"Clatter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... were awakened by the ringing of a bell and the clatter of hoofs. It was the cavallada returning to camp, under the charge of Benito, who had thus kept his promise. The travellers were soon upon their feet, but it was soon perceived that the two trappers were not amongst them. ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... gaze curiously on the scene beneath. Gayly dressed groups throng the balconies, and at the street-corners dark-faced men scowl, mutter deep curses, and clutch their knives. The street resounds with the heavy tramp of infantry, the rattle of gun-carriages, and the clatter of horses' hoofs. "Los Yanquies!" is the cry, and every neck is stretched to obtain a glimpse of the six thousand bemired and begrimed soldiers who are marching proudly to the Grand Plaza. On him especially is every eye intently fixed, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... hand, which Luis pressed to his lips. At that moment the clatter of a horse's hoofs, rapidly approaching, was heard upon the hard ground of the avenue. The lady hastily withdrew her land and left the window, whilst Luis again concealed himself behind the screen of foliage. Scarcely had he done ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... in fact, some controversial homily, which Mr. Dumdrum had composed and preached years before. And when this discourse was over, there was a loud universal grunt, as if of release and thanksgiving, and a great clatter of shoes—and the old hobbled, and the young scrambled, to ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... follow a great noise and uproar and hurry in the castle court-yard below; men shouting and calling to one another, the ringing of armor, and the clatter of horses' hoofs upon the hard stone. With the creaking and groaning of the windlass the iron-pointed portcullis would be slowly raised, and with a clank and rattle and clash of iron chains the drawbridge ...
— Otto of the Silver Hand • Howard Pyle
... to their use. They had even taken some mountain-guns from their enemy. Leader made me laugh with his accounts of Lizarraga shouting "Artilleria al frente!" and a couple of mules, with one wretched little piece, moving forward; and of the intimidating clatter made by three shrunk cavaliers in cuirasses a world too wide for them, and alpargatas, trotting up a village street. The alpargata is the mountain-shoe of canvas, with a hempen sole, worn by the Basque peasants. The association of surcoats of mail and rope slippers is incongruous; ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... fragments on all sides. On all sides distorted reflections of her image started from his memory: the flower girl in the ragged dress with damp coarse hair and a hoyden's face who had called herself his own girl and begged his handsel, the kitchen-girl in the next house who sang over the clatter of her plates, with the drawl of a country singer, the first bars of BY KILLARNEY'S LAKES AND FELLS, a girl who had laughed gaily to see him stumble when the iron grating in the footpath near Cork Hill had caught the broken sole of his shoe, a girl he had glanced at, attracted by ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... kept profane feet from its sacred hills. But these rough rocks around me, these dry, fiery hollows, these thickets of ancient oak and ilex, had heard the trumpets of the Middle Ages, and the clang and clatter of European armor—I could feel and believe that. I entered the ranks; I followed the trumpets and the holy hymns, and waited breathlessly for the moment when every mailed knee should drop in the dust, and every bearded and sunburned cheek ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... has twice heard the strange sound emitted by the moose, which, till he became acquainted with its origin, was almost appalling. It is a deep, hoarse, and prolonged bellow, more resembling a feline than a bovine roar. Sometimes the ear of the hunter is assailed by a tremendous clatter from some distant swamp or burned wood. It is the moose, defiantly sweeping the forest of pines right and left among the brittle branches of the ram pikes, as the scaled pines hardened by fire are locally termed. When, however, the moose wishes to beat a retreat in silence, his suspicions being ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... safe—for respectable people. And we WERE respectable people.... That was the world that made us what we are. That was the sheltering and friendly greenhouse in which we grew. We fitted our minds to that.... And here we are with the greenhouse falling in upon us lump by lump, smash and clatter, the wild winds of heaven tearing in through ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... No more in the yoke of thy car Shall the colts of Enetia fleet; Nor Limna's echoes quiver afar To the clatter of galloping feet. The sleepless music of old, That leaped in the lyre, Ceaseth now, and is cold, In the halls of thy sire. The bowers are discrowned and unladen Where Artemis lay on the lea; And the love-dream of many a maiden Lost, in the ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides
... and disappeared in the cool dim arch, and the remaining nun moved across the paved walk with the quick, noiseless, religious tread peculiar to those sacred conventual retreats where the clatter of heels ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... 148: "Then forth rushed the twain, and fought in front of the gates like wild boars that in the mountains abide the assailing crew of men and dogs, and charging on either flank they crush the wood around them, cutting it at the root, and the clatter of their tusks waxes loud, till one smite them and take their life away" ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon
... Robert's to save poor Crippy's life, Dan would have felt that he was doing something wrong because of the warning cries uttered by everything around. The stable door, when he tried to close it softly, shut with a spiteful clatter, and even the snow gave forth a sharp, crunching sound such as he had never heard before. But he must keep on, for to remain would be to see the plump, brown body of poor Crippy on the Thanksgiving dinner table, while to go on would be, at the worst, but a few hours' ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... kicked about by our shuffling feet. I tried to make a dive for it, but Levy had seen it also, and he kicked it through the banisters without relaxing his murderous hold. I could have sworn afterwards that I heard the weapon fall with a clatter on the wooden stairs. But what I still remember hearing most distinctly (and feeling hot upon my face) is the stertorous breathing that was unbroken by a single syllable after the ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... sound of a whip rang clear; the clatter of hoofs and the grind of a wheel on the skid followed. A carriage dashed down the hill from Sasellano. Paul de Roustache had seen it, and stooped low for a moment in instinctive fear of being seen. Captain Dieppe, on the other ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope
... but before he could reply in words there came a clatter upon the rickety stairs at the far end of the entry. A thin, slipshod woman with untidy hair and a sharp face paused on the lower step and looked ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... at Little Ferry, had heard the clatter of hoofs, and tumbled out to unchain his boat; a trifling matter for him, since he habitually slept in ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... provisions. The troops had become habituated to the slow and steady progress of the siege; the skirmish-lines were held close up to the enemy, were covered by rifle-trenches or logs, and kept up a continuous clatter of musketry. The mainlines were held farther back, adapted to the shape of the ground, with muskets loaded and stacked for instant use. The field-batteries were in select positions, covered by handsome parapets, and occasional shots from them gave life and animation to the ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... to be in the presence of Nala himself. And Damayanti also heard the sound of that car driven by Nala, like the deep roar of the clouds in the rainy season. And Bhima and the steeds (of Nala) regarded the clatter of that car to be like that which they used to hear in days of yore when king Nala himself urged his own steeds. And the peacocks on the terraces, and the elephants in the stables, and the horses also, all heard the rattle of Rituparna's car. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... the patois) of his pleasure in making my acquaintance, and led me to a strange uneasy easy-chair, much of a piece with the rest of the furniture, which might have taken its place without any anachronism by the side of that in the Hotel Cluny. Then again began the clatter of French voices, which my arrival had for an instant interrupted, and I had leisure to look about me. Opposite to me sat a very sweet-looking lady, who must have been a great beauty in her youth, I should think, and would ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... this be said, for, as the hardware man spoke, the monkey leaped from one shelf to another and, in so doing, knocked down a lot of tin pans which fell to the floor with a clatter and ...
— Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue Giving a Show • Laura Lee Hope
... profound—he held an opinion and aired it with superb frankness and incredible fluency. So it was that, when the poulet bonne femme had been picked to the bones and Jacqueline had retired to some sanctum whence the clatter of plates and the sound of running water told of domestic duties, the three pushed their chairs back from the table ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... were always hanging about the front door long before it was time to start, and the moment the coachman brought out the ponies from the stable they would spring into their saddles in a great bustle, and clatter away over the grass, pretending that they were very late and would get bad marks ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... had torn himself from her grasp, listening to the volley of oaths and clatter of horses's feet until both had been swallowed up in the distance. Then she turned to where Jim stood swaying, with one hand pressed to his side, and the blood from the reopened cut upon his forehead making his face ...
— Anything Once • Douglas Grant
... done with that infernal clatter!' cried his master. 'And don't bring the cheese, unless you want ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... discords, and pleased, like boys in the street, with the alarms it made, only cared for that part of Browning which represented the tangle and the clash, and ignored his final melody. But of late it has begun, tired of the restless clatter of intellectual atoms, to desire to hear, if possible, the majestic harmonies in which the discords are resolved. And at this point many at present and many more in the future will find their poetic and religious satisfaction ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... admiration for the rare imaginative faculty which enabled a quiet man of letters to deal so finely and faithfully, with such reserve and discrimination, with a subject that might easily have been spoiled by the noisy clatter and coarse colouring of the inferior artist. His full length portrait of Marlborough has been too often quoted to be reproduced here—'impassible before victory, before danger, before defeat; the splendid ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... heavenly-mindedness. He was never hasty nor loitering, but did each thing in its season, with an even, uninterrupted composure and tranquility of spirit. "The time of business," said he, "does not with me differ from the time of prayer; and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess GOD in as great tranquility as if I were upon my knees ...
— The Practice of the Presence of God the Best Rule of a Holy Life • Herman Nicholas
... Vinegar lived in a vinegar bottle. Now, one day when Mr. Vinegar was from home and Mrs. Vinegar, who was a very good housewife, was busily sweeping her house, an unlucky thump of the broom brought the whole house clitter-clatter about her ears. In a paroxysm of grief she rushed forth to meet her husband. On seeing him she exclaimed, "Oh, Mr. Vinegar, Mr. Vinegar, we are ruined, we are ruined: I have knocked the house down, and it is all ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... discreet step the house-steward presented some grilled mullet. So noiseless was the service amid the cheerful perfumed warmth that not even the faintest clatter of crockery was heard. Without anyone knowing how it had come about, however, the conversation had suddenly changed; and somebody inquired: "So the revival of ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... bloomed in a country where everybody seems happy, and that is the land I love best. The children in that country look like little stuffed dolls in their many petticoats and close-fitting bonnets around their chubby little faces. Their little shoes clatter over the stones, sounding like many horses in the distance. There I was best loved and grew in profusion and beauty around the quaint homes ...
— Sandman's Goodnight Stories • Abbie Phillips Walker
... Court had sworn fealty to Otto the Ninth. He had stood on the dais in the throne room, very much washed and brushed by that time, and the ceremony had taken place. Such a shout from relieved throats as went up, such a clatter as swords were drawn from scabbards and held upright in ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Leneli sat down on the step, and Mother Adolf put the baby in her arms and went at once into the quiet house. Then there was a sound of quick steps about the kitchen, a rattling of the stove, and a clatter of tins which must have pleased the cuckoo, and soon she reappeared in the door with a bowl and spoon ...
— The Swiss Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... ready to go, but with what different purposes in mind! He goes for pastime and for passion; he goes for wooing and for wantoning; for marriage and for murder. He goes in D sharp with pomp, pride, and power, and we can distinguish the tread of his servants' feet, the clatter of arms, and the hurrying together of his escort and retinue. He goes again in B flat minor, stealthily and unattended, the orchestra giving the motive with muted violins and subdued brass. We seem to hear naught but the soft pad-pad of his felt bedroom slippers ...
— Bluebeard • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... under the shade of the distant trees, and then go out again. Horses' hoofs would clatter, now and again, only to turn out to be riders ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... and carry off one of the minarets and erect it in Tazaria. The ropes were fastened to the summit of the minar, but at the first great pull the brick-work gave way and the top of the tall minaret came tumbling down with a crash and clatter, killing several of its would-be removers. The Damghan people turned out, and after hearing the unhappy Tazarians' laments, some sarcastic citizen gave them a few carrot-seeds, bidding them go home and sow them, and they could grow all the minarets they ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... penetrated by an arched passage, in either side of which is an entrance door to the different parts of the house, and through which, and over the large stones of its pavement, all vehicles and horsemen rumble and clatter into an enclosed courtyard, with a thunderous uproar among the contiguous rooms and chambers. I appeared to be the only guest of the spacious establishment, but may have had a few fellow-lodgers hidden in their separate parlors, and utterly eschewing that community of interests ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... himself with making weak coffee. Tom and Harry set the dishes on the table with a cheery clatter. Then six fearfully hungry boys sat ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... then with the knowledge that any new kink in the case would be reported immediately to me, I relaxed to watch the early supper crowd arrive: Women in picture hats and bare or half-bare shoulders with rich wraps slipping off them; hum of voices; the clatter of silver and china; waiters beginning to wake up and dart about settling new arrivals. And I wondered idly what sort of party would come to sit around one long table across from me specially decorated with pale ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... her chair over to the window and sat there long quarter hours, watching the electric cars. They announced themselves from a great distance by a low singing on the overhead wire; then with a rush and a rumble the big, lighted things dashed across the void, and rumbled on with a clatter of smashing iron as they took the switches recklessly. The noise soothed her; in the quiet intervals she was listening for sounds from upstairs. The night was still and languorous, one of the peaceful nights of large spaces when the heavens brood over the earth ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... and on to the bridge to look at the river that flowed past the station. It was narrow and filled with ships, and the water looked gray and dirty. A pall of black smoke covered the sky. From all sides of him and even in the air above his head a great clatter and roar of bells ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... round but saw nothing, and I was turning to watch the lugger again, when I heard a fresh pat on the slate rubbish by me, and soon after a piece of flat, thin shale struck the clatter stream ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... ran along from Imperial Light Horse to Carbineers, who had not a bayonet amongst them, for irregular mounted infantry in this country do not carry such weapons. But they struck the butts of their rifles on rocks, and made a great clatter as if preparing for a bayonet charge, and cheered again and again for a good deal more than their actual numbers, while crags on each hand tossed the shouts to and fro in a mighty tumult. This was apparently too much for ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... mean that," said Laura; "it is because the piano seems to say so little that I care so little for it. The music I mean is what I hear, when, in a summer's afternoon, I carry my book out into the barn to read as I lie on a bed of hay. I don't read, but I listen. The cooing of the doves, the clatter even of the fowls in the barn-yard, the quiet noises, with the whisperings of the great elm, and the rustling of the brook in the field beyond,—all this is the music I like to hear. It puts me into delicious dreams, and stirs me, too, into ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Yes, 'tis they, when on high full of water they fly, and then, as I told you before, By compression impelled, as they clash, are compelled a terrible clatter to make. ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... sudden pause—the tense silence as the man stopped motionless, listening with every nerve alert. He felt once again the hideous certainty that he was not alone; that close to, holding his breath, was someone else . . . then he saw the man turn like a flash and stab viciously; he heard the clatter of falling bricks—the sob of exultation as the Boche writhed in his death agony. . . . And it might have been the other ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... on, fresh anxiety beset the Abbe. La Teuse would give him a fine reception; for his luncheon must have been waiting nearly two hours for him. He pictured her terrible face, the flood of words with which she would greet him, the angry clatter of kitchen ware which he would hear the whole afternoon. When he had got through Les Artaud, his fear became so lively that he hesitated, full of trepidation, and wondered if it would not be better to go round and reach the parsonage ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... battalion had climbed two-thirds of the steep a mysterious and fatal incident occurred. Suddenly from the darkness encircling the clambering soldiers broke out a roar "like that of an approaching train,"[133] there was a rush of hoofs and the clatter of scattering stones. In a moment a group of loose animals, whether horses, mules or cattle, it was impossible to discern, bounding down the rocky precipice, tore past the last companies of the Royal Irish Fusiliers ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... His officers, honest Englishmen, suspecting no evil and having confidence in their chief, saw nothing strange in this proceeding, and Sir William rode deliberately out of Zutphen. After he had been absent an hour or two, the clatter of hoofs and the tramp of infantry was heard without, and presently the commandant returned, followed by a thousand musketeers and three or four hundred troopers. It was still pitch dark; but, dimly lighted by torches, small detachments ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the curtain was to be rung down on the end of the play, a mad clatter of boots was heard behind the scenes. Then a man, dressed in complete black, and excessively pale, jumped upon the stage. His black hair was tossed all over his head, and his black eyes were rolling wildly. Thus much all the spectators saw at ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... cruel, mean way to treat a "pore afflicted chap," and cursed the boss. Tom's admirers cursed in sympathy, and trouble seemed threatening, when the voice of Mitchell was heard to rise in slow, deliberate tones over the clatter of cutlery ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... the familiar glance! It was all too good to be true. He was blind to the presence of Ramsey. He was alone with her; Ramsey did not exist; the restaurant did not exist. The hum of voices, the clatter of plates, the movements of the waiters, were distant sounds: all he knew was that he was ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... who appeared to know his business, came forward with the coupling which fed compressed air to the machine, the runner gave a last inspection of his drill, turned his chuck screw, setting it against the rocky face, and signaled for the air. With a clatter like the discharge of a rapid-fire gun, the steel bit into the rock, and the Cross was really a mine again. Spattered with mud, and satisfied that the new drift was working in pay, ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... carrying a good principle too far, and that he night live to be sorry that he had thrown away his vote, instead of using it discreetly. 'Why, there's the iron business,' said I; but just then I heard a clatter beside me, and, looking round, there was the little iron soldier clapping his hands in great glee. 'That's it, Aminadab!' said he; 'business first, conscience afterwards! Keep up the price of iron with peace if you can, but keep it up at any rate.' ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... Peth came clumping down the waist and, calling two of the crew, went into the main cabin. There was a banging of doors, heard above the clatter of Shanghai Tom's chopping tray, and then Peth went forward, carrying clothes under both arms, followed by two men with ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore
... He had pushed the curtains aside; the crashing of the orchestra had prevented our hearing the clatter of the rings. He had pushed by the man standing there, had ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... wagons began to clatter through streets no grayer than Harry's face. But at six o'clock Mrs. Schum was reported "as well as could be expected" and the operation apparently ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... before she heard a curious noise in the vicinity of her ear, and something unmistakably gave her plait a violent wrench. She started up with a yell, in time to see an enormous head withdraw itself from the tent door. A clatter ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... ef he can't bus' inter some er Brer Fox 'rangerments, en, atter w'ile, one day w'en he wer' settin' down by de side er de road wukkin up de diffunt oggyment w'at strak pun he mine, en fixin' up he tricks, des 'bout dat time he year a clatter up de long green lane, en yer come ole Brer Foxtoobookity—bookity—bookity-book—lopin' 'long mo' samer dan a bay colt in de bolly-patch. En he wuz all primp up, too, mon, en he look slick en shiny lak he des come outen de sto'. ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... another moment, making a great clatter on the frozen gravel, the first of the pair passed me; and as he did so, there was a sharp crack, and something sang through the ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... a moment,—so that they could all see the hero. Such was the power of success on the country-side! Outwardly indifferent, inwardly bitter, Lanty turned away. She should not grace his triumph, if she kept in her room all day! And when there was a clatter of hoofs on the road ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... The father scolded it, while the baby continued crying. By-and-by the whole family went back to bed and fell asleep. The patter of a mouse was heard. It climbed up some vase and upset it. We heard the clatter of the vase as it fell. The woman coughed in her sleep. Then cries of "Fire! fire!" were heard. The mouse had upset the lamp; the bed curtains were on fire. The husband and wife waked up, shouted, and screamed, the children cried, people ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... poles, under pretence of drawing the gondolas to shore; one or two women from the islands, filling the moments with swift, declamatory speech until the gondola of Giambattista or of Jacopo should close the colloquy; an older peasant, tranquilly kneeling to the Madonna of the traghetto, amid the clatter, while steaming greasy odors from her housewifely basket of Venetian dainties mount slowly, like some travesty of incense, and cloud the humble shrine. Two or three comers swell the group from the recesses of the dark little shop behind, for no other reason than that life is ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... toward a tin pail of eggs on the table. "Seven dollars a clatter, though," he confessed, after ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... the girls continued their chatter, and their high-shrieking trebles arose triumphant above all the clatter. It was American girlhood rampant on the shield of their native land. Still there was something about the foolish young faces and the inane chatter and laughter which was sweet and even appealing. They became attractive from their audaciousness and their ignorance that ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... was as luckless a jump As ever Kit made, with the clatter Of knife, skimmer, spoon, and a thump, Which she got, as she ...
— The Youth's Coronal • Hannah Flagg Gould
... forenoon, Mary met James in the park, wandering in search of his pupil, whom he had not seen since they had finished their morning's work in the study. Some wild freak with Clara was apprehended, but while they were conferring, Mary exclaimed, 'What's that?' as a clatter ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... swiftly up to this, and the end of his pole was dislodged by his departure and fell to the inlaid pavement with a bang that seemed to him to carry to the farthest echoes of the sounding court. Instantly there was an answering clatter of steps. ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... house stand, and heard therefrom the talk of men, and much clatter, and therewith he turned ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris
... ground so that the running gear of the wagon, with its looped log-chain, which would later do duty as a brake on the long grade down from timber line on the side of Spirit Canyon, rattled and banged over the rocks with a clatter that could be heard for half a mile. Lorraine looked after her father enviously. If she were a boy she would be riding on that sack of hay tied to the "hounds" for a seat. But, being a girl, it had never occurred to Brit that she might like to go,—might ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... her head violently, so violently that the white flower fell from her hair. Rios was going on angrily, when there came into the yard a clatter ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... instructed by me, yet you need be incited. Care not over-much for the world, but make use of good means which you have in your country, for here is a pack of dumb dogs that cannot bark, they tell over a clash of terror, and clatter of comfort ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... every thing ready for their breakfast, and pray don't bang doors or make a great clatter with the china, as you set the table. Every sound is heard in this small house, and your mistress has had no ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart
... whether the working parts are still in good order. I hold the spade-grip, swing round the circular mounting until the gun points to the side, and loose five rounds into the unpleasant vapour. The flight-commander, startled at the sudden clatter, turns round. Finding that the fire was mine and not an enemy's, he shakes his fist as a protest against the sudden disturbance. Even this action is welcome, ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... the stairs with noisy clatter, and, the chauffeur a good second, raced through the rooms below ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... see how much depends upon having well trained servants at such a dinner. The service must be without haste, yet without delay; there must be no clatter of china and silver, no awkwardness in removing plates, etc. The waitress must be quick to refill glasses ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... dirty staircase, the hot air heavy with smells, he had emerged into a small back and front room holding some half-dozen tables, at each of which four people could be seated. Through the open windows the noises of the street below came into collision with the clatter of plates and knives and forks. The heat was intense, the cloths were not clean, neither were the hands of the two waiters who rushed about with a certain litheness and facility of motion unlike ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... small hours of the morning, and the clatter of carriages dashing up to the door of the mansion gave the signal to the guests that it was time to depart. No one had seen the odd-looking bundle that lay on the street steps, half buried in the snow, and which might have lain there until the morning had not some one ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... was a loud cheer from the steeple, and a flag floated from the top of Huntercombe House. Murmurs. Distant cheers. Approaching cheers. The clatter of horses' feet. The roll of wheels. Huntercombe gates flung wide open by a cluster of grooms ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... rather a high one. Not a man would dare to join its ranks. The moment the Angelus rings, darkness is supposed to have fallen. As the last stroke sounds, all the women disrobe and step into the water. Then there is laughing and screaming and a wonderful clatter. The men on the upper quay watch the bathers, straining their eyes, and seeing very little. Yet the white uncertain outlines perceptible against the dark-blue waters of the stream stir the poetic mind, and the possessor of a little ...
— Carmen • Prosper Merimee
... fellow singed my curls though, as you may perceive. They attacked me but half a mile from here. I was proceeding north when I heard the clatter of hoofs behind me; I looked round, and saw at once what they were, and I sprung my horse out of the road to a thicket close to it, that they might not surround me. One of the three rode forward to stop my passage, and the other two rode round to the back of the thicket to get ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... hall and lunch on a green slope under the trees, (was it just the spot where Mr. Pickwick tried the cold punch and found it satisfactory? I never liked to ask!) and after making the old woods ring with the clatter and clink of our noontide meal, mingled with floods of laughter, were to come to the village, and to the very inn from which the disconsolate Mr. Tupman wrote to Mr. Pickwick, after his adventure with ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... frogs, and the muffled tramp of our advancing footsteps. I thought the enemy, if any were near, must surely hear the cartridges rattle in my cartridge box as we double-quicked to close up, and I put my hand behind me to stop the clatter. If any enemy were near, indeed! There seemed an enemy behind every bush, a rebel in every corner of the worm fence. I am in the rear of the column, I thought, and my heart went thump, bump, and my great central nervous ganglion ached amain. 'Sergeant-major,' whispers Major ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... now distinctly hear the clatter of hoofs, and the jingling of bridles. There was no time to deliberate; I certainly felt no inclination to be the means of the captain's ruin or death, and I followed my guide, who set off with the swiftness of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... though I was vexed at having again been separated from my ship, I confessed to myself that I had very little cause to complain of my lot. I was leaning back on an easy bamboo chair and gazing out through a vista of palm-trees on the deep blue sea, when the clatter of horses' feet coming along the road caught our ears. As they drew near the clank of sabres was heard at the same time. The voice of an officer crying "Halt" was next heard, and soon afterwards we saw him approaching the house. My host, with ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... open, and clashing heavily against the wall, sent an echo reeling along the corridor; then came a clatter of rushing feet, a voice cried out excitedly: "Come on! come on! He's had to kill the old fool to get it!" and Cleek had just time to tear loose from the shape with which he was battling, and dodge out of the way when ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... was pouring over the sides of the pot in a hissing, bubbling stream. He clutched at the "billy," scalding his fingers badly, jerked it off the stove, upset the contents on the floor and flung the pot itself across the room, where it fell with a clatter upon a pile of dirty tin plates and pannikins. He swore violently and sucked his injured fingers, while, in angry dismay, he contemplated the additional mess his carelessness had caused. And at that moment Sunny returned, ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... over our fearful, mighty woes! the army is let loose, having quitted its camp, a mighty mounted host is streaming hitherward in advance;[97] the dust appearing high in the air convinces me, a voiceless, clear, true messenger; the noise of the clatter of their hoofs upon the plain,[98] reaching even to our couches, approaches my ears, is wafted on, and is rumbling like a resistless torrent lashing the mountain-side. Alas! alas! oh gods and goddesses, avert the ...
— Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes • Aeschylus
... as loudly as he could, and this, with the rattle of the wagon, and the clatter of the horse's hoofs made so much noise that the whisperings of Bunny and Sue were not heard by the ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at Aunt Lu's City Home • Laura Lee Hope
... conversation was embellished by high-flown grandiloquence, and he invariably walked upon the heels of his boots. This latter peculiarity, as may well be imagined, was the cause of a most comical effect whenever he had occasion to leave his seat and clatter down the aisle of the church. How often when a boy did I make my old nurse's sides shake with laughter by imitating old Russell's walk! His manner of reading the responses in the service can only be compared ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... cottages of Ragged Run—an eager, stumbling haste. In Bad-Weather Tom West's kitchen, somewhat after ten o'clock in the morning, in the midst of this hilarious scramble to be off to the floe, there was a flash and spit of fire, and the clap of an explosion, and the clatter of a sealing-gun on the bare floor; and in the breathless, dead little interval between the appalling detonation and a man's groan of dismay followed by a woman's choke and scream of terror, Dolly West, Bad-Weather Tom's small maid, stood swaying, wreathed in gray smoke, her ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... confounded brute bolted. I didn't dare turn round. I had all my work to do to save myself being turned over, as it was—so long as I did, I mean. I just shouted, 'Return to your friends. All will be forgiven.' And off I came, clatter, clatter. Whether ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... well weeded out now. I say, how good civilisation is!" he went on, his eyes dwelling lovingly on the interior of the restaurant. "Tophole, isn't it, Lutchester—these smart girls, with their furs and violets and perfumes, the little note of music in the distance, the cheerful clatter of plates, the smiling faces of the waiters, and the undercurrent of pleasant voices. Don't laugh at me, please, Miss Van Teyl. I've three weeks more of it, by George—perhaps more. I don't go up before my Board till Thursday fortnight. Dash it, I ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... But before he spoke again the door opened and they rose thankfully with a shuffle of feet and surreptitious clatter of desks. The clergyman waved to them. If the little dark man was like a blackbird, captive and resentful, the newcomer was like a meagre and somewhat fluttered hen. His hands and wrists were long and yellow and sinewy. He wore no cuffs, but one could see the beginnings ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... being awakened by the "twitter" of a milk cart. The "yelp" of the ice man, the snort of a six o'clock switch engine and the "cackle" of a laundry wagon formed for him a pleasant morning symphony. The clatter of an elevated train was with him the normal accompaniment of dawn, but the poetry of the pastoral—well, it didn't exist, that's all—except in "maudlin verses of lying sentimentalists." "I'm like George Ade's clerk: ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... the midst of those remarks Mr. Greeley took up a paper, to reproduce by reading part of a speech that some one else had made; and his reading did not sound much more like the man that first read or made the speech than the clatter of a nail factory sounds like a well-delivered speech. Now, the fault was not because Mr. Greeley did not know how to read as well as almost any man that ever lived, if not quite: but in his youth he learned to read wrong; and, as it is ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... descended to the dining room in a black evening gown so daringly lacking in back, and yet, withal, so slimly perfect an elegant thing, that an actual breathlessness hung over the hall, the clatter ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... o'erflows the vale, And swells, an amber sea, between The full-leaved woods, its shores of green. Hark! from the murmuring clods I hear Glad voices of the coming year; The song of him who binds the grain, The shout of those that load the wain, And from the distant grange there comes The clatter of the thresher's flail, And steadily the millstone hums Down in ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... together like two battering-rams, with a great clatter and clash of antlers, but after the first shock the fight seemed little more than a pushing-match. Each one was constantly trying to catch the other off his guard and thrust a point into his flesh, but they never succeeded. A pair of widely branching antlers is as useful in warding off blows ...
— Forest Neighbors - Life Stories of Wild Animals • William Davenport Hulbert
... food; And, stumbling onward, with her snout O'erset the churn—the cream ran out. As Darby turned, the sow to beat, The slippery cream betrayed his feet; He caught the bread trough in his fall, And down came Darby, trough, and all. The children, wakened by the clatter, Start up, and cry, "Oh! what's the matter?" Old Jowler barked, and Tabby mewed, And hapless Darby bawled aloud, "Return, my Joan, as heretofore, I'll play the housewife's part no more: Since now, by sad experience ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... called for me after luncheon; the idea being that I should spend the evening, and perhaps also pass the night, at the country-house where his family lived. Only when we had left the city and exchanged its grimy streets and the unbearably deafening clatter of its pavements for the open vista of fields and the subdued grinding of carriage-wheels on a dusty high road (while the sweet spring air and prospect enveloped us on every side) did I awake from the new impressions and sensations of freedom into which the past ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... in hand, approached the house, his stepfather-in-law, with considerable clatter, was hanging the ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... to hold him back, but he heeded me no more than had I been a fly. With a loud whoop, he dashed away in pursuit. He had not gone twenty yards from me, when there was a great shout and clatter of horsemen, and before I well knew what had happened, I saw Sir Ludar disarmed in the clutches of half a dozen men. I rushed to his help, but could do nothing except share his fate. For they were too many for us, and we had no ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... stretching away there far below her range, growing dark and purple in the distance with vague buttes rising. The air was full of sound—notes of blackbirds and the baas of sheep, and blasts from the corrals, and the clatter of light hoofs ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... not a single friendly pair of eyes, or one pair that was even neutral, among the many that looked at her and after her as she gave her horse its head and let it clatter at a gallop that was all but a run down the main street and over the road ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... might be true, for the din was distracting —though the family, one and all, seemed filled with joy; and the more the clock "buckled down to her work" as the Colonel expressed it, and the more insupportable the clatter became, the more enchanted they all appeared to be. When there was silence, Mrs Sellers lifted upon Washington a face that beamed with a childlike pride, ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 1. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... from Flavigny. The first thing I saw as I came into the street and noted how the level sun stood in a haze beyond, and how it shadowed and brought out the slight irregularities of the road, was a cart drawn by a galloping donkey, which came at and passed me with a prodigious clatter as I dragged myself forward. In the cart were two nuns, each with a scythe; they were going out mowing, and were up the first in the village, as Religious always are. Cheered by this happy omen, but not yet heartened, I next met a very old man leading out a horse, and asked him if ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... maintained over the low kopjes, until by evening we were faced by the more serious line of the Pieter's Hills. The operations had been carried out with a monotony of gallantry. Always the same extended advance, always the same rattle of Mausers and clatter of pom-poms from a ridge, always the same victorious soldiers on the barren crest, with a few crippled Boers before them and many crippled comrades behind. They were expensive triumphs, and yet every one brought them ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Southern States, and then his overflowing heart to his eager female listeners, who in turn relate, inquire, sympathize, or cheer. If I dare express a doubt that the path to victory will be a flowery one, eyes flash, cheeks burn, and tongues clatter, till all are checked up suddenly by a warning rap for "Order, order!" from the amiable lady presiding. Thus we swallow politics with every meal. We take a mouthful and read a telegram, one eye on table, the other ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... how it would have ended, if that tableau hadn't gone smash, with a sudden offstage clatter and thump and cry which reminded me there were more people in the world than Chaddie McKail and her philandering old husband. For during that interregnum of parental preoccupation Dinkie and Poppsy had essayed to toboggan down the lower half of the front-stairs in an empty drawer commandeered ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... night, as James was chatting and laughing with the Queen and her ladies before going to bed, a great noise was heard. The sound of many feet, the clatter of armor mingled with wild cries was borne to the quiet room, and through the high windows flashed the light of ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... the discharge, sounding as though all the pent-up forces of Hell had burst the brazen gates of Terror, and rushed forth to annihilate and destroy, the ninety-four pound projectile passed overhead, sweeping half the corrugated-iron roof from the railway-official's late dwelling with a fiendish clatter and din, as it passed harmlessly over the Women's Laager, and, wrecking a sentry's shelter on the western line of defences, burst harmlessly upon the veld beyond, blotting out the low hills behind a ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... before a clatter of horse-hoofs came up the road behind us. At first my companion and I wondered whether it were the first riders of the Dragoons or Cuirassiers. In that case the advance was from behind us. But very soon, as the sound grew clearer, we heard ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... blast of magic. It is vain to say that he felt as if he had got into a dream; but this time he felt quite certain that he had got into a book. For we human beings are used to inappropriate things; we are accustomed to the clatter of the incongruous; it is a tune to which we can go to sleep. If one appropriate thing happens, it wakes us up like the pang of a perfect chord. Something happened such as would have happened in such a place in a ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... clatter and swoop of Mounted Policeman Van Sweller! Oh, it was—but the story has not yet been printed. When it is you shall learn bow he sent his bay like a bullet after the imperilled victoria. A Crichton, a Croesus, and a Centaur in one, he hurls the invincible combination ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... you shall tell her then, for I am sure I daren't. I don't mind doing the thing, since you talked to me that day, and since I've got to know Ruth; but I do mind all the clatter people will ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... the hills, and through this they rushed madly, and with a clatter like a charge of cavalry. Excited by the chase, and emulous each to outrun the other, the colonel threw off his chako, and Briolle his sword, in the ardor of pursuit. We now gained on them rapidly, and though, from a winding in the glen, they had momentarily got out of sight, we knew that we ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... front, before the barracks veranda, an inquisitive little group heard first the clang of the door within, and presently the clatter of hoofs coming round from the yard. Stingaree and Howie—a white flash and a bay streak—swept past them as they stood confounded. And the dwindling pair still bobbed in sight, under a full complement of stars, when a fresh ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... repentance before his goddess, what time she was but a lonely girl in the clatter of New ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... after her solemn cow, which seemed to take twice as long to get over the ground because she had two pairs of legs instead of one to shuffle across it, dragging her long iron chain with the short stake at the end after her with a gentle clatter over the hard dry road. I accompanied Turkey, helped him to fasten up and bed the cows, went in with him and shared his hasty supper of potatoes and oatcake and milk, and then set out refreshed, and nowise apprehensive in his ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... in a tone so impressive, that, even amid the clatter of twenty machines around me, not a word was lost,—"you may be sure that this prejudice against women working for their own support will never die out. It is one of those excrescences of the human mind that cannot be extirpated. It is a distortion of the reasoning faculty ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... looked for a minute straight before her, then slowly turned her head to one side. When her gaze rested upon her women they rose and, with a clatter of their feet and a rustle of garments, carrying their white sewings and their spinning-wheels stilled, went away down the gallery. The German lord of Overstein, bearded and immense in the then German fashion, ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... imagine the clatter when the rest of the children arrived on the scene, and Cricket, flushed with victory, waved her bag, which had been found to have mamma's initials on it. Therefore, auntie's was still unfound, and, strange to say, ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... sound of her own name Miss Blackadder jumped to her feet. The walking-stick fell to the floor with a light clatter and crash, preluding her storm. She jerked out her words at a headlong pace, as if to make up for the time the others ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... gossamer caps beneath a row of sad, gray-faced houses was our Bayeux welcome. The faces beneath the caps watched our approach with the same sobriety as did the old houses—they had the antique Norman seriousness of aspect. The noise we made with the clatter and rattle of our broken-down vehicle seemed an impertinence, in the face of such severe countenances. We might have been entering a deserted city, except for the presence of these motionless Normandy figures. The cathedral met us at the threshold of the city: magnificent, majestic, a huge ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... the motion and the cool air. About ten we pulled up at a station, and just after we had stopped, four rifle-shots rapped out in quick succession not far ahead. De Wet, we at once conjectured. In the darkness on our left we heard an impatient corporal turning out his sleepy guard, and a stir and clatter of arms. One of our companies of infantry was also turned out, and a party formed to patrol the line, outposts having reported some Boers tampering with the rails. The rest of the train was sound asleep, but we, being awake, got leave to go with the patrol. Williams borrowed a rifle from ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... He ended by emptying it over what was, relatively, the only quiet man at the table excepting myself, bringing from him a volley of language which made the others appear dumb by comparison. I soon learned that in all of this clatter of voices and table utensils they were discussing purely ordinary affairs and arguing about mere trifles, and that not the least ill feeling was aroused. It was not long before I enjoyed the spirited chatter and badinage at the table as much as I did my meals—and ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... dropped from the wall into the garden and fell with an alarming crash, rolling over on a pile of flower-pots. There was such a clatter as on any quiet night must have been surely heard. For a moment I lay still, and then, hearing no signals of alarm, I rose and groped along the wall to the door of the conservatory. It was not locked. Pausing on the step outside ...
— A Diplomatic Adventure • S. Weir Mitchell
... on, to go into particulars with Isa. With the roar and clatter growing hourly more deafening in the tavern, Isa and Joyce, sitting on the back porch under the calm stars, spoke freely ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... Brenner snatched at the shoes, gathered them up, and turned to run. But one of the lacings caught on a nail on the shelf. She jerked desperately at the nail, and the jerking loosened her hold of both the shoes. With a clatter they fell ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... alert young widow made her court and ruled as a queen. Here little Jim slept away his babyhood and grew to consciousness with sounds of coming horses, going wheels; of chicken calls and twittering swallows in their nests; shouts of men and the clatter of tin pails; the distant song of saw mills and their noontide whistles; smells of stables mixed with the sweet breathings of oxen and the pungent odour of ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... their beds, While visions of sugar plums danced through their heads; And mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap, Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap, When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter. The way to the window, I flew like a flash, Tore open the shutters, and threw up the sash; The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below. When what to my wondering eyes should appear But ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... least warning, they were startled into full wakefulness by the familiar clatter, beginning at the head of the train and passing rapidly down its full length, as the cars closed up on each other. The resting men knew that the locomotive was either stopping, or had already come to ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... thus, while Fan waited for her to turn her face, hard by there sounded a great clatter and rattling of the old ramshackle machine, and pounding of the donkey's hoofs on the gravel, and vigorous thwacks from sticks and hands and hats on his rump by his backers, accompanied with much noise of cheering ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... thought, "How can I help him? This horse must be well-nigh done for," and rode on. Since reaching the foot of the mountain the way had been open and everything on it moving for life. But again the road was full, and approaching clatter, with the sharp reports of pistols, brought on another rush, and away we went—wagons, wounded men, ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... changeling was now a sweet, fair-haired darling. I tended it gladly; all the more when I thought of the joy it would bring to its father and mother; notwithstanding the evil nightmare would not be cast off, not even when the clatter of wine cups and Uncle Christian's big laugh fell on ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... you cannot smell any further than the blossoms on the tips of your noses, but the young man has a sharp proboscis, he scents the girls. Here comes Dan bound for the Silver Bell Mine with his blooming show." We heard the clatter of hoofs and wheels and saw a large coach pass by, crowded with passengers, mostly ladies. The clerk said that the genial owner of the Silver Bell Mine, who was also the proprietor of a popular resort in town, was ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... seemed to be tumbling down. For a moment the air was full of deafening sound. Then came the pause, the dying away of clatter and roar, the close waiting, suspended quiet. Spears' clear voice, as he coached Rube, in its keen note seemed inevitable of ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... cage to pieces with his foot, and seizing the rooster twisted its neck and flung it on the floor. Then he fled from the hall, followed by peals of laughter from the audience and more terrific clatter from the fowls. The exhibition was opened without further ceremony, and the dissertation on the domestic barn-yard fowl was ordered to be printed in the annual report of the proceedings of ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... screw-steamer, ran safely over the bar into the harbor. This was certainly rather hard upon the native pilot-boat, which had put out to her in the hope of a job; and the six black, half-clothed scarecrows who pulled it vented their feelings in a prolonged howl and a clatter of their diamond-shaped oar blades, to which Jack Dewey replied by asking, with an air of deep interest, how much they would take to "come on board and new pitch the boats with the tar off their ...
— Harper's Young People, May 11, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... volume ("Geschichte der Aesthetikin Deutschland"). It begins attractively, but the attraction wanes, and by the end I was very tired of it. Why? Because the noise of a mill-wheel sends one to sleep, and these pages without paragraphs, these interminable chapters, and this incessant, dialectical clatter, affect me as though I were listening to a word-mill. I end by yawning like any simple non-philosophical mortal in the face of all this heaviness and pedantry. Erudition, and even thought, are not everything. An occasional touch of esprit, ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... eight-ounce rod. I heard California, at my ear it seemed, gasping: "He's a fighter from Fightersville, sure!" as his fish made a fresh break across the stream. I saw Portland fall off a log fence, break the overhanging bank, and clatter down to the pebbles all sand and landing net, and I dropped on a log to rest ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... character. These he had taken on trust from the bishop of the diocese and others. The bishop left him in the lurch; the recall was one affair, the personal rumours were another; nimble partizanship confused the two, to the disadvantage of the secretary of state; the usual clatter that attends any important personage in a trivial scrape ensued; Mr. Gladstone's explanations, simple and veracious as the sunlight in their substance, were over-skilful in form, and half a dozen ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... a plate with a curse and a clatter. The sudden sound ripped the sick man's nerves like an exploding bomb. White to the lips, he jumped from his chair to meet the Boss's sneering eyes. The Cure laid a gentle hand on his arm, ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... inspired by the old madwoman is obvious at once. The two urchins take refuge under the table with their prey, Rose's laughter ceases abruptly and, through the window-panes, I hear the steady ticking of the clock and the clatter of the spoons ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... and others had walked boldly into the sand pits, and heard the clatter of hoofs and the gride of wheels. I saw a lad trundling off the barrow of apples. And then, within thirty yards of the pit, advancing from the direction of Horsell, I noted a little black knot of men, the foremost of whom ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... bruised enough by the floor already—any more bumps would have been too much, would they not? But the poor box itself was to be pitied; it had come open in the fall, and all that was in it had naturally tumbled out. That explained the noise and clatter. The box had held—indeed it had been made on purpose to hold them—two beautiful glass jugs, which had been sent to mother all the way from Italy! Baby had never seen them, because they were only used when mother and auntie wanted the dinner-table to look ...
— The Adventures of Herr Baby • Mrs. Molesworth
... heard, without any show of pride or trepidation, the clatter of horses' hoofs in the yard; the sound of voices below stairs, as Mr. Chilton ushered the physician into the parlor, and the light, careful tread with which he mounted to his wife's apartment. His momentary pause ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... the clatter of little feet running through the house and out upon the veranda, the carriage draw up before the door, then the voices of the children pouring out the story of their fright, and the punishment of its authors, and the answering ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... the fine ripplings and whisperings of the evening calm, a metallic clatter, a horse was coming. The windings of the lane hid it as it approached. Then I heard a rush under the hedge, and close by glided a great dog, not staying to look up. The horse followed—a tall steed, and on its back a rider. He passed; a sliding sound, a clattering tumble, and ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... did fine. But you reminded me of a cartoon back home where the cat's in the kitchen and has upset some pots and pans and is trying to catch them before they fall and make a clatter." ...
— Hunters Out of Space • Joseph Everidge Kelleam
... melancholy at this point that Betty took her hand and was about to take a rather more hopeful view of things, but the words died on her lips as the clatter of a horse's feet was heard outside, and both girls ran to the window in time to see the rider draw rein at the south door of the mansion and ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... right," he said, at last. "There is no sound to the west. Don't forget your instructions," and he turned his horse and disappeared in the darkness, the clatter of his horse's feet soon becoming deadened ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... The clatter scared Petal immensely, and with tail as big as three ordinary tails and fur standing erect upon her back, she shot across the kitchen and into ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... family, how poorly they clothe their daughter so soon after marriage, and do say that Mr. Lowther was married once before, and some such thing there hath been, whatever the bottom of it is. But to think of the clatter they make with his coach, and his owne fine cloathes, and yet how meanly they live within doors, and nastily, and borrowing everything of neighbours ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... their dress and personal peculiarities, and if they show signs of annoyance they call them names that are not to be repeated. The mill girls wear bright-coloured gowns, white aprons, and nothing on their heads. If a policeman catches them at any mischief they either clatter off in their clogs with shrieks of laughter, or knock him down and kick him most unmercifully. They are as strong as men, and as beautiful, some of them, as saints; but they are very unsaintlike creatures really—irresponsible, and with little or no idea of right and wrong. One scarcely ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... the street the bells of the motor 'buses tinkled noisily, and there was an incessant roar of the traffic that rumbled heavily over the wooden pavements. There was a clatter of horses' hoofs, and the blowing of horns; the electric broughams whizzed past with an odd, ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... announcement created the greatest dissatisfaction. The boxes might have borne the oppression, but the dignity of the pit was wounded. A war-cry was raised immediately. For some weeks previous to the opening, a continual clatter was kept up in clubs and coffee-rooms, against what was considered a most unconstitutional aggression on the rights of play-going man. The newspapers assiduously kept up the excitement, and represented, day after day, to the managers the impolicy ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay |
