"Whirr" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... so long accustomed to the green lawns and trees of Berkeley, turned almost wistful as he gazed away across the rich fields, dotted with cocks of hay or resounding to the whirr of the mower; but for the sweating Latter Day Saints who labored in the fields, he had nothing but the pitying contempt of the cowboy. It was a fine large country, to be sure, and produced a lot of very necessary horse feed, but Chapuli ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... glad, so glad, not sorry," was her dreamy response. She lapsed into silence as the somnolent drone of the motor and the whirr of the wheels caused the tired eyes ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... the neighborhood; nobody was to be seen, and the only sound not made by the birds and insects was the far-away click and whirr of ...
— The Story of the Big Front Door • Mary Finley Leonard
... the diadem from my head and wiped my forehead, but I thought of Hastur and of my own rightful ambition, and I remembered Mr. Wilde as I had last left him, his face all torn and bloody from the claws of that devil's creature, and what he said—ah, what he said. The alarm bell in the safe began to whirr harshly, and I knew my time was up; but I would not heed it, and replacing the flashing circlet upon my head I turned defiantly to the mirror. I stood for a long time absorbed in the changing expression of my own eyes. The mirror reflected a face which ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... let us ride fast." cried Squire Thornton in his loud hearty voice. As he spoke there was a whirr of loud wings, and a dark cloud of foul birds rose into the air from off that ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... Rasalu stood aghast; but he thought of the cricket's gift at last, and taking it out of his pocket thrust it into the fire, and a cloud as dust showed in the sky and the distant whirr of thousands of wings caused the air to stir, as, dark'ning the day like a fun'ral pall, a flight of crickets appeared at the call. 'What is our task?' asked his friend with a laugh; 'only that? I've brought too many by half!' So they set to work with a ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel
... was interrupted by them all making a rush for the book. There was a swish and a whirr and a rustling of leaves, and an instant later the book lay upon the floor looking just like any other book, while Jane Gladys' ...
— American Fairy Tales • L. Frank Baum
... The whirr of the rolling wheels, the reverberations from the blast walls, a crescendo of sound, and they were free of earth. An accelerating, effortless flight, a faint tremor as they passed the sonic barrier, then no sensory impressions ...
— The Mighty Dead • William Campbell Gault
... out,—"'Brothers, have mercy on me! Brothers, have mercy on me!' But the brothers had, no mercy, and when the procession came close to me, I saw how a soldier who stood opposite me took a firm step forward and lifting his stick with a whirr, brought it down upon the man's back. The man plunged forward, but the subalterns pulled him back, and another blow came down from the other side, then from this side and then from the other. The colonel ...
— The Forged Coupon and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... "Whirr! whirr! how many questions! I prescribe for him a course of early rising, accompanied by long prayer and fasting. If he shows an inclination for exercise, give him a rosary. Take away juvenile books, and give him the Lives of the Saints and Martyrs. Let him remember the days of fasting ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... nose and eyes been so close to the water, Jack Carleton would have caught the reflection of another face just behind his own—a face which would have driven all thirst away and caused him to bound to his feet, as though he had heard the whirr of a ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... the whirr of a covey on wing before the fowler, our crested three of immemorial antiquity and a presumptive immortality, the Ladies Endor, Eldritch, and Cowry, shot up again, hooting across the dormant chief ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Then came the sound of horse's hoofs, and at the same time he heard a motor-car approaching from the opposite direction. The rider made appearance first, riding a grey horse with an Arab's high set head and tail. She was holding him with difficulty, for the whirr of the approaching car grew every moment louder. Shelton rose; the car flashed by. He saw the horse stagger in the gate-way, crushing its rider up ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... abounds, The whirr of birds is dying out, The swart mechanic's lusty shout Amid the ...
— Fleurs de lys and other poems • Arthur Weir
... cleared, and a fair half-moon of silvery brightness shone out above the tops of the white gum forest. Fifty yards or so away, in front of the door, a shallow pool had formed in a depression of the hard, sun-baked soil, and as the soft light of the moon fell upon it there came a whirr of wings as a flock of night-roving, spur-winged plover lit upon its margin. I could have shot half a dozen of them from where I sat, but felt that I could not lift gun to shoulder and slaughter when there ...
— "Five-Head" Creek; and Fish Drugging In The Pacific - 1901 • Louis Becke
... the brook, now and then bee and beetle span homeward through the air, booming a deep note as from a great organ far away, and from the verge of the wood came the "who-oo, who-oo, who-oo" of the owls, a wild strange sound that mingled with the whirr and rattle of the night-jar, deep in the bracken. The moon swam up through the films of misty cloud, and hung, a golden glorious lantern, in mid-air; and, set in the dusky hedge, the little green fires of the glowworms appeared. He sauntered slowly up the ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... long, one heard the bleating of goats and fat-tailed sheep, the coo and whirr of pigeons, the thump of wooden mortars in which the women, their nude bodies covered with intricate designs of scars, were grinding millet. At times these noises were pierced by the clatter of little hammers, with which the smiths were beating ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... snow, and only the facility with which they could retrace their steps saved them from the fear of going astray. Through the vast forest a deathlike silence reigned; and this silence was not made up of an infinity of tiny sounds, like the silence of a summer day when the crickets whirr in the treetops and the bees drone in the clover-blossoms. No; this silence was dead, chilling, terrible. The huge pine-trees now and then dropped a load of snow on the heads of the bold intruders, and it fell with a thud, followed by a noiseless, glittering drizzle. ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... Although the roar of the concerted cannonade was deafening, Ross heard not a sound of it. To all intents, as far as he was concerned, the guns might have been fired with silencers attached to their muzzles. The whirr of the sea-plane's motor and the rush of air past his ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... Mr. Swift called after them. Tom waved his hand to his father, and the next moment his craft shot into the air. Up and up it went, the great propeller blades beating the air, but, save for a soft whirr, such as would be made by the wings of a bird, ...
— Tom Swift and his Great Searchlight • Victor Appleton
... the vacant chair of "the Chief" on the opposite side of the broad flat desk, then out the wide-open window and across the shimmering roofs of Ancon to the far green ridges of the youthful Republic, ablaze with the unbroken tropical sunshine. The whirr of a telephone bell broke in upon his meditation. In sharp, clear-cut phrases he answered the questions that came to him over the wire, hung up the receiver, and pushed the apparatus away from him with a ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... haze of battle, but the smoke and flash of the Allies' guns and the Turks' answering could be picked out without great difficulty. Added to this the air was still; the dull thud of the field guns at work there was different from the resounding boom of the naval guns, and the whirr of the machine guns ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... ox-locomotive, and go-cart train up in the pine woods were a novelty and a privilege. Our cloven-hoofed engine did not whirr turbulently along, like a thing of wheels. Slow and sure must the knock-kneed chewer of cuds step from log to log. Creakingly the wain followed him, pausing and starting and pausing again with groans of inertia. A very fat ox was this, protesting every ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... car out among the tall weeds close to the line of scrub willows edging the creek; extinguished his lights, including the tail-lamp; left his engine running; stood listening a moment to the whispering whirr of his motor; then, taking the flash light from his pocket, he climbed over the roadside wall and ran back across the ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... silent, almost preoccupied during the dinner they had eaten together in the little back dining-room. The son noticed that the heat had told on his father, and he blamed himself for keeping him in this dusty, deserted town, while he completed his laboratory work. The electric cars made a great whirr, just around the corner, every few moments, and the little strip of park behind the house was full of the poor people who had crawled out of their hot holes to get some breathable air in the green spots ...
— The Man Who Wins • Robert Herrick
... and one unclean sheet. Those who were decoyed into these staterooms endured them with disgust while the boat was at anchor; but when the paddle-wheels began to revolve, and dismal din of clang and bang and whirr came down about their ears, and threatened to unroof the fortress of the brain, why, then they fled madly, precipitately, leaving their clothes mostly behind them. But I am anticipating. The passengers arrived and kept arriving; and we watched, leaning over the side, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... changed him, With two huge and dusky pinions, 205 With a bosom smooth and rounded, With a bill like two great paddles, Made him larger than the others, Ten times larger than the largest, Just as, shouting from the forest, 210 On the shore stood Hiawatha. Up they rose with cry and clamor, With a whirr and beat of pinions, Rose up from the reedy islands, From the water-flags and lilies. 215 And they said to Pau-Puk-Keewis: "In your flying, look not downward, Take good heed, and look not downward, Lest some strange mischance should happen, ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... together, too; none of those chivalrous magnanimities which one reads so much about —one courtly rascal at a time, and the rest standing by to see fair play. No, they came in a body, they came with a whirr and a rush, they came like a volley from a battery; came with heads low down, plumes streaming out behind, lances advanced at a level. It was a handsome sight, a beautiful sight—for a man up a tree. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... night the girls had just started out from the hospital to go to their cave when they heard a German airplane, the irregular chug, chug of its engine distinguishing it unmistakably from the smooth whirr of the Allies' planes. The girls looked up and almost over their heads was an enemy plane, so low that they could see the insignia on his machine, and see the man in the car. He seemed to be looking down at them. In sudden panic they ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... nothing but an automatic metamorphosis of the locusts and wild honey. They could tell us 'with an iron strength of logic' that all the thoughts and moral struggles of humanity were but as the clanging whirr of a machine, which if a little better adjusted might for the future go on spinning in silence. But they see that the discovery on man's part that his life was nothing more than this would mean a complete change in its mechanism, ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... What was that whirring, singing sound? Was that a new signal that Barney was trying? Was it—Whirr, s-st! Down like a shot dropped Tam's head, and like an arrow he leaped forward, swerving sideways to escape the danger he had scented,—the danger of a lariat flung by ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry
... of birds who has spent the day in the field puts away his glasses at nightfall, looking forward to a walk after dark only as a chance to hear the call of nocturnal birds or to catch the whirr of a passing wing. But some bright moonlight night in early May, or again in mid September, unsheath your glasses and tie them, telescope-fashion, to a window-ledge or railing. Seat yourself in an easy position and focus on the moon. Shut out all earthly scenes ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... the room. He was once again a creature of the wild. The glory of a lofty purpose fired his blood. He had experienced it before when, out in the woods, he had followed the tracks of the nimble deer, or listened to the whirr of the startled pigeon. But now it was a nobler chase, a loftier purpose, in which the honour of a faithful friend ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... fly way up in the air so that we may look down over all the country!" said Billy Bumblebee, as he made his wings whirr and ...
— Friendly Fairies • Johnny Gruelle
... shot, and from our decks rose shouts of fierce exultation, drowned in the answering thunder of their starboard broadside, the hiss of their shot all round about us, the crackle of riven woodwork, the vicious whirr of flying splinters, wails and screams ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... alas! I know not; the cistus is brown now, the rest all deep or brilliant green. Large herds of cattle browse on the baked deposit at the foot of these large crags. One or two half-savage herdsmen in sheepskin kilts, &c., ask for cigars; partridges whirr up on either side of us; pigeons coo and nightingales sing amongst the blooming oleander. We get six sheep and many fowls, too, from the priest of the small village; and then run back to Spartivento and make ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... With a whirr like the wings of a partridge as it is flushed out of the grass by the huntsman's dog, the small machine shot forward a few feet over the smooth ground, then gracefully arose in the air and started away toward the opposite corner of the field. ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... eye on our friend when the shriek and the whirr of the express from the north was heard. Lopez walked quickly up towards the edge of the platform, when the pundit followed him, telling him that this was not his train. Lopez then ran a few yards along the platform, not noticing the man, reaching a spot that was unoccupied;—and ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... more good times with the best and jolliest of little neighbours. A summer without Rob's cheery whistle and good-natured laugh would seem as empty and queer as the woods without the bird voices, or the meadows without the whirr of humming things. She rode ...
— The Little Colonel's Hero • Annie Fellows Johnston
... daintiest of them all, a pale blue mull which she declared was the color of a wild morning-glory, that a remark of her mother's, in the next room, filled her with dismay. It had not been intended for her ears, but it floated in distinctly, above the whirr of ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... of some member of the clerical force, who, at his master's bidding, had thrown himself upon the young officer, who then deftly tripped his heels from under him and dropped him on the floor, while Loomis confronted the others who would have made some show of obeying orders. And then there was the whirr of a whip-lash, a crack and snap and swish, and a red welt shot across Burleigh's livid face as he himself staggered back to his desk. With raging tongue and frantic oath he leaped out again, a leveled pistol in his hand, but even before he could pull trigger, or Folsom interpose, Loomis's ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... whether it were an equal match for such a foe. Then, raising his voice to such a pitch, that it sounded above the cries and groans of the fighting men, the words of command, the neighing of the horses, the crash of overthrown chariots, the dull whirr of lances and swords, their heavy blows on shields and helmets, and the whole bewildering tumult of the battle—with a loud shout he drew his bow, and his first ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... laid the moth gently on a feathery flower head, and the tiny whispering whirr began again. "I thought ...
— The Lovely Lady • Mary Austin
... there are some who regret this, who associate national greatness with the whirr and buzz of many wheels, the smoke of factories and with large dividends; and others, again, who wish that our simple minds were illuminated by the culture and wisdom of our neighbours. But I raise the standard ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... were in a tropical clime, for, though no breath fanned your cheek, your senses easily detected the delicious odor of a distant garden of sweet roses. The sea sparkled with phosphorescence. Not a sound was heard except the panting of the hard-worked little donkey-engine and the whirr of the line as it came up taut and dripping from the ocean depths. The lamp, hanging from the mast, threw a bright glare on deck, presenting the strongest contrast with the black shadows, firm and motionless as marble. The 11th day of December was ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... proceeds rapidly in the Village of the Seven Palms. Flocks of crows are swarming in from their roosting place in the palmyra jungle beside the dry sand river; the cattle are strolling out from behind various enclosures where they share the family shelter; all around is the whirr of bird and insect as the teeming life of the tropics wakes to greet ...
— Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India • Alice B. Van Doren
... girl had to do was to go to the storehouse, and to sift the corn through a sieve. While she was busy rubbing the corn she heard a whirr of wings, and a flock of sparrows flew in ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... two o'clock (92 and 93 Fahr.), by which time every voice of bird or mammal was hushed; only in the trees was heard at intervals the harsh whirr of a cicada. The leaves, which were so moist and fresh in early morning, now become lax and drooping; the flowers shed their petals. Our neighbours, the Indian and Mulatto inhabitants of the open palm- thatched huts, as we returned home fatigued with our ramble, were either asleep ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... pig-whip in his hand, and by an adroit turn of his muscular wrist he parried a blow that would have stopped the old Jew's eloquence perhaps forever. As it was, the corn-factor's stick cut like a razor through the air, and made a most musical whirr within a foot of the Jew's ear. The basilisk look of venom and vengeance he instantly shot back amounted to ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... ready to spring into the air. We cock our guns, agree to shoot respectively at the birds which go right or left or straight before us, and then advance to flush the covey ourselves. The staunch dog never winces as we pass her: two paces, three, a sudden rush and whirr as of many wings, five sharp reports in quick succession and four birds down! Another, wild with fright, rises straight up for twenty feet and darts off behind us, but his beautiful head droops as the crack of my last barrel resounds on the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... climbed swiftly. Jimmy raised his machine at the same time, but, thinking to save the left turn and unconsciously slowing in a little on the plane in front, was reminded that he would be wise to change course a bit. The ominous whirr of pieces of projectile told him that the German "Archie" had fired a shot with good direction. He knew that shell might be closely followed by another at a better elevation, so turned right, climbing, until he had regained his eight hundred feet ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... little red motor-bonnet, surrounded by five men, one of them the somewhat notorious Maharajah of Indorwana. Vanno retreated hastily, and went on toward the steps which led up to the Rock of Monaco; but he had not gone far when a combination of sounds stopped him: the whirr of a propeller and the throb of an engine. Carleton was evidently on the point of trying his machine, the curious invention which could be used, it was said, on land as well as in ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... thief with his arms trussed back and his doublet turned down upon his shoulders. By the side of the track the old dame was standing, fastening her red whimple once more round her head. Even as he looked one of the archers drew his sword with a sharp whirr of steel and stept up to the lost man. The clerk hurried away in horror; but, ere he had gone many paces, he heard a sudden, sullen thump, with a choking, whistling sound at the end of it. A minute later the bailiff and four ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... mounted the garden steps to the house, she heard the whirr of a motor in the street. It stopped in front of the house, and as Margaret waited she heard Mrs. Hillyer's thin voice: "I am so sorry! Please tell Mrs. Pole that I came over from Lancaster to get her for dinner." Presently the motor whirled away in the direction of ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... as to waken them once or twice. Near dawn they heard the howling of wolves and the curiously similar hooting of a horned owl. There is, indeed, almost no difference between the short opening howl of a she-wolf and the long hoot of the owl. As he listened, half awake, Rolf heard a whirr of wings which stopped overhead, then a familiar chuckle. He sat up and saw Skookum sadly lift his misshapen head to gaze at a row of black-breasted grouse partridge on a branch above, but the poor doggie was feeling too sick to take any active interest. ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... smell of Miller Loveday's pipe came down Mrs. Garland's chimney of an evening with the greatest regularity. Every time that he poked his fire they knew from the vehemence or deliberateness of the blows the precise state of his mind; and when he wound his clock on Sunday nights the whirr of that monitor reminded the widow to wind hers. This transit of noises was most perfect where Loveday's lobby adjoined Mrs. Garland's pantry; and Anne, who was occupied for some time in the latter apartment, enjoyed the privilege of hearing the visitors arrive ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... October morning, and heavy, rolling fog-wreaths lay low over the wet grey roofs of the Woolwich houses. Down in the long, brick-lined streets all was sodden and greasy and cheerless. From the high dark buildings of the arsenal came the whirr of many wheels, the thudding of weights, and the buzz and babel of human toil. Beyond, the dwellings of the workingmen, smoke-stained and unlovely, radiated away in a lessening perspective of narrowing road ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... breast of his jacket. Then he sat again on the table and looked fixedly at the door of the room he had just left. He listened also intently. He heard a dry sound of rustling; sharp cracks as of dry wood snapping; a whirr like of a bird's wings when it rises suddenly, and then he saw a thin stream of smoke come through the keyhole. The monkey struggled under his coat. Ali appeared with his eyes starting out ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... duped, and there is little doubt that a mink, skunk, racoon, fox, coyote, or wolf would fare no better. Imagine the effects of the bird's tactics on a prowling fox: he has scented her as she sits; he is almost upon her, but she has been watching him, and suddenly, with a loud 'whirr,' she springs up and tumbles a few yards before him. The suddenness and noise with which the bird appears cause the fox to be totally carried away; he forgets all his former experience, he never thinks of the eggs, his mind is filled with the thought of the wounded ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... the summer breeze sighing a dreamy even-song through the forest trees, lulled the singing birds to rest; the little flowers drooped their pretty heads, and closed their dewy petals in slumber; the busy whirr and hum of insects ceased,—and the nature-world was hushed in sleep. Only the restless sea broke on the peaceful calm with its ceaseless swish-swish of waves. And far, far out on the ocean breast, leaning over the bulwark of a gallant ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... ticking fast and lightly over the belts of the rough jeans pants. Whirr, whirr, yes, and Miss Sophie was actually humming a tune! She felt ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar
... interrupted by a little whirr and clatter, which, thin and distant though it was, penetrated into her room. The whirr was followed by the voice, clear, self-confident and cheerful, of a cuckoo. Maggie was in an instant out of bed, into the passage and standing, in her nightdress, before a high, old cuckoo-clock that ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... to attack, but found that the Boers had evacuated the ground in front of us. Up and on at a great rate over the grassy veldt, the guns now marching in four columns and keeping a broad front. At about 1 p.m. sudden firing in front and the familiar whirr of Boer shells made us come into action at 4,500 yards on Almond's Nek Pass, through which our road lay. The Boers were evidently in possession, judging by the warm greeting of Pom-poms and the Creusot 5", which played on us without much damage. The troops were now all halted, and formed up for ...
— With the Naval Brigade in Natal (1899-1900) - Journal of Active Service • Charles Richard Newdigate Burne
... Magna Charta!' Dan whispered. It was one of the few history dates that he could remember. Kadmiel turned on him with a sweep and a whirr of his ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling
... lips parted to breathe out compressed disappointment; but his answer was lost in a sharp whirr! whirr! and a sudden flutter of wings above his head. His eyes went aloft towards a bough about eight feet from the ground. So did Herb's, and lit with a new, ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... was hollow—in reality, two saucer-shaped plates with their concave faces together. They gave off a muffled clink of hollowness when he tapped them. When he shook the armor, there was something extra in the sound, and that impelled him to hold a plate close to his ear. He heard a soft, rhythmic whirr of machinery. ...
— The Devil's Asteroid • Manly Wade Wellman
... leaning on her staff, and moved farther along the trail, stopping again to gaze at the shadowed valley below while I mused on the centuries it had seen and the brief moment of a man's life. Standing thus, I was like to lose my own, for suddenly I heard a whirr like that of a shrapnel shell on its murderous errand, and at my feet fell ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... arranged so for just that purpose of scaring off intruders. Then, as I looked out of my window on the second floor, I fancied I could see a dark figure slink into the shadow of the shrubbery at the side of the house. Then there was a whirr. It might have been an automobile, although it sounded differently from that—more like a motor boat. At any rate, there was no trace of a car that we could discover in the morning. The road had been oiled, too, and a car would have left marks. And yet some one was here. There were marks on the ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... a strange whirr and a clicking in the apartment beyond, as if some machinery was in motion. But then came a loud voice and the other sounds stopped. By getting down on his hands and knees Adam Adams was enabled to hear nearly all that was ...
— The Mansion of Mystery - Being a Certain Case of Importance, Taken from the Note-book of Adam Adams, Investigator and Detective • Chester K. Steele
... hunted the valley, they hunted the hill, The best of our lads wi' the best o' their skill; But still as the fairest she sat in their sight, Then, whirr! she was over, a mile at a flight. I ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... Flowers! flowers! I will crown my head for the death-fight. And the lyre too, reach me the lyre, that I may sing a battle-song. . . . Words like flaming stars, that shoot down from the heavens, and burn up the palaces, and illuminate the huts. . . . Words like bright javelins, that whirr up to the seventh heaven and strike the pious hypocrites who have skulked into the Holy of Holies. . . . I am all joy and song, all sword and flame! Perhaps, too, all delirium. . . . One of those sunbeams wrapped in brown paper has flown to my brain, and set my thoughts aglow. In vain I dip ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... shining at intervals, for the night was partially clouded. There seemed to be nobody stirring, though his attention was unusually awake, and he could hear the whirr of the bats overhead, and the pulsating croak of the frogs in the distant pools and marshes. Presently he detected the sound of hoofs at some distance, and, looking forward, saw a horseman coming in his direction. The moon was under a ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... trains, the feathery whirr of motors, the echo of footsteps, the immense, indefinable breathing vibration of the iron monster, drowsing on its rock between three rivers and the sea, ceases utterly. And a vast stillness reigns, ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... angels, and I thought it must be the same ladder I used to see in my dream. The drowsy delight which follows on the loss of blood possessed me, and the little garret with the slanting roof, and its sloping sun-ray, and the whirr of the wheel, and the form of the patient woman that span, had begun to gather about them the hues of Paradise to my slowly fading senses, when I heard a voice that sounded miles away, and yet close ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... lower thousand and two thousand-foot lanes. The lights of Tappen were dwindling beneath us. The interior of the Cometara was humming with the whirr of its circulators and air-receivers, mingled with the throb of air pressure pumps. At three thousand feet I started the air-rocket engines. They came on with a gentle purring. The fluorescence from them streamed along our hull and down past the ...
— Wandl the Invader • Raymond King Cummings
... The wailing cry sounded through the leafy solitude; but no answer came save the whirr of wings or the chatter of startled birds. But even more shocking than that terrible cry—more disturbing and eloquent with dreadful suggestion—was the way in which she peered, furtively, but with fearful expectation, among the roots of the bushes, or halted to gaze upon every ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... falcon pouncing down upon its prey. It seemed descending not in a straight line, but in an acute parabolic curve, like a thunderbolt or some aerolite projected toward the surface of the sea. But the bird, with a whirr like the sound of running spindles, was going in a definite direction, the point evidently aimed at being the head ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... example of others the man and boy were soon balanced on top of the wooden fence. Whirr! George was conscious of a whistling sound, and a bullet flew by him as it just grazed the tip of ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... water-fowl by dozens. It arouses the killing propensity in me most dreadfully, and I really entertain serious thoughts of learning to use a gun, for the mere pleasure of destroying these pretty birds as they whirr from their secret coverts close beside my path. How strong an instinct of animal humanity this is, and how strange if one be more strange than another. Reflection rebukes it almost instantaneously, and yet for the life of me I cannot help wishing I had a fowling-piece ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... to have rung it a few more times. It is an awful thing to contemplate that you have rung a bell for the last time. One can get very sentimental over a thing like that. Dear jolly old bells, what an influence they have upon life. How bravely they whirr at the arrival of a dear expected—how madly they riot to the tune Wedding—how sadly they toll when the last of us is ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... splendid grand piano (he receives a new one every year,) stands in one window. The other window is always open and looks out on the park. There is a dovecote just opposite the window, and doves promenade up and down upon the roof of it, and fly about, and sometimes whirr down on the sill itself. That pleases Liszt. His writing-table is beautifully fitted up with things that match. Everything is in bronze—inkstand, paper-weight, match-box, etc.—and there is always a lighted candle standing on it by which ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... of about twenty Belgians, who had got through and occupied the grounds of a villa on the edge of the village. We stopped the car, and I got out and went ahead, they remaining with leveled rifles, in their usual hospitable manner. When I got to within twenty feet of them we heard the whirr of a machine gun—which the Belgian soldiers call a cinema—and a German armoured car poked its nose around the corner for a look-see. It was firing high to draw a return fire and locate any Belgians there might be in the town, but they all scurried ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... "There! Dad!—There!" I saw two gobblers wade into the brook not more than a hundred and fifty feet away. Drawing down with fine aim I fired. The bullet splashed water all over the turkeys. One with loud whirr of wings flew away. The other leaped across the brook and ran—swift as a deer—right up the slope. As I tried to get the sight on him I heard other turkeys fly, and the crack-crack of R.C.'s gun. I shot twice at my running turkey, and all I did was to scatter ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... of this long and peculiar bay. All around us was exquisitely green. The strong sea-breeze had suddenly fallen, and was succeeded by a calm; the atmosphere, now very warm, was laden with the perfume of flowers. In the valley resounded the ceaseless whirr of the cicalas, answering one another from shore to shore; the mountains reechoed with innumerable sounds; the whole country seemed to vibrate like crystal. We passed among myriads of Japanese junks, gliding softly, wafted by imperceptible breezes ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... creature crouched. An added horror came when Roger glanced at the door and saw there the dark, stern face of a tall Indian with arrow poised. It was aimed not at Roger, but at the springing lynx. The whirr of that arrow lived in Roger's mind the rest of his days. The boy himself was almost as limp with fright as the creature that was carried by Nonowit to the main cabin. For this Indian had heard of the new settlement ...
— Some Three Hundred Years Ago • Edith Gilman Brewster
... dusty staircase jostling against a spruce, handsome young fellow who was hurrying down. He looked back with a sudden conviction that it was his son. His heart swelled with pride and affection; but ere he could cry 'Yankely' the young fellow was gone. He heard the whirr of machines. Yes, she had kept on the workshop, the wonderful creature, though crippled by his loss and the want of capital. Doubtless S. Cohn's kind-hearted firm had helped her to tide over the crisis. Ah, what a blackguard he had ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... friends; and his cries have been heard by the eagle, who comes down like an avalanche, and, seizing him firmly in its great talons, carries him away higher and higher to the nest in the cliff. Then there is a whirr and swoop, and the mother or father eagle, whichever it is, alights on the rough platform in the cliff and lays the still warm and only half-dead woolly lamb before the young ones. There is not much chance for it then, but let us hope it has been ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... I am not attempting to prove anything. I merely state that, as I descended the Estabrook steps and struck off into the park, the detective instinct which lies in every one of us had wakened in me. It may have been the reason for my turning around, after I had crossed the street, between the whirr and lights of two automobiles, and stood at the opening of one of the paths ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... but he felt the grit of gravel under his feet and he heard the melancholy gurgle of running water. He took a step forward and groped his way into a little porch smelling horribly of mustiness and damp. As he did so, he heard a whirr behind him and the car began to glide off. Desmond shouted after the chauffeur. Now that he stood on the very threshold of his adventure, he wanted to cling desperately to this last link with his ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... pull it down again.... You ask if I have seen any of my relatives who are at the front. No. I think they are all farther back, and if they should come up where I am they would have an awful time of it.... I hear the whirr of an aeroplane. I wonder if it is ours or a German bomb dropper; you never know which it may be! So glad to ...
— Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie • George Brenton Laurie
... from the Spaniard—a whirr, a shriek, and a solid shot struck the water, having passed ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... saw Maloney deliberately creep closer to the fire and heap the wood on. We gathered in to the heat, and to each other, and listened to Dr. Silence's voice as it mingled with the swish and whirr of the wind about us, and the falling of the ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... there was a roar from our side of the main valley as our field guns opened one after another in a more deliberate fire upon the positions of the German guns. After six reports there was again silence save for the whirr of shells as they sang up the small valley. Then followed flashes and balls of smoke—one, two, three, four, five, six—as the shrapnel burst nicely over what in the haze looked like some ruined buildings at ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... grew more flaming and fiery, and the little black wings grew larger and larger; and now the left leg was dashed to and fro with a fearful agitation. Mackaw looked agonised. What a whirr! Francia is on the table! All shriek, the chairs tumble over the ottomans, the Sevre china is in a thousand pieces, the muzzle is torn off and thrown at Miss Graves; Mackaw's wig is dashed in the clotted cream, and devoured on ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... flitted among the hazel bushes caroling joyously, and cat-birds sang gaily. Robins called; bluejays screeched in the tall, white oaks; wood-peckers hammered in the dead hard-woods, and crows cawed overhead. Squirrels chattered everywhere. Ruffed grouse rose with great bustle and a whirr, flitting like brown flakes through the leaves. From far above came the shrill cry of a hawk, followed by the wilder scream ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... whirr-r-r!" said the wind, and it tore through the streets of the city that Christmas eve, turning umbrellas inside out, driving the snow in fitful gusts before it, creaking the rusty signs and shutters, and playing every kind of rude ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... time Holroyd maltreated him, Azuma-zi went presently to the Lord of the Dynamos and whispered, "Thou seest, O my Lord!" and the angry whirr of the machinery seemed to answer him. Thereafter it appeared to him that whenever Holroyd came into the shed a different note came into the sounds of the dynamo. "My Lord bides his time," said Azuma-zi ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... Ashton—gossiping Mrs. Graves, who knew all that took place in the parish, and a great deal of what never did take place. She had just been telling it all unreservedly in her hard way; things that might be said, and things that might as well have been left unsaid. She went out leaving a whirr and a buzz behind her and an awful sickness ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... the beam flung far across the prairie by a freight locomotive on a side-track. Groups of people strolled up and down the low platform, waiting to see the train go out, and their voices rang merrily on the frosty air. From one of the great shadowy elevators there came a whirr of wheels. ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... on, finished, and then the lady sang it all over again. Jan turned on the electric fan, for it was extremely hot, and the strong contralto voice made her feel even hotter. The whirr of the fan in no way drowned the voice, which now went on to proclaim with much brio that the temple bells were ringing and the month of marriages was drawing near. And then, very slowly and solemnly, but quite as loudly as before, came "When I am ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... all along its ditch border the starry stitchwort lifted its childish faces, and chorused in lines and masses. Never had I seen such a symphony of note-like flowers and tendrils and leaves. And suddenly in its depths, I heard a chirrup and the whirr of startled wings. ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... sparkling on the heights and blue in the hollows. The brown bushes by a hidden stone-wall broke the sheen entrancingly; here and there a dry leaf fluttered, but only enough to show how still such winter stillness can be, and a flock of little brown birds rose, with a soft whirr, and settled further on. Mrs. Wadleigh pressed her lips together in a voiceless content, and her eyes took on a new brightness. She had lived quite long enough in the town. Rounding a sweeping bend, and ploughing sturdily along, though it was difficult here ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... a kind of soft thunder: his quickened ears heard a thousand small outcries contributing to the awful energy of the world—faint chimings and whistlings in the grass, and endless flutter, rustle, and whirr. His own body, on which hair and nails grew daily like vegetation, startled and appalled him. Consciousness of self, that miserable ecstasy, was heavy ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... voice or a foot came out of the head of that glen. The brand of black devil is there—an evil wind moaneth around— There is doom, there is death in the air: a curse groweth up from the ground! No noise of the axe or the saw in that hollow unholy is heard, No fall of the hoof or the paw, no whirr of the wing of the bird; But a grey mother down by the sea, as wan as the foam on the strait, Has counted the beads on her knee ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... much-dismantled structure. Though its walls were intact, many of its staircases were rotten, while its flooring was, as I knew, heavily broken away in spots, making it a dangerous task to walk about its passage-ways, or even to enter the large and solitary rooms which once shook to the whirr and ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... clatter of hoofs and a whirr of wheels, the fire engine dashed around the corner. The driver was crouched low in the seat. ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... place. First of all would come a "short one"—not that he needed an appetiser! He imagined himself seated at a table, the cloth startlingly white, the cutlery and glasses reflecting a thousand points of light. He could hear the band, above the whirr of conversation, playing something he knew. He was glancing down the menu card, and the waiter was at his side. A soup that was succulent, thick and hot—his mouth watered! Whitebait, perhaps. He saw their ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... poetic, mysterious, full of wonder and romance. I am writing, as usual, by my window, the moonlight brighter in its whiteness than my mean little yellow-shining lamp. From the mysterious greyness, the olive groves and lanes beneath my terrace, rises a confused quaver of frogs, and buzz and whirr of insects: something, in sound, like the vague trails of countless stars, the galaxies on galaxies blurred into mere blue shimmer by the moon, which rides slowly across the highest heaven. The olive twigs glisten in the rays: the flowers of the pomegranate and ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... warm. A breeze heavy with perfume lifted the hair from his brow. He heard the low breathing of the cattle as they dozed in the fields on either side, and the soft whirr of downy plumage as the great owl which had built its nest among the eaves of the new barn flew past him. Suddenly a warm nose was thrust against his shoulder and, with the assurance of a spoilt beauty, the cow laid ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... ahead and was jealous of every moment that detained him. This was a feeling he had never before experienced. He knew that winter was following him closely and the river would soon be freezing behind him; yet that could scarcely account for the unusual desire for haste. The moment he heard the whirr of the little alarm clock, he was up. Hurriedly swallowing breakfast, he slipped into the river for ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton |
