot," after a while, fancying the little chap was creeping into her bosom again, thumping with his fat feet and fists as he used to do. Her very blood used to grow wild and hot when he did that, she loved him so. And her heart to-night was just as warm and light as then. He was coming back, her boy: maybe he was poor and sick, a worn-out man; but in a few hours he would be ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... wing; in this disguise they performed many antic tricks, waving their sticks and feathers about with great skill, to imitate the flying and fluttering of birds, keeping exact time with their music." This music was the measured thumping of an Indian drum. From time to time, a warrior would leap up, and the drum and the dancers would cease as he struck a post with his tomahawk, and in a loud voice recounted his exploits. Then the music and the dance began anew, till ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... minutes we came to a sort of well with a little water, where women were thumping clothes upon stones; this is called washing in the East. Magnificent view westwards of the great plain, the ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... Incidentally he reviled all North Britain, the rest of the earth, the sea—and all his companions. He swore, as he alighted heavily on his heels, that he would never, never any more associate with any fool that "hadn't savee enough to know his knee from his elbow." He managed by his thumping to scare the last remnant of wits out of Jimmy. We could hear the object of our exasperated solicitude darting to and fro under the planks. He had cracked his voice at last, and could only squeak miserably. His back or else his head rubbed the planks, now here, now there, in a puzzling manner. ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... fact that at least five or six pairs of eyes were watching her face. She closed her lips and compelled her eyelids to obey the dictates of a resentful heart: she lowered them until they gave one the impression of indolent curiosity, even indifference. All the while, her incomprehensible heart was thumping with a rapture that knew no allegiance to ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... really Bobs' welcome, I think, across the cold prairie air, that took the tragedy out of my homecoming. There were gladness and trust in those deep-throated howls of greetings. He even licked the snow off my overshoes and nested his head between my knees, with his bob-tail thumping the floor like a flicker's beak. He sniffed at the Twins rather disgustedly. But he'll learn to love them, I feel sure, as time goes on. He's too intelligent a dog ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... had obeyed his instructions and sent Creighton a sign that started the detective's heart to thumping. Janet Mackay had not been to the theater. Here was a coil with collateral complications that were not pleasant to contemplate. His heart stopped thumping and made a dive for his boots as he wondered what Miss Ocky would say when she learned ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... themselves in the daytime, and stalk forth when night conceals all our sacrilegious improvements. We have seen no apparitions as yet; but we hear strange noises, especially in the kitchen, and last night, while sitting in the parlor, we heard a thumping and pounding as of somebody at work in my study. Nay, if I mistake not, (for I was half asleep,) there was a sound as of some person crumpling paper in his hand in our very bedchamber. This must have been old Dr. Ripley with one of his sermons. There is a whole chest of them in the garret; but ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... had added to the charm of both face and figure; and, arrayed in her daintiest toilet of blue and white, Alice Yorke was radiant enough to have smitten a much harder heart than that which was at the moment thumping in Keith's breast and looking forth from his eager eyes. The pause in the doorway gave just time for the picture to be impressed ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... having the courage of one's opinions. Confound it! Why haven't I the nerve for my character? Hang this heart of mine! Will it never stop thumping?" ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... Bang! Someone was thumping on the door of my bathing-machine. What a glorious scent of salt rose from the sea-washed floor! "Are you coming out?" asked a persuasive voice. "No, no, no!" I shouted joyously. "I am going in." What a dive! I never knew before how superlatively ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 1st, 1920 • Various
... that dreary hour When, as with misty eyes, To call the old familiar roll The solemn sergeant tries— One feels that thumping of the heart ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... he?" She caught hold of her stepson's arm. But then she bethought herself. Martin was nowhere to be seen, and this was not his bedroom door; this was Mr. Tiralla's, on which Mikolai was thumping, and before which he now stooped down and tried ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... the end of the board. The runaways, four or five in number, herded together lower down, with a few travellers of lower degree, all except the youth who had been boasting before their arrival, and who retained his seat at the board, thumping it with the handle of his knife to show his impatience for the commencement of supper; and not far off sat Tibble, the same who had hailed their arrival, a thin, slight, one-sided looking person, with a terrible ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... loose stones set her heart thumping wildly and caused her to peer down the back trail where a horseman was slowly ascending the slope. The man sat loosely in his saddle with the easy grace of the slack rein rider. A roll-brim Stetson with its crown boxed into a peak was pushed slightly ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... when I am on the spot," said Ivan, sticking out his brawny chest and boastfully thumping it with his clenched fist; at that moment he wore the expression of a savage proud of ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... quick thumping of heavy feet on the landing, and a moment later a young country girl entered. It was Betty, one of the serving girls whom Dame Burton had brought with ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... house was asleep, And the fire burning low, When, from far up the chimney, Came down a "Ho! ho!" And a little, round man, With a terrible scratching, Dropped into the room With a wink that was catching. Yes, down he came, bumping, And thumping, and jumping, And picking himself up without sign ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various
... verandah and enjoyed the fun. Pao-yue therefore found the entrance shut. He gave a rap at the door. But as every one inside was bent upon laughing, they naturally did not catch the sound; and it was only after he had called and called, and made a noise by thumping at the door, that they at last heard. Imagining, however, that Pao-yue could not be coming back at that hour, Hsi Jen shouted laughing: "who's it now knocking at the door? There's no one ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... church, for that was doomed from the first outbreak of the flames, but to stop the spread of it and save the town. They fought it at the windows, and at the blazing doors, and through the yawning furnace of the open belfry; fought it, with the Mariposa engine thumping and panting in the street, itself aglow with fire like a servant demon fighting its own kind, with tall ladders reaching to the very roof, and with hose that poured their streams of tossing water ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... thumping into swift inaudibility along the 10th Level's yielding walkway. His fingers caressed the crisp notes that his lucky guess on the 80th Level's tunnel juncture had won for him, plus the ten dollars, that this meager business ...
— Second Sight • Basil Eugene Wells
... thumping, booming noise, like the beating of their war drums by savages, comes over the hedge where the bees are busy at the bramble flowers. The bees take no heed, they pass from flower to flower, seeking the sweet honey to store at home in the hive, as their bee ancestors did before ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... was seeing things. No pretense about it. His mournful eyes yearned hither and thither, following some entity that moved in the room, dimmer than darkness, more ethereal than shadow. His ears quivered. A muffled, measured thumping sounded, dull and indeterminate like spirit rapping; it took me an appreciable time to identify it as the noise of the poodle's tail, beating the floor. Once he whined, a quick, quivering, eager note. And still the amateur of clocks murmured his placid lore. ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... one of the five great iron-works, there are four others which rest not day nor night. Little, however, is this heeded by the people of Merthyr; they are lulled to repose by the clatter of iron bars and the thumping of trip-hammers, but are instantaneously awakened by the briefest intervals ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... women's feet upon the bare floor. With these pleasant noises came the smell of cooking, and later there was an opening and shutting of doors, with a thrill of the freezing air from without, and the dull thumping of Whitwell's rubber boots, and the quicker flapping of Jombateeste's soft leathern soles. Then there was the sweep of skirted feet at the parlor door, and Cynthia Whitwell came in without perceiving him. She went to the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... in wait for me. They expected to give me a sound thumping; but I was warned and ready. I'm sorry that you were annoyed by the row, Miss Blair. I'll stay here with you until your company comes back. I think he must have gone for help!" this with some bitterness ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... up and down and round and round the garden never losing sight of the gate—or any other point for that matter—for more than a minute. Each sound of the church clock striking a few streets away would have brought her young heart thumping into ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... and at the huge towers surmounted with extinguishers of slate. If you follow this street to the end, however, you encounter in abundance the usual embellishments of a French village: little ponds or tanks, with women on their knees on the brink, pounding and thumping a lump of saturated linen; brown old crones, the tone of whose facial hide makes their nightcaps (worn by day) look dazzling; little alleys perforating the thick- ness of a row of cottages, and showing you behind, ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... time was not to come yet. For a few days Life showed indecision, and Uncle Mo and Aunt M'riar had a thumping heart apiece each time they stood by the little, still, white figure on the bed and thought the breath was surely gone. They were allowed in the ward every day, contrary to visitor-rule, apparently because of Uncle Mo's professional eminence ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... seems such a bitter shame," said Kitty. Her face was crimson; she went to the other side of the room, opened the window and put out her head. She wanted the cool air to soothe her scorched cheeks; her heart was thumping in her breast. Had matters indeed come to this, that she, Kitty Malone, was to pawn her pretty dresses, her trinkets, her whatnots! Alas! ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade
... swept over the ocean, which rose and tossed to meet the coming storm. Surely no wind ever had a voice so wildly mournful. How the good ship rolled, and groaned, and creaked, and strained her old timber joints! What rocking, thumping, falling, banging of heads at the low entry of the cabin! Water falling into berths, people rolling out of them. What fierce music at night, as the wind, like a funeral dirge, swept over the ocean, the rain falling in torrents, and the sky covered with one dark, lugubrious ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... it that your young poet, your young worshiper, come elsewhere to receive a judgment than to the money-making publisher, and to the staring, vulgar crowd. You will provide it that he does not measure his voice against the big-drum thumping of the best-selling pomposities of the hour. You will provide it that he come, with all honor and all dignity, to the best and truest men that you can engage for the service; and that he come to be judged by one standard, ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... tremendous hammering on the table by way of assent and applause; amidst which Joe could be observed thumping his hard fist with as much vehemence as if he had got a County Magistrate's ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... ordered Bobby, thumping about on the fallen lad's chest like a particularly well-packed bale of hay. "Say you've ...
— Four Little Blossoms and Their Winter Fun • Mabel C. Hawley
... plunging after the others. In the next ten miles there were, perhaps a dozen more. They'd been hard to start, perhaps, and so left later than the rest. Jill wasn't in any of them. There was one car traveling slowly, making thumping noises. Its driver made the best time he could, following ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... and further than most. The Turkish armies held from pouring on Russia and Serbia, from thumping down the scales of neutrality in Greece and Roumania perhaps, from massing their troops with the Central Powers; the Kaiser chained on the East and West for the critical months when men and munitions were desperately lacking to the Allies, when the ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... Dinah's thumping heart gave a great start and seemed to stop. "Oh yes," she gasped desperately. "Yes, I couldn't ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... lay on her sleepless pillow, she felt as if all the batteries of the gold mines were thumping on ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... put it over easy," he growled behind set teeth, one clenched, gloved hand thumping the saddle-horn. "Saw the notice in the papers, of course, and decided it would be a cinch to rob a dead man. Well, there's a surprise coming to somebody that'll make mine look like ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... first few moments in which the canoe moved swiftly over the surface of the lake an amazing change had taken place in Neewa. Challoner did not see it, and Miki was unconscious of it. But every fibre in Neewa's body was atremble, and his heart was thumping as it had pounded on that glorious day of the fight between his mother and the old he-bear. It seemed to him that everything that he had lost was coming back to him, and that all would be well very soon—FOR HE SMELLED HIS MOTHER! And then he discovered that ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... how any one can help being crazy over her," continued Thomas, thumping his pillow as if he would like to pummel any one who ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes |
