"Drumming" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dark on all sides of them coolies shouted in high-pitched voices. Heavy rain was falling, drumming on the deck. The odor of wood rubbing against steel persisted. They could see nothing. The world was ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... Scotch airs, in poor settings, and with much stumbling. After a little, Fenwick listened restlessly, his brow frowning, his fingers drumming on the arm of his chair. They were all glad when ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... were in the very thick of the fight, shooting, stabbing, using now the bayonet and again the butts of their rifles as the occasion demanded. There was a red mist before their eyes and their blood was pounding in their veins and drumming in their ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall
... breezes, was his own land still. Under the spell the Occident vanished; it was the Orient—all this dreamy mirage, these dim white walls, this spice-haunted dusk, the water inlaid with stars, the fairy foliage, the dew drumming in the stillness like the ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... that Monmouth had landed the day before at Lyme, a small seaport on the boundary between Dorsetshire and Devonshire. A great beacon blaze upon Portsdown Hill was the first news that we had of it, and then came a rattling and a drumming from Portsmouth, where the troops were assembled under arms. Mounted messengers clattered through the village street with their heads low on their horses' necks, for the great tidings must be carried to London, that the Governor of Portsmouth might ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... thought the whole Army must be marching to the house. I stumbled over everything in the room in my haste to get to one of the little dormer windows, but there was nothing to be seen, as it was still quite dark. The drumming became less loud, and then ceased altogether, when a big gun was fired that must have wasted any amount of powder, for it shook the house and made all the windows rattle. Then three or four bugles played a little air, which it was ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... soft fingers of the snow drumming drowsily against the pane, Richard went to sleep and dreamed of angels, all of whom were ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... years ago. Kinds of game: partridge, quail, squirrels. Partridge drumming. My father went hunting often. How he was injured. Birch brush near hemlock; partridge often found in such localities. Loading the gun. Going to the woods. Why partridge live near birch brush. Fall season. Hunting for partridge allowed from September ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... there alone in the void, looking not very happy, and looking puzzled, and drumming upon his knee, and staring at the little bent gray woman, who was busied with her children and grandchildren, and had forgotten all about him. "But surely, Lindamira," he hears Steinvor say, "we are not yet in Heaven."—"Ah, my dear mother," replies ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... shearing her eyebrows into a delicate line, and all round her forehead trimming disorderly hairs. Four women, seated on their heels in front of her, were fidgeting over her face; she, impassive as a log in their hands. A vast deal of singing and drumming went on all the time, a row of musicians keeping it up all round the room. The girl was washed; then her hair, magnificent black hair down to her heels, knotted in two great bows on either side of her head. Over these, gold ornaments like wings were fixed, and a little tower of gold ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... for blood, Above the wild war-drumming, Let Freedom's voice be heard, with good The evil overcoming. Give prayer and purse To stay the Curse Whose wrong we share, Whose shame we bear, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... the morning of Tuesday, January 25th, as I sat at breakfast with Pawsy in her chair at one end and with Kaiser at the other, drumming on the floor for another bit of bacon, ...
— Track's End • Hayden Carruth
... recurrence, succession, run; battology, tautology; monotony, tautophony; rhythm &c 138; diffuseness, pleonasm, redundancy. chimes, repetend, echo, ritornello^, burden of a song, refrain; rehearsal; rechauffe [Fr.], rifacimento [It], recapitulation. cuckoo &c (imitation) 19; reverberation &c 408; drumming &c (roll) 407; renewal &c (restoration) 660. twice-told tale; old story, old song; second edition, new edition; reappearance, reproduction, recursion [Comp.]; periodicity &c 138. V. repeat, iterate, reiterate, reproduce, echo, reecho, drum, harp upon, battologize^, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... past and prayers for the future lives of every individual present, adapted to their several cases, as far as the elder could guess at them from appearances. This grace might not have ended so soon as it did, had it not been for the somewhat impatient drumming of his knife-handle on the table with which Captain Holdernesse accompanied the latter half of the ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... to lift the lid, but the two padlocks had been refastened to prevent their being lost. She sat down on the chest, and began drumming her feet on the ...
— Under Padlock and Seal • Charles Harold Avery
... well-known convention of ocean-travel, which is sure at some time or other, to enlist all the talent on board every English steamer in some sort of public appeal. He was not very clear how he came to be on the committee for drumming up talent for the occasion; his distinction seemed to have been conferred by a popular vote in the smoking room, as nearly as he could make out; but here he was, and he was counting upon Miss Claxon to help him out. He said Mrs. Milray had told him about ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the glory of its Poet's Corner. Fanny and Matilda sang duets together, Mamma playing the piano, and the other two sisters sitting with their arms round each other's waists and listening affectionately. Nobody saw the poor girls drumming at the duets in private. No one saw Mamma drilling them rigidly hour after hour. In a word, Mrs. Bute put a good face against fortune and kept up appearances in the most ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a holiday wherever General Saxton's proclamation reaches. The chilly sunshine and the pale blue river seems like New England, but those alone. The air is full of noisy drumming, and of gunshots; for the prize-shooting is our great celebration of the day, and the drumming is chronic. My young barbarians are all at play. I look out from the broken windows of this forlorn plantation-house, through avenues of great live-oaks, with their ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... through the woods, and the men at the gun gave a gasp which was meant to be a cheer, and one of them laid hold of Jimmie again, crying: "Portay! Portay!" He dragged out a heavy box and loaded it into Jimmie's arms and carried another himself, and so in a few moments the machine-gun was drumming, and Jimmie went on carrying boxes. The men who were driving the wagon leaped upon the horses and drove away; and still Jimmie carried boxes, blindly, desperately. Was it because he was afraid of the little French demon who was shouting at him? No, not exactly, because when he went back ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... sat on his boxes, whistling to himself and drumming his heels on the platform. The train came up at last, and in he jumped, finding himself and a grave elderly gentleman in joint possession ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... the farmer. "Ay, it is a pleasant bit. It is pleasant even here, if one had time, with the brook drumming in that black pool, and the green things hanging all about the rocks, and, dear heart, to see the very pebbles! all turned to gold and precious stones! But you have come to that time of life, sir, when, if you will excuse me, you must look to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Negroes, Chinamen—people from everywhere. You see a mixture like that in the Grand Choir, the first day you land here, but you hardly ever see it again. There were billions of people; when they were singing or hosannahing, the noise was wonderful; and even when their tongues were still the drumming of the wings was nearly enough to burst your head, for all the sky was as thick as if it was snowing angels. Although Adam was not there, it was a great time anyway, because we had three archangels on the Grand Stand—it is a seldom thing ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... a tiny wooden cross that pricks up through the snow: (Poor Little Moccasins! you're tired, and so you lie at rest.) And there's a grey-haired, weary man beside the campfire glow: (O fiddle mine! the tears to-night are drumming on your breast.) ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... took off his caftan, and betook himself—looking, in his shoes and stockings, very like a lean chicken—with his wife, to something resembling a cupboard. Two little Jews lay down on the floor beside the cupboard, like a couple of dogs. But Taras did not sleep; he sat motionless, drumming on the table with his fingers. He kept his pipe in his mouth, and puffed out smoke, which made the Jew sneeze in his sleep and pull his coverlet over his nose. Scarcely was the sky touched with the first faint gleams of dawn than he pushed Yankel with ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... Mr. Eggleston began to be nervous. Every now and then he would walk out into the main office, interview one of the clerks as to his knowledge of Phil's whereabouts and return again to his private office, where he occupied himself drumming on the desk with the end of his gold pencil, and watching the clock. The junior had no such misgivings—none of any kind. He had a game of polo that afternoon at three, and was chiefly concerned lest the day's work might intervene. The signing ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... killed, wounded, and missing, in the elemental matter of hatred, or, if you choose to give it a milder name, rivalry. These things are of the essence of war, and the manifestations run parallel even in the finer lines. One cock-pheasant finds the drumming of another cock-pheasant a very irritating sound, Chanticleer objects to the note of Chanticleer, and the more articulate human being is rasped by the voice of his neighbor. The Attic did not like the broad Boeotian speech. Parson Evans's ...
— The Creed of the Old South 1865-1915 • Basil L. Gildersleeve
... those days he used to go off every Saturday morning and he wouldn't come back till Monday morning. He'd travel all round the country drumming up students for the school and telling the people to send their children. And on Sunday he'd get the preachers to let him get up in their pulpits and tell the people about the school after they had finished ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... mouths get very red. In connection with personal ceremonies upon assumption of the perineal band, admission to the emone (excepting, as regards this, the case of a child of very tender years), qualifying for drumming and dancing, devolution of chieftainship and nose-piercing, the person concerned, male or female, is under the same food restriction for a day prior to that of the ceremony, and as regards nose-piercing this taboo is prior to the actual piercing, ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... at Tom, then began whistling and drumming his fingers on the desk. He seemed on the point of saying something in this connection, but all he did say was, "You find pleasure and ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... here Bad Pete whirled by them with a swift drumming of his pony's hoofs. In a few moments more he ...
— The Young Engineers in Colorado • H. Irving Hancock
... laboratory. Lagune stared; confronted by a psychic phenomenon beyond his circle of ideas. "Odd!" he said at last, and began to unpack his bag. Ever and again he stopped and stared at Lewisham, who was now sitting in his own place and drumming on the table with ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... make an announcement, just as the prize announcement was made," explained Griffin, drumming impatiently on the table. "You may be too modest to be there, but it can be put through without you, and you will be cleared, don't ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... bracket within reach of his arm as he sat at the wheel, and when the lights at the village faded astern, he lit the lamp, in order to thread a passage by its light through the dark waters. As the noise of shouting, the drumming, and the report of fire-arms died down, other sounds reached their strained hearing—the booming of the Congo bittern, the harsh roar of a bull crocodile, and ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... him who was coming to him out of the night; his knowledge of the desert enabled him, by the drumming sound of the hoofs upon the sand—a sound which has not its semblance in the world—to know to a second when the mare would stop ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... up to his room, leaving Sidonie and Madame Dobson at the windows of the salon. The music from the neighboring Casino reached their ears, with the "Yo-ho!" of the boatmen and the footsteps of the dancers like a rhythmical, muffled drumming ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... lady does not command our favor," declared the spokesman, very pale now and drumming nervously with his fingers on the edge of a blotting pad. "Those of us who have met her are charmed with her manners and appearance, and our only regret is that Providence did not ordain that her birthplace should be on the ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... be no rules of the road. Omnibuses careered along, every window rattling loudly; drays creaked and strained; non-descript delivery wagons tried to outrattle the omnibuses; horsemen picked their way amid the melee. The din was described as something extraordinary—hoofs drumming, wheels rumbling, oaths and shouts, and from the sidewalk the blare and bray of brass bands before the various auction shops. Newsboys and bootblacks darted in all directions. Cigar boys, a peculiar product of the time, added to the hubbub. ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... one hand in his breeches pocket, and the fingers of the other drumming a disconsolate rub-a-dub upon the window glass of an elegant mansion near Boston Common, is the personage I wish to call your attention to, friend reader, for the space of a few moments. The facts of my story are commonplace, and thereby ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... the seat ahead of Bland. He placed his feet, pulled down his goggles, grasped the wheel and felt himself balanced—poised, with a drumming beat in his throat, a suffocating fulness in his chest. His moment had come, he thought swiftly, as one thinks when facing a sudden, whelming event. The biggest moment in his life—the moment that he had dreamed of—the culmination of all ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... Napoleon's fashion, and I did not dare to look back for fear they should see my moustache. I had turned up the collar of the grey coat so as partly to hide it. Even now if they found out their mistake they might turn and overtake the carriage. But when once we were on the road I could tell by the drumming of their hoofs how far distant they were, and it seemed to me that the sound grew perceptibly louder, as if they were slowly gaining upon me. We were riding now up the stony and rutted lane which led from the ford. ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... yards ahead, "See," said one of my comrades, "she moves!" She did indeed, and in fine style, her front as straight as a string, her reserve regiments in columns doubled on the center, following in true subordination; no braying of brass to apprise the enemy, no fifing and drumming to amuse him; no ostentation of gaudy flags; no nonsense. This ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... out, along the roads the ceaseless wagons clattered; Listened we for an English voice ever, ever in vain; Far in the west, year out, year in, terrible thunders battered, Drumming the doom of whom—of whom? Hope in our hearts lay shattered.... Then we heard the lilt of Highland pipes ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 30, 1919 • Various
... an ignorant Britisher,' he almost shouted. 'You may hear drums any night, but a drumming like that I only once heard before. It was in '79 in the 'Zeti valley. Do you know what happened next day? Cetewayo's impis came over the hills, and in an hour there wasn't a living white soul in the glen. Two men escaped, and one of ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... a distant window at the far end of the hall, whence all the front approaches to the house could be seen, he stood drumming on the glass and fixedly looking out. Sir Wilfrid, with an ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... been drumming on the table all this time, looked uneasy, and muttered, with some little air of compunction: "They have plucked my feathers deucedly, that's a fact. Hang that fellow Stevens, persuading me to keep race-horses; it's all his fault. ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... his way across the room and reached the table that stood between the arm-chairs Miriam and Ford had occupied, he stopped. He stood there, with fingers drumming soundlessly on the polished wood, waiting for some ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... resolved themselves. For, throwing back his head, he gave a laugh: a laugh long, rather loud, but replete with anything in the world save mirth: suggesting strongly, indeed, the savageness of the frown which presently replaced it, when, drumming a scale upon the edge of the table in front of him, he muttered: "Conduct a symphony played by a full concert orchestra without a single rehearsal!—Good Heavens! Nicholas ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... round table in the hall Another Ariadne's Crown Out of the sky hath fallen down; More than one Monarch of the Moon Is drumming with his silver spoon; The light ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... white hand were drumming gently on the top of the desk; then, with a movement so quick and sure that Lanyard himself could hardly have bettered it, they slipped down to a handle of a drawer, jerked it open, closed round the butt of a revolver, and presented it at ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... I hear no martial drumming, But down in the dust at our feet lie the useless crowns of kings; And the mighty spirit of Progress is steadily coming, coming, And the flag of one republic abroad ...
— The Kingdom of Love - and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... cows—a substitute for an anteroom. Arrived there, the negroes at once commenced beating a couple of large drums, half as tall as themselves, made something like a beer-barrel, covered on the top with a cow-skin stretched tightly over, by way of a drum-head. This drumming was an announcement of our arrival, intended as ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... A peculiar drumming wafts from the shore-line. "Pa-pas-ku," says one of the Cree lads, pulling his pipe from his mouth and listening. Young Hudson's Bay to my enquiring look returns, "The Canadian ruffed grouse," which Sussex elucidated, "Bonasa ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... way, to the bed, and stooped over it. Nearly at the same moment there came a scrunching blow; an unnatural shriek, accompanied by a convulsive sound, as of the motion of running, and the arms drumming on the bed, and then another blow—and silence. The diabolical surgery was over. There came a little tapping at ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... Small feet drumming the harder ground, she flashed up the last rise and across the yard to the door of that unlighted kitchen. Her hands felt for the latch and failed to find it; then she realized that it was already open—the door—but her knees, all the strength ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... an arm over a rail and drumming with his fingers, "I was raised on round-ups. I don't suppose I've forgotten all about it. You might turn the management over to me for a year or so, and take a trip. Belle needs it, dad. I think I could keep things riding along, ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... Tristram, however, speaks of them as 'very palatable.' 'I found them very good,' says he, 'when eaten after the Arab fashion, stewed with butter. They tasted somewhat like shrimps, but with less flavour.' In the wilderness of Judea, various kinds abound at all seasons, and spring up with a drumming sound, at every step, suddenly spreading their bright hind wings, of scarlet, crimson, blue, yellow, white, green, or brown, according to the species. They were 'clean,' under the Mosaic Law, and hence could be ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... gingerbread-men and "cooky"-cows; while the two girls were nurses, playmates, and teachers by turns. Jeremiah wheeled him in the wheelbarrow, and suffered him to kick his shins, and might often be seen sedately at work hoeing or raking, with the child sitting astride on his shoulders, and drumming with sturdy heels against his breast. One member of the family alone resisted the sovereign charm of childhood; one alone held aloof in cold disdain, refusing to touch the little hand or answer the piping voice. That one was Samuel Johnson. The great Doctor was deeply ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... for every one was in a hurry to begin. So the procession was formed at once, Miss Celia taking the lead, escorted by Ben in the post of honor, while the boys and girls paired off behind, arm in arm, bow on Shoulder, in martial array. Thorny and Billy were the band, and marched before, fifing and drumming "Yankee Doodle" with a vigor which kept feet moving briskly, made eyes sparkle, and young hearts dance under the gay gowns and summer jackets. The interesting stranger was elected to bear the prize, laid out on a red pin-cushion; and ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... faces that one at least of them had some difficulty to render' expressive of calm repose the two American boys marched along with the others. As they advanced the drumming grew louder and they could feel the earth shake as the ponderous beast that caused it went through his ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... crouched in the cabin and in the forecastle and knew not what to make of such a foray of the elements. At one moment the rain flooded down upon the decks as though a cloud had burst directly above them; then great hailstones fell, drumming on ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... that spot for nearly a generation. He twisted the reins round the whip-socket, and clambering down rang the great bell. It answered to his imperious summons by the hollow clang that betrays an empty house. No one came. He stood without, drumming with his fist on the doorpost. Then he turned to listen. Some one was approaching from the darkness of the trees. But it was only the driver following ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... and they passed over gold and russet leaves strewn deep along the path. A light wind was blowing in the tree-tops, and the leaves were still falling, falling, falling! He saw Cynthia's haggard face in a flame of glowing colours. Through the drumming in his ears, which seemed to come from the clear sky, he heard the ceaseless rustle beneath his feet; and to this day he could not walk along a leaf-strewn road in autumn without seeing again the blur of red-and-gold and the gray ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... under his boots to an arch over his head. They united and spun faster until Dane, watching with dazzled eyes, saw the wheel become a blur of light, hiding Tau within its fiery core. His own wrists ached with the strain of his drumming as he lifted one hand and tried to shield his sight from the glare of that pillar ...
— Voodoo Planet • Andrew North
... little animal were well mimicked: the nose was thrust forward and pulled back, the whole head would emerge and retreat, and at rare times the shoulders would be seen for a moment, to be quickly drawn in among the screening spruce twigs. All these motions were made in perfect time to the singing and drumming. The old man who pulled the actuating strings made no secret of his manipulations. The play was intended for a farce, and as such ...
— The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony • Washington Matthews
... M. Linders, making a grand bow, whilst his companion, having finished dealing, sat puffing away at his cigar, and drumming impatiently with his fingers on the table; "but the hour is rather late; what do you say, Madelon? ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... taste of salt water in her mouth, there was a hideous drumming at her heart. She felt sick and cold from her bewildered brain down to her very feet. When one felt like this— ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... and talked, and the sound of our laughter drowned the cry of the wind in the chimney and the drumming of the rain upon ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... the house. So absorbed were the spectators in the dancing—if dancing it could be called—that they did not perceive our departure. We could hear the shrieks and shouts of laughter and applause, the drumming on tom-toms, and the sound of the horns until a late hour in the night. We had evidence of many barbarous customs of the natives, which I have not mentioned. I do not say that they are more savage, or rather fierce, than people of other parts of the world; indeed, in some respects they ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... yet harder. Good cheer to him who hungry goes, And mirth to her who sorrows, Lend bitter chill to Christmas snows. Small joy care's bondsman borrows. From jollity he may not share, Despair is darkly drumming At his dull breast, whose hearth won't ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 24, 1892 • Various
... of the tom-tom, a primitive Arab drum, seemed to us never to cease at Biskra. At night, when we retired to rest, it was drumming in our ears, and in the morning, when we awoke, its monotonous tones still floated on the air. At all hours of the day and night the cafes are frequented by pleasure-seekers. Hence the incessant drumming, as the music of the tom-tom seems to be an indispensable ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... tricks which many children practice even in families counted well-bred. Such, for example, are drumming with the fingers on some piece of furniture, or humming a tune while others are talking, or interrupting conversation by pertinacious questions, or whistling in the house instead of out-doors, or speaking ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... at the table. Sit firmly in your chair, without lolling, leaning back, drumming, or any other uncouth action. Unfold your napkin and lay it in your lap, eat soup delicately with a spoon, holding a piece of bread in your left hand. Be careful to make no noise in chewing ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... offensive, his noyes and oathes being hearde to the other side of the creeke." For aiding and abetting this noisy and disgraceful spree, and also for partaking in it, Drummer Basset was fined L5, which must have been more than his yearly salary, and in disgrace, and possibly in disgust, quitted drumming the New Haven good people to meeting and moved his residence to Stamford, doubtless to the relief and delight of both magistrates and people of the ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... drawn by the gentlemen from the river, and music and fireworks wound up the evening of days spent on the Eagle's Nest. Now they had prepared a little fleet to pass over to the Fourth of July celebration, which some queer drumming and fifing, from, the opposite bank, had announced ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... if she never wished to raise her eyes from this chilling consolation. Then, when she thought she had got lid of all the traces of her trouble, she went cautiously to the back music-room. Janey was there, moping alone, drumming on the window-pane with ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... a long time, completely absorbed in the blurred pages of an old newspaper. Presently he arose, and, refolding it,—an operation of great care and delicacy in its tattered condition,—placed it under the blankets of his bed. He resumed his seat by the fire, but soon began drumming with his fingers on the arm of his chair. Eventually this assumed the time and accent of some air. Then he began to whistle softly and hesitatingly, as if trying to recall a forgotten tune. Finally this took shape in a rude resemblance, not unlike that which his flag bore ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... coloured gentleman who had been extracted from small-time vaudeville by Mr. Abrahams to do a nightly speciality at the Flower Garden. He was, in fact, a trap-drummer: and it was his amiable practice, after he had done a few minutes trap-drumming, to rise from his seat and make a circular tour of the tables on the edge of the dancing-floor, whimsically pretending to clip the locks of the male patrons with a pair of drumsticks held scissor-wise. And so it came about that, just as Mr. Carmyle was bending towards Sally in an access of manly ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... His thoughtful air, however, as he stood absently drumming on the window-pane, showed that the mischief-maker had not spoken in vain. By way of striking while the iron was hot, Juechziger continued: 'As I was on my way to your worship's house this morning, I saw the Herr Burgomaster Richzenhayn ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous
... hands. We consider it "bad form" . . . like scratching in public where you itch! Well, perhaps our decision in this respect has added to the general fun of existence. In life's everyday, one doesn't notice these things, maybe. One has become so habituated to "Father" drumming "Colonel Bogey" on the chair-arm; or "Little Willee" playing "shakes" with two ha'pennies and a pen-knife—that one has ceased to pay any attention to these minor irritations. And, when we are among strangers, we are so busy watching that people don't put their hands into our pockets, ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... however, to call for Miss Lucy at old Pa's, but waited for her at the corner of the street, patiently drumming on my boot, with a knowing little bit of bamboo; and projecting my left arm to her, off ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 339, Saturday, November 8, 1828. • Various
... to be your own room," Mrs. Hunter whispered in Elizabeth's ear, and the young girl stole a shy look at her lover, who was drumming on the window and had not heard, and made no reply, but it gave her a sense of possession in the new house which she had very nearly lost ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... cabinet, in a low chair which the Duke had expressly provided for his use, tapping and drumming on his spectacle case, or starting up and smiting himself on the thigh, he would pour out his soul hours long to his one confidential minister. "Ah, my friend, how this sacrament displeases me," he said; "I know not why it is, but my heart tells me that some ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... poor souls more perilously placed; and as we lay there on our oars, praying God the mist might hold, the sweat poured from my brow. Presently we heard one of the boats where we might have thrown a biscuit in her. "Softly, men," we heard an officer whisper; and I marvelled they could not hear the drumming of my heart. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... they make their bivouacs blaze up in the gloom, and throw their glares a long way, revealing on the slopes of the hills many suffering ones who have not yet been carried in. The last victorious regiment comes up from the rear, fifing and drumming ere it reaches its resting-place the last bars of ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... low, plaintive, and not unpleasing character, time being kept by beating one bone or stick upon another. They have besides what may be called a musical instrument—the ibero—a piece of bamboo, three feet in length, which, by blowing into it, is made to produce an interrupted, drumming, monotonous noise. In their ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... sustained no injury, this stout woman deemed it prudent to go off into hysterics, and began by uttering a yell that would have put to shame a Comanchee Indian, and did more damage, perhaps, to the nerves of her sensitive hearers than the accident itself. She followed it up by drumming heavily on the ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... Mr. Parr, slowly, drumming on the table, "you would say that of the new settlement house of St. John's, whereby we hope to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... voice of the rapids had changed its tone now, for a cataract was drumming upon the after-deck and there was a crashing and a smashing as the piles of boxes came tumbling down. The scow drove higher upon the reef, its bow rose until it stood at a sharp incline, and meanwhile wave after wave cut like a broach over the stern, which steadily sank deeper. ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... order, for rude boys were flicking butter-pats across chaos, and McTurk had turned on the fags' tea-urn, so that many were parboiled and wept with an unfeigned dolor. The Fourth and Upper Third broke into the school song, the "Vive la Compagnie," to the accompaniment of drumming knife-handles; and the junior forms shrilled bat-like shrieks and raided one another's victuals. Two hundred and fifty boys in high condition, seeking for more ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... great drumming in Jolly Roger's head, and for a time he failed even to hear Peter yelping at their side, for all the world was drowned in those moments by the breaking sobs in Nada's breath and the wild thrill of her body in his arms; and he saw ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... and swearing, the rude songs and disorderly shouts, the drumming of clenched fists upon the oak tables, the wild laughter of drunken soldiers, the giggling and screeching of bar-maids, and the scolding and imperious commands of the host, they proved that the green bush had not lied, for the wine really did come from ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... her head from left to right. 'In the first place,' she began in deliberate tones, drumming with the tips of her fingers on the cuff of Sanin's coat, 'I am not in the habit of consulting my husband, except about matters of dress—he's my right hand in that; and in the second place, why do you say that you will fix a low price? I don't want to take advantage of your being very ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... Blank? How is your paper coming out? I read it daily. By the way, you are getting up a report of this grand assembly, I suppose?" Editor—"No. By the way, how is your store coming on? My cook buys a good deal of you. You are here drumming up custom, I suppose?" ...
— The Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56, No. 2, January 12, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... wild things whisked and scurried by and were gone before you could even get your eye on the place where the noise was; and where only the earliest birds were turning out and getting to business with a song here and a quarrel yonder and a mysterious far-off hammering and drumming for worms on a tree trunk away somewhere in the impenetrable remotenesses of the woods. And by and by out we would ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... in his office, drumming his long fingers against his desk while the name, Atkinson, ticked through his brain like the ...
— Planet of Dreams • James McKimmey
... before daybreak, and my young readers can rest assured that by that time his appetite was decidedly keen. Listening intently, he could hear the grouse drumming in the woods ...
— American Boy's Life of Theodore Roosevelt • Edward Stratemeyer
... cleanness. Keeper of the strong rain, Drumming on the mountain; Lord of the small rain That restores the earth in newness; Keeper of the clean rain, ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... the wooden tiers And flung the skins at the passers' ears; Drumming their heels on the planks below, They sang of Dolly of Idaho. Past, like a flash, the first race went. The time drew ...
— Right Royal • John Masefield
... idly drumming on the polished desk, and regarded her with a sort of impersonal speculation. A little smile crept ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... every Englishman possesses, my impressions of this city are certainly anything but respectful. It has an absurd kind of Lilliput look with it. There are soldiers, just as in Paris, better dressed, and doing a vast deal of drumming and bustle; and yet, somehow, far from being frightened at them, I feel inclined to laugh in their faces. There are little Ministers, who work at their little bureaux; and to read the journals, how fierce they are! ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray
... black eyes, looking considerably younger than his years; and on this side the third judge, pale and bald and colourless—a priest who held the degree of Doctor in Physical Science as well as in Theology—he at this instant was drumming gently with a large white hand on the ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
... silent, drumming a tattoo on his chair-arm with long, strong fingers; and when he resumed his argument, it was with an entire absence of ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... and it was all a man could do to keep his station. I put my nose up to my loop-hole to get air, but only once. The machine-gun bullets were simply rattling on our hide. Tock, tock, tock they kept drumming. The first shell that hit us must have been head on and a direct hit. There was a terrific crash, and the old girl shook all over,—seemed to pause a little even. But no harm was done. After that we breathed easier. We hadn't been quite ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... fight him with cannon—or with soap-bubbles," answered De Malfort, lolling back in his chair, tilted at an angle of forty-five, and drumming a gay dance tune with his finger-tips on the table. "'Tis a foolish imbroglio from first to last: and only his lordship and I know how foolish. He came here to provoke a quarrel, and I must indulge him. Come, ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... she want him to do—to say? Mrs. Bolitho could see that the girl's hands were clenched, as though she had reached, at last, the very limits of her endurance. He did not see. His back was half turned to her. He did not speak, but stood there drumming with his hands on ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... fate dealt out to them by their former persecutors and become a tribe of nomads and serfs. But to these Ulster immigrants such a choice was no choice at all. They knew themselves strong men, who had made the most of opportunity despite almost superhuman obstacles. The drumming of their feet along the banks of the Shenandoah, or up the rivers from Charleston, and on through the broad sweep of the Yadkin Valley, was a conquering people's challenge to the Wilderness which lay sleeping like an unready sentinel at the gates ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner
... sizzed and foamed in the pail and the milker, his forehead against the cow's warm pelt, watched it rise on the tin's side. It made a loud drumming which prevented his hearing a hail from the picket fence. The hail came again in ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... paused, drumming on the leather covering of his chair. I waited, hoping he would at least open his door wide enough to give me a ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... an elegant little creature, with large, lustrous black eyes like those of a Deer, a fact which, combined with its large ears, the fawn-coloured back, and the pure white breast, has given it the name of "Deer-mouse." It is noted for drumming with one foot as a call to its mate, and for uttering a succession of squeaks and trills that ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... sometimes, beaver which they had trapped. The camp began to be more lively. In all directions persons could be heard shouting out invitations to feasts. Here a man was lying back on his couch singing and drumming; there a group of young men were holding a war dance; everywhere the people were eating, singing, talking, and joking. As the light faded from the western sky and darkness spread over the camp, the noise and ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... FEDYA. It's drumming in his head.... His stomach's leading him on! [Laughs] Your houour's a happy man. Lie down and go to sleep! What's the use of standing like a scarecrow in the middle of the inn! This isn't ...
— Plays by Chekhov, Second Series • Anton Chekhov
... Sphex, sprawling flat upon the vine leaves, grows dizzy with the heat and frisks for very pleasure; "with its feet it taps rapidly on its resting-place, and thus produces a drumming like that of a shower of rain falling thickly on the leaves." Fabre takes a keen delight in the production of these pictures, at once so exact and lifelike; but we must not therefore suppose that his mind is incapable of the detailed descriptions ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... of the four men who were gathered around the table. He knew them all. The stocky, grizzle-haired man in the centre was a plain-clothes man from headquarters, named Barlow; at the lower end of the table Reddy Curley and Haines, his partner, faced each other, Curley drumming indifferently with his fingers on the table-top, Haines scowling and chewing his lower lip, a certain coarse brutality in both their faces that was neither pleasant nor inviting; but it was the white-haired old man, ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... day, meeting this gentleman "drumming around" our suburb, I had the curiosity to stop and inspect his live freight. In doing so I lighted upon Dicky Chips, as I subsequently christened him: a sturdy little bullfinch, who looked somewhat out of place, and lonesome, amongst his screaming companions from foreign lands. ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... drumming of the automatic: P. Sybarite swung round in time to see one of the plain-clothes men return the fire with several brisk shots, then abruptly drop his revolver, clap a hand to his bosom, wheel about-face, and ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... thing was still possible, the light burned, though distant, feeble, flickering. He had told himself that he despaired; but he had not known what real despair was until this moment, until he sat, as he saw now, among the Dead Sea splendours of his parlour, the fingers of his right hand drumming on the arm of the abbot's chair, his shaggy eyelids ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... sword. See the poor devils of the Prussian Guard! See the sheet-lightning pouring into us from the walls of St. Privat! Look at that fellow with his head bound up, and this one with no head to bind. That's meant for our colonel on the white horse. See him hounding us on to hell! And there's a drummer drumming as though we could hear a single beat! Our very colours were blown to ribbons, you see, and we ourselves to shreds; but the shreds hung together, my young fellow, and so will you and I in our day of battle!" Baumgartner might have known his ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... the folk that looked on, and many fell on their knees and confessed their sins, accusing themselves with groanings and tears; but Hilarius, seized with sudden terror, turned and fled blindly, without thought of direction, his eyes wide, the blood drumming in his ears, a great horror at his heels— a horror that could drive a man from wife and child, that had driven brave Martin to flee against the wind, and all this folk to leave house and home to save that which most men count ...
— The Gathering of Brother Hilarius • Michael Fairless
... were unintelligible in the roaring of guns and floods and hurrahs, and the thumping of the tremendous big drum behind his head—'somewhere in the middle of the earth': he tried to explain the locality of that terrible drumming noise to them, and Vittoria conceived him to be delirious; but he knew that he was sensible; he knew her and Angelo and the mountain-pass, and that he had a cigar-case in his pocket worked in embroidery of crimson, blue, and gold, by the hands of Countess Anna. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... stop me, old fellow; good-bye,' and Johnnie ran off and up to his room as fast as he could go. He had not been there more than five minutes, when there was a sound of little toddling steps along the passage, and two fat hands came drumming on the door. 'What do you want, baby?' said Johnnie, rising ...
— Holiday Tales • Florence Wilford
... would return, and so had patiently waited, crouched in the rock hole, waist deep in water. This, perhaps, did not improve its flavour, but emu meat was worth procuring at the small cost of tainting the water with the taste of clothes. Presently I heard the drumming of the approaching birds, and, cautiously looking up, found them attentively examining the bucket and pannikin, I had left on the rock. They made such a quaint, pretty picture that unless we had really ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... up; the boys came expectantly forward. Even the book-keeper stopped to watch the new-comer as he came rapidly toward the office. Only the head of the house sat unconcernedly at his desk—his long, pale, bony fingers drumming on the port-folio—his hard eyes looking out ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... screamed, ending in a hysterical giggle. Then we heard rhythmic beating on the top of the stand behind the medium. Startling as it was at the beginning, increasing as it did from a slow beat to an incredibly rapid drumming, when the initial shock was over Herbert commenced ...
— Sight Unseen • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... And that very night he stole back again to the clump of evergreens where he had heard Mr. Grouse drumming. ...
— The Tale of Tommy Fox • Arthur Scott Bailey
... in the good woman, eagerly. "And she's had enough to make her so! What with policemen drumming her up at night, and innocent-looking girls and boys luring her into corners to tell them what she saw in that grand house where the murder took place, she's grown that feared of her shadow you can hardly get her out after sundown. But I think I ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green |
