"Patter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... rings it snapped its jaws at you like an alligator. Odd that they'd let an alligator into the Ajax Hotel. Nelson's doings, probably. Always up to some deviltry, that Nelson. But, thank God, the fire was out, and that ear-splitting racket that hurt his head had changed into the soothing patter of raindrops. There couldn't be any fire with ten thousand barrels of ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... Danube in Oxford racing boats. And when you get home for a quiet fortnight, you turn the steam off, and lie on your backs in the paternal garden, surrounded by the last batch of books from Mudie's library, and half bored to death. Well, well! I know it has its good side. You all patter French more or less, and perhaps German; you have seen men and cities, no doubt, and have your opinions, such as they are, about schools of painting, high art, and all that; have seen the pictures of Dresden and the Louvre, and know the taste of sour krout. All I say is, you ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... threw himself on his horse and was off after the dim figure that raced down the west trail which led to the Pass. He did not heed Judith's call nor the quick patter of hoofs behind him. On and on through the frosty April night, Prince barking joyfully before, the Moose galloping at top speed, the stars sliding overhead. On past the Browns' noisy corral, past Falkner's brightly lighted cabin, and up the lifting ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... the rigging, others stood by to prevent jibing, and the mate put the wheel hard alee. The schooner's head swung sharply, there was a thunder and rattle of canvas, a patter of reef points, and the great booms swung over. The wind caught the sails, the Charming Lass heeled and bore ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... still be an object of delight and amazement on account of his matchless power in improvisation. Listen to his own "Rain Storm," and you shall hear, first, the thunder's reverberating peal, and anon the gentle patter of the rain-drops on the roof: soon they fall thick and fast, coming with a rushing sound. Again is heard the thunder's awful roar, while the angry winds mingle in the tempestuous fray,—all causing you to feel that a veritable ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... little burst of passion. "Yes!" she cried. "Of course I did! I wished to come, madly, senor. There is no use to lie. But wait! It is wholly because I am a-what you call fleert-a very sad fleert." No one could possibly describe the quaint pronunciation she gave the word. "It makes my heart patter, like that"—she made her little fingers "patter"-"to be wooed even by a Yankee. But I do not love you in the least. Oh no! Even if I wished to do so, there are too many reasons why I could not, and when I explain you ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... "From what I hear, you were the only one who voted against them. So you had better get ready to listen to the patter of little feet, and squalling babies, and Mamas and Papas arguing over whose idea it was to make ...
— Hunters Out of Space • Joseph Everidge Kelleam
... there's no question of dishonesty here. Don't pick up any of the patter that the demagogues are babbling—and they don't know just what they mean themselves. He is an honest man. Have I known him all my life without finding that out? But he isn't going to start out and clinch any reputation for ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... whirr of a buzzer and the patter of a maid's feet along the hall, checked Carr's speech. He did not resume. Instead he reached for a box of cigars, and lighted one. By that time Tommy Ashe was being ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... patter of horses' feet came from below, doors opened and shut, and there was a sound of voices in the ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... the profound attention which her companion lent her, she continued, allowing herself to be carried away by the charm of the thoughts she evoked. "There is one thing that I like almost as well as the silence of the woods; it is the patter of the large drops of rain in the summer, falling on the leaves; do you ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... thereby Distract her mind or lighten pain the least— So keen her search for something known and hers. Moreover, tender kids with bleating throats Do know their horned dams, and butting lambs The flocks of sheep, and thus they patter on, Unfailingly each to its proper teat, As nature intends. Lastly, with any grain, Thou'lt see that no one kernel in one kind Is so far like another, that there still Is not in shapes some difference ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... no answer. He did not dare to raise his eyes, but his ears were strained to catch the swift patter of the approaching bare feet. If Sally should recognise him—if, of course she must—if she should speak, what irreparable mischief might not be made in a ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... but it's bloomin' difficult to 'ear to-night—the rain makes such a patter on the chalk, and it's fillin' up the ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... could reproduce Dougal's accent, and I will not attempt it. There was a touch of Irish in it, a spice of music-hall patter, as well as the odd lilt of the Glasgow vernacular. He was strong in vowels, but the consonants, especially the letter ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... crack, the reply began, and plainly mingled with the reports came the strange whistling whirr of bullets about their ears, in company with the crackling of cut-down leaves and twigs which now began to patter upon ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... minister begged her pardon; also he remained where he was, and heard the drops from the tree patter hollow ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... my nose, dropping below me, striking behind me against my pilot-house. All this time the river, the shore, the woods, were very quiet—perfectly quiet. I could only hear the heavy splashing thump of the stern-wheel and the patter of these things. We cleared the snag clumsily. Arrows, by Jove! We were being shot at! I stepped in quickly to close the shutter on the land side. That fool-helmsman, his hands on the spokes, was lifting his knees high, stamping his feet, champing his mouth, like a reined-in horse. ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... the bay charger's neck. The captain's figure seemed limp. With an expression of profound dejection and gloom he stared off at where the leaden sky met the dark green line of the woods. The long-impending rain began to fall with a mournful patter, drop and drop. ...
— The Little Regiment - And Other Episodes of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... rescue and prevention which it is mine to offer. Within a quarter of a mile of this place where I speak, stands a once courtly old house, where blooming children were born, and grew up to be men and women, and married, and brought their own blooming children back to patter up the old oak staircase which stood but the other day, and to wonder at the old oak carvings on the chimney-pieces. In the airy wards into which the old state drawing-rooms and family bedchambers of that house are now converted, are lodged such small patients that ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... the tent,—a dangerous rustling in the sand, a crinkling of dead leaves in the corners of the steps, a ring, a roar, a wild tumult. Something whirled to the floor in David's room, papers rattled, curtains flapped, and there was a metallic patter on the uncarpeted floor of the tent. Carol gave an indistinct murmur of fear and burrowed beneath ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... had not eaten. The best he could do was to gulp down some coffee, for he was in a nervous chill of apprehension. Every gust of wind seemed to carry to him the patter of pursuit. The hooting of an owl sent a ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... I say it that shouldn't," was his answer. "I am one of those who deal in deeds more than words. I cannot patter Ave Marias with a Catholic, nor sing interminable psalms like a Huguenot, but neither can I endure the ways the Catholics are taking to compel the Huguenots to submission. I take my own way, d'ye see, and am fettered by nobody. No one would molest La Croissette the needle-seller, ...
— Jacques Bonneval • Anne Manning
... on his hand. A moment later there was a continuous patter, as the storm, which had been gathering all day, broke in earnest. Mike turned up his coat-collar, and ran back to Outwood's. "At this rate," he said to himself, "there won't be a ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... break the monotony of continuous sunshiny days. There is nothing that is so fascinating to a boy in camp as listening to the patter of the rain drops upon the roof of his canvas house, especially at night, if he is snug and warm in his blankets and the tent is waterproof. A rainy day is the kind of a day when the chess and checker enthusiasts get ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... a patter of feet from the sitting-room and Barbara came running, Petunia in her arms. At the sight of their visitor's lanky form the child's ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... donkey they could see a shower of ragged splinters and broken limbs fly when a two-hundred-foot fir smashed a dead cedar that stood in the way of its downward swoop. They could hear the pieces strike against brush and trees like the patter of shot on ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... the darkness behind, came a sound there was no mistaking, the rush and patter of pursuing feet, and the ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... broke the spell. They trembled. Christophe leaped to his feet and crossed the fence again. Sabine picked up the shells in her lap and went in. In the yard he turned. She was at her door. They looked at each other. Drops of rain were beginning to patter on the leaves of the trees.... She closed her door. Frau Vogel and Rosa came in.... He went up to ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... forbade all strategy. There was none of the pomp or glory of war, only its horrible butchery. The ranks simply dashed into the woods. Soon came the patter of shots, the heavy rattle of musketry, and then there streamed back the wreck of the battle—bleeding, mangled forms, borne on stretchers. In those gloomy shades, dense with smoke, this strangest of battles, which no eye could follow, marked only ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... bitter tears over the lonely, sunken grave! no more hearkening, with aching, never-to-be-satisfied ears for the patter of the "little feet that never trod." The great sorrow of her life that had been good in His sight was at length a blessing in hers. Her "hereafter" of knowledge of His doings had come to ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... so level, you can patter out ever so far, until you finally have to bob up and down for the rolling waves, as if they were Royalties—and so they are, for the Kingdom of Mer. I can swim a little, and Potter took me beyond the breakers. It was great fun, under that arch of turquoise sky, with the sun ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... a tense silence in the dressing tent, broken only by the patter of the rain drops on the canvas roof, while the show's surgeon was ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... neither for havin' nor handlin'. And that's wan of thim, says I to meself. . . . I wint back and lay down, and I heard the voice singin' now and comin' nearer and nearer, and growin' louder and louder, and then there came with it a patter of feet, till it was as a thousand children were dancin' by me door. I was shy enough, I'll own; but I pulled aside the curtain of the tent to see again: and there was nothin' beyand for the eye. But the singin' ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... as a mariner should, with its passenger capacity carefully stamped on the bottom. And instead of Columbus, a honey-fed spirit of dream should stand in his prow and adjure him to sail on, to dreamland. "Dream on, dream on, dream on," she should patter, each time he grew restless. I could not take a turn in the prow myself, it would be too much honor; but I should be glad to take my stand in the gentleman's rear, and do all I could to ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... As bends the barque's mast in the gale, When rent are rigging, shrouds, and sail, It wavered 'mid the foes. No longer Blount the view could bear: "By heaven and all its saints! I swear, I will not see it lost; Fitz-Eustace, you with Lady Clare May bid your beads, and patter prayer - I gallop to the host." And to the fray he rode amain, Followed by all the archer train. The fiery youth, with desperate charge, Made, for a space, an opening large - The rescued banner rose - But darkly closed the war around, Like pine-trees, rooted ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... find that the boards of the ceiling were not fastened down. With a great effort he managed to raise himself and after a minute of hard work found himself in the tiny loft of the cottage. Here the patter of the rain was strong and the water ...
— The Rover Boys in Camp - or, The Rivals of Pine Island • Edward Stratemeyer
... Cowan merely preened his beautiful yellow moustache at her and said, "How's business, Mother?" Whereupon she saw that Dave was not a villager to be wheedled by her patter. She recognized him, indeed, as belonging like herself to the freemasonry of them that know men and cities, and she spoke to him as ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... that, in Markheim's ears, it began to be distinguished into many different sounds. Footsteps and sighs, the tread of regiments marching in the distance, the chink of money in the counting, and the creaking of doors held stealthily ajar, appeared to mingle with the patter of the drops upon the cupola and the gushing of the water in the pipes. The sense that he was not alone grew upon him to the verge of madness. On every side he was haunted and begirt by presences. He heard them moving in the upper chambers; from the shop, he heard the dead ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... from below. Of those who seem to be concerned with spiritual perceptions there is a vast number mere charlatans and pretenders who, like the ingenious Japanese, are content to make cunning imitations of the real things adapted to sell to the best advantage. They patter the formulas of religion, of science, of art and morals, and ostentatiously display themselves in the costume of intellectuality to flatter, cajole and mystify the ...
— On the Vice of Novel Reading. - Being a brief in appeal, pointing out errors of the lower tribunal. • Young E. Allison
... around the camp-fire at bed-time, when I heard a distinct patter on the leaves. "Something coming," I whispered. All held still, then out of the gloom came bounding a snow-white Weasel. Preble was lying on his back with his hands clasped behind his head and the Weasel fearlessly jumped on my colleague's broad ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... be seated, Dan walked slowly to the center of the room, and standing by the table, looked intently at the man at the desk. The patter of the Judge's talk died away. The presence of the man by the table seemed to fill the whole room. The very furniture became suddenly cheap and small. The Judge himself seemed to shrink, and he had a sense of something about ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... heart that repelled her, And the cold hand that turned her away, And take, from the lips that denied her, This answerless prayer of to-day! Take Lord, from my mem'ry forever That pitiful sob of despair, And the patter and trip of the little bare feet, And the one ...
— Afterwhiles • James Whitcomb Riley
... thousands, either buying provisions for the coming holiday or attracted by the light and bustle. Heavy looking Russians, olive-skinned Italians, placid Germans, wild-eyed and pallid Czechs, lounged along the thoroughfare, chatting with compatriots, or gathering in amused groups to hear the strange patter of some voluble merchant retailing goods from a barrow. From the interiors of tiny shops and cellars came eldritch voices crying the nature and remarkable qualities of the wares within. Every hand-cart carried a flaring naphtha-lamp, and the glare of these innumerable torches created ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... the second voice in the other corner. And then, as if by a concerted movement, a series of bibular invitations and acceptances were rolled backwards and forwards with a volubility of utterance that threw Patter ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... hardly out of his mouth when the silence was suddenly broken into by a confusion, cries, and a rapid patter of naked feet. A number of natives ran into the compound, men and women and children; they crowded round Mackintosh and they all talked at once. They were unintelligible. They were excited and frightened and some of them were crying. Mackintosh pushed ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... than usual, Fred went up to his small room close under the rafters, where rainy nights he could listen to the patter of the drops on the roof just over his head, he believed that he must be the happiest boy ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... up to the nursery and played all day, watching the rain patter upon the new tin gutter. She wondered where Raggedy Andy was, although she did not get worried about him until she had asked Mama where he ...
— Raggedy Andy Stories • Johnny Gruelle
... octagonal room on the piano nobile of the castle, where his lost ladies of old years smiled on him from their frames. He had heard an approaching patter of feet on the pavement of the room beyond; and then Annunziata's little grey figure, white face, and big grave eyes, had appeared, one picture the more, in the vast ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... shed, and to light a roaring coal (or rather lignite, for it is not true coal) fire in the drawing-room, when, with a few warning splashes, the deluge of cold rain came steadily down, and we went to sleep to the welcome sound of its refreshing patter. ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... latch, and in the act fancied his breathing was changed. She paused, and bent her head to listen. But the patter of the rain, drowning all sounds save those of the nearest origin, persuaded her that she was mistaken, and, finding the latch, she raised it, slipped like a shadow into the passage, and closed the door ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... better boxer. He boxed coolly and scientifically, but what his opponent lacked in style he made up in determination. Twice his furious attacks drove Harcourt to the ropes, and twice the latter extricated himself nimbly and good-humouredly. Between the thud of gloves and the patter of their feet on the canvas-covered boards their breathing was audible in the ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... your face as you gazed— Behind you an old gnarled fruit-tree in one still fire Of innumerable flame in the sun of October blazed, Scarlet and gold that the first white frost would spill With eddying flicker and patter of dead leaves falling— looked on your face, as an outcast from Eden recalling A vision of Eve as ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... Soon we heard the patter of little feet on the hard snow; then we saw the chipmunks approaching from all directions. Some stopped and ran experimentally up a tree or a log, as if uncertain of the exact direction of the call; others chased ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... There was a patter of running feet, a sound of full-throated laughter from Elliot, and presently silence but for ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... heavy as thirty-seven penny-weight has been exhibited; and a story is told of a Middleton weaver, who, when a thunder-storm was gathering, lay awake as if for his life, and at the first patter of rain against the window panes, rushed to the rescue of his Gooseberry bushes with his bed quilt. Green Gooseberries will help to abate the strange longings ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... my being one of their number, an admiration which was tempered by a slight feeling of awe of the discipline that controlled them, melted away almost noiselessly, like those Arabs who 'folded their tents' according to the poem, the boys being all in their bare feet, and their patter along the deck and down the hatchways not making any sound above a faint shuffling; and soon this was drowned by the eldritch screeching of our friends the seagulls circling round on the wing in their wonted manner, and poising themselves anon in mid-air above the ship, looking down to see ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... interpret much that she saw in this new world. Cant phrases, bits of studio lore, artists' patter, their ways of looking at things, their manners of expression, their mannerisms, their little vanities, their ideas, ideals, aspirations, were fast becoming familiar to her. Also she was beginning to notice and secretly to reflect on their generic characteristics—their ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... must I wear, Laura? Do people wear evening dress? Where shall we sit? What time shall we get back? How are you going? What time must I be ready? Will you have dinner before you go or take sandwiches with you?"—how long the patter of questions would have run on it is hard to say, if the extreme naivete of the last one had not drowned them in universal laughter, and Isabel ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... with a billycock hat, And his low-necked shoes were aduncous and flat. In speech he eschewed his American ways, Denying his nose to the use of his A's And dulling their edge till the delicate sense Of a babe at their temper could take no offence. His H's—'twas most inexpressibly sweet, The patter they made as they fell at his feet! Re-outfitted thus, Mr. Splurge without fear Began as Lord Splurge his recouping career. Alas, the Divinity shaping his end Entertained other views and decided to send ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... about Patter Rollers, but I don't know nothing about them. But they are dead and gone. I have heard of the Ku Klux but I don't know nothing about it. I don't know what I used to know. No sir, I am out of ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... the innocent and punish the guilty. Whenever a great crime was committed he instantly overflowed with theories as to what the criminal was likely to do afterward. Haggerty enjoyed listening to his patter; and often there were illuminating flashes which obtained results for the detective, who never applied his energies in the direction of logical deduction. Besides, the chairs in the studio were comfortable, the imported beer not too cold, and the ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
... responsibility— how could he hesitate? he was pouring out all the consolation and sympathy of his ardent soul to the man he had loved as a boy, and he never felt the chill that was stiffening all his joints, he never heeded the ceaseless patter of the dreary rain. The clock had stopped and the fire had gone out, and still he sat crouched in his chair, with the strange letter lying listlessly ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... dream, upon the stair I hear A patter coming nearer and more near, And then upon my chamber door A gentle tapping, For dogs, though proud, are poor, And if a tail will do to give command Why use a hand? And after that a cry, half sneeze, half yapping, And next a ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... of its innumerable leaves through which every drop of water tore its separate way with cruel haste. And then, to the right, the house surged up in the mist, very black, and clamorous with the quick patter of rain on its high-pitched roof above the steady splash of the water running off the eaves. Down the plankway leading to the door flowed a thin and pellucid stream, and when Willems began his ascent it broke over his foot as if he were going up a steep ravine in the bed of a rapid and shallow ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... minute they could hear a soft patter-patter coming down a jungle-trail and evidently, by the sound, ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... strange rustling of the leaves in the near thicket. It was an odd, continuous sound, and though it went this way and that way and came ever nearer, there was no patter of feet with it. Rag had lived his whole life in the swamp (he was three weeks old) and yet had never heard anything like this. Of course his curiosity was greatly aroused. His mother had cautioned him to lay low, but ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... he said. "Don't he talk. Learned the patter at Oxford College, I expect." He turned on his lame leg. "Anyway, we know now where ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... Scotchman is vera' serious. The Scotch trustee gave one glowering look at that drunken prophet; and he rang the street-car bell; and he went at the patter of a dead run to the polling place; and for the first time in his life he voted, not Whig, not free trade, not reciprocity and Laurier, but Tory ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... indeed one hour counts. To be here watching the mottled wet green walls of our tent, the glistening wet bamboos, the bedraggled sopping socks and loose articles dangling in the middle, the saddened countenances of my companions—to hear the everlasting patter of the falling snow and the ceaseless rattle of the fluttering canvas—to feel the wet clinging dampness of clothes and everything touched, and to know that without there is but a blank wall of white ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... Dr. Dimsdale, and the doctor drank to the unpronounceable Russian, who, being unable to reply, sang a revolutionary song which no one could understand. Very happy and very hearty was every one by the time that the hour came at which the carriages were ordered, when, amid a patter ing of rice and a chorus of heartfelt good wishes, the happy couples ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... from Cook's had convoyed his party through the Vatican, until he brought them to the Apollo Belvidere. As they ranged themselves wearily about the statue, he rattled off his regular patter without pause or punctuation: ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... began to pass. The outline of the window-frame became visible against a faint grey glimmer. The window was open, and a breath of the coming dawn wandered in with the fragrance of drenched roses. A soft rain was falling. The patter of it could be heard upon ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... I don't mind whippings if I can read books in school and you make mother not cry," and before I could stop him he ran out of the dim room and I could hear his cautious bare feet patter down the long ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... that his mind gave way, and in a fit of despondency he committed suicide. The sons and daughters who died, with the exception of two or three, were taken away in childhood. So the large mansion, with its richly-furnished rooms, is shut up from the sunlight and rarely echoes to the patter of childish feet. The mistress lives in the back part, but exercises a care over the whole house, which is kept in a state of perfect order and neatness. Not a speck of dirt is to be seen on the painted wood-work or the window-glass, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... darling, well I know How the bitter wind doth blow And the winter's snow and rain Patter on the window pane; But they cannot come in here ...
— Aunt Kitty's Stories • Various
... the clergy of the time as among the laity. In one of his writings he says: "If you will not let the layman have the word of God in his mother tongue, yet let the priests have it, which for the great part of them do understand no Latin at all, but sing and patter all day with the lips only that which the heart understandeth not."[1] So bad was the case that it was not corrected within a whole generation. Forty years after Tindale's version was published, the Bishop of Gloucester, Hooper by name, ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee
... I heard a patter of bare feet on the deck, and a dozen soldiers ran past me, and surrounded us. I noticed that they and their officers belonged to the Eleventh Infantry. It was the regiment I had driven out of ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... behind the hill Rush'd o'er the wood with startling sound: Then all at once the air was still, And showers of hail-stones patter'd round. ...
— Lyrical Ballads with Other Poems, 1800, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... he? I realized that a moment ago he had plunged into the passage. I heard the patter of his feet—a pause. A queer, dismal little whine echoed along the passage. I heard Crusoe returning—but before his nose appeared around the angle of the tunnel, his mistress had reached the top of the cliff at a bound and was vanishing at a brisk ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... fancy, hear, Small feet in childish patter, Tread soft as they a grave draw near, And voices hush their chatter; 'Tis small and new; they pause in fear, Beneath the gray church tower, To consecrate it with a tear, And ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... patter of feet over the crisp surface, and the grey beast came and halted suddenly not three yards from us, and on his haunches he sat up and howled, and I heard the answering yells in no long space of time coming ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... itinerary consecrated to the enjoyment of the fine arts in the gallery of the Academy. Their personal conductor led them into one of the great rooms, and they gathered close around him, with an air of determination on their tired faces, listening to his brief, dry patter about the famous pictures that the room contained. He stood in the centre of the room holding his watch in his hand while they dispersed themselves around the walls, looking for the paintings which they ought ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... crying at the same time. The mother spoke to it soothingly and then rose to change its clothes. Meanwhile another child had wakened and was beginning to make a noise. 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. ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... and at thirty years! Just one phrase, and a man gets off it; Look at that mongrel clerk in his tears Whining aloud the name of the prophet; Only a formula easy to patter, And, God ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... in his sleep! Suppose he were to wake up suddenly, now! If she spoke or moved it might mean his death. She dared look no more, but sank back on her pillows. She listened intently. For what seemed an immensely long time there was no sound. Then there was a patter of feet on the tiles, followed by a scrabbling noise and a whispered "Damn!" And suddenly Ivor's head and shoulders appeared above the parapet. One leg followed, then the other. He was on the leads. Mary pretended to wake ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... believe that either of the boys had been up at that unearthly hour using the grindstone, but she wished to prove to Elsie that it was all imagination. As she passed the head of the stairs she suddenly stopped. Somewhere, down below, she distinctly heard a soft noise like the patter of slippered feet. Ida ...
— Under Padlock and Seal • Charles Harold Avery
... profession. It may be correct, according to the rules of grammar, but it is not universal; it is confined to certain parts and localities and is only intelligible to those for whom it is intended. In short, it is an esoteric language which only the initiated can understand. The jargon, or patter, of thieves is cant and it is only understood by thieves who have been let into its significance; the initiated language of professional gamblers is cant, and ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... broke on our ears save the soft puff now and then of a porpoise, the slow creak of the masts as we swayed gently on the swell, the patter of the reef-points, and the occasional flap of the hanging sails. An awning covered the fore and after parts of the schooner, under which the men composing the watch on deck lolled in sleepy indolence, overcome with excessive ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... laughing, "truly, they are large enough for any man to see, even were his sight as foggy as that of Peter Patter, who never could see when it was time to ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... myself under a daisy flower and took a good rest, for I felt very tired after my struggles. A good shower of rain came on, and I was quite glad to hear it patter on the leaves. ...
— Dick and His Cat and Other Tales • Various
... very evident that they did not go into society or expect callers. In answer to our knock we heard the patter of a child's feet on the hall floor and Susie opened the door. As good fortune would have it, the sitting-room door at the other end of the hall stood invitingly open, and so, without waiting for ceremony, ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott
... inspector broke off in the middle of his sentence. Ruth, shrinking in her chair, turned her head fearfully towards the door, which still stood half open. Arnold was looking breathlessly in the same direction. Faintly, but very distinctly, they heard the patter of footsteps climbing the stone stairs. It sounded as though a man were walking upon tiptoe, yet dragging his feet wearily. The inspector held up his hand, and his subordinate, who had been searching ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... 1883, and supposed her father to be taking a walk with his dog. She heard noises, which may have had any other cause, but which she took to be the sounds of a key in the door lock, a stick tapping the tiles of the hall, and the patter of the dog's feet on the tiles. She then saw the dog pass the door. Miss C.E. next entered the hall, where she found nobody; but in the pantry she met her sisters—Miss E., Miss H.G.E.—and a working-woman. Miss E. and the working-woman had been in the hall, and there had heard the sound, which ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... and patter of driven rain came—great drops that tore at the rocks, and at the metal. Great jagged tongues of nature's forces, the lightnings, came and jabbed at the awful volcano of erupting energy that was the center ...
— The Last Evolution • John Wood Campbell
... great glory of clearness after rain, boy and girl moved along together under the trees. The fisherman's path which they followed wound where wet granite shone and ivy glimmered beneath the forest; and the leaves still dripped briskly, making a patter of sound through the underwood, and marking a thousand circles and splashes in the smooth water beneath the banks of the stream. Against a purple-grey background of past rain the green of high summer shone bright and fresh, and each moss-clad rock and fern-fringed branch of ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... Petersburg wid Capt. Douglas, dat Miss Janie's second husband. Our train went dat fast, dat it took my breaf away. But de cars goes much faster, gwine to Patter-a-rac now. ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... of Yellowhammer had been truly described. The voice of childhood had never gladdened its flimsy structures; the patter of restless little feet had never consecrated the one rugged highway between the two rows of tents and rough buildings. Later they would come. But now Yellowhammer was but a mountain camp, and nowhere in it were the roguish, ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... as stupidly simple. She had known "Missy" from a chile! She had just traipsed over to see her that afternoon; they were walking together when the sojers stopped her. She had never been stopped before, even by "the patter rollers."* Her old massa (Manly) had gib leaf to go see Miss Tilly, and hadn't said nuffin about ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... knowledge in their old nests of reference, but the stray things of the hedge and the chiffchaff from over sea in the ash wood. They go on without me. Orchis flower and cowslip—I cannot number them all—I hear, as it were, the patter of their feet—flower and bud and the beautiful clouds that go over, with the sweet rush of rain and burst of sun glory among the leafy trees. They go on, and I am no more than the least of the empty shells that strewed ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... patter, something was coming. Jack awoke with a start of expectation. There was no moon tonight, but he had left a candle burning in a distant corner. It was all he could do to keep back a chuckle when he saw a big gray rat dart across the floor with a good sized twig in its mouth. Jack kept perfectly ...
— Little Tales of The Desert • Ethel Twycross Foster
... laureate to-day is Walt Mason ... and our State philosopher, the sage of Potato Hill, Ed Howe, is an honest-to-God stand-patter ... that's Kansas to-day for you, in spite of ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... Bruce lay on the ground under a rude shed, lis-ten-ing to the patter of the drops on the roof above him. He was tired and sick at heart, and ready to give up all hope. It seemed to him that there was no use for him to try to ...
— Fifty Famous Stories Retold • James Baldwin
... now, and put things to rights and arranged the mosquito-bar, and I went to bed to nurse my cough. It was about nine in the evening. What a state of things! For three hours the yelling and shouting of natives in the hall continued, along with the velvety patter of their swift bare feet—what a racket it was! They were yelling orders and messages down three flights. Why, in the matter of noise it amounted to a riot, an insurrection, a revolution. And then there were other noises mixed up with these and at intervals tremendously accenting ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... underground, blazed a vault of blue fire that reached up to the standing brick chimney of Rawdon's house. Hundreds of animals were in the water around them, squirrels and snakes and muskrats, even mice, swimming for dear life. Then, pitter, patter, came the rain, hissing on the flames. It fell more heavily; and the lawyer, having doffed his coat to row, threw it over the woman's shoulders, while Mr. Terry put that of Sylvanus about the boy. "Lead on, Mr. Coristine," cried the detective; and the skiff shot through the narrows, with the punt ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... that.' The professional steering of the impartial judge, seated there above them all; the cold, calculated rhapsodies about the heinousness of arson; the cold and calculated attack on the characters of the stone-breaker witness and the tramp witness; the cold and calculated patter of the appeal not to condemn a father on the evidence of his little child; the cold and calculated outburst on the right of every man to be assumed innocent except on overwhelming evidence such as did not here exist. The cold and ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... improvement. Plenty of slides! there is no doubt of that; In fact one questions if there are too many. Yes, I shall find when you pass round the hat, The price is more than the old-fashioned Penny. I pay my money and I take my—choice? Well no, it won't quite fit, that fine old patter. Still, if your Show proves good, I shall rejoice; A trifling rise in fee won't greatly matter, If 'tis not too "progressive" (as you say). To stump up for sound work I'm always willing; But though, of course, a Penny may not ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, 1890.05.10 • Various
... Daily News (Hull): "The funniest book we have read for some time. You must perforce scream with huge delight at the dry sayings and writings of the funny little man who has actually killed people with his patter and his antics. Page after page of genuine fun is reeled off by the great ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... through which ran a broad road, kept by papal troops for the passage of the carriages; and up the broad ribbon, white in the eastern light, came monstrous vehicles, a blaze of gilding and colour and cream tint; slow cheers swelled up and died, and through all came the rush and patter of wheels over the stones, like the sound of a ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... rehearsing in the city of Moscow, in the year 1833, in the house of his revered preceptor. I wept...I felt faint... The weather was horrible...a fine rain trickled down the window panes with a persistent, thin, little patter; damp, dark-grey storm-clouds hung stationary over the town. I dined hurriedly, made no response to the anxious inquiries of the kind German woman, who whimpered a little herself at the sight of my red, swollen eyes (Germans—as is well known—are always glad to weep). I behaved ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... Haji Wali, and having reached Suez they embarked on the gunboat, the "Mukhbir," for Moilah, which they reached on December 19th. Burton landed with studied ceremony, his invariable plan when in the midst of savage or semi-civilised people. The gunboat saluted, the fort answered with a rattle and patter of musketry. All the notables drew up in line on the shore. To the left stood the civilians in tulip-coloured garb, next were the garrison, a dozen Bashi-Bazouks armed with matchlocks, then came Burton's quarry men; and lastly the escort—twenty-five ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... us went to see "Patter versus Clatter," after all, having all some previous engagement, so that, though it was literally given for our special amusement, we were none ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... to branch until I was near the top. I had but to climb along a stout limb in order to reach the wall. But suddenly my ears caught the patter of feet, and I cowered against the trunk and tried to blend myself with its shadow. A man was coming toward me on the roof. I saw his dark figure creeping along, his body crouching, his head advanced, the barrel of his ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... So much for the hill. Immediately over the rear truck of the train a huge white ball of smoke sprang into being and tore out into a cone like a comet. Then came, the explosions of the near guns and the nearer shell. The iron sides of the truck tanged with a patter of bullets. There was a crash from the front of the train and half a dozen sharp reports. The Boers had opened fire on us at 600 yards with two large field guns, a Maxim firing small shells in a stream, and ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... mountain side hid in a grassy nook, With door and windows open wide, where friendly stars may look; The rabbit shy can patter in; the winds may enter free Who throng around the mountain throne in living ecstasy. And when the sun sets dimmed in eve and purple fills the air, I think the sacred Hazel Tree is dropping berries there ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell
... of the fox, burst into one frantic shriek of joy—and then a sudden and ghastly stillness, as, mute and breathless, they toiled up the hillside, gaining on their victim at every stride. The patter of the horsehoofs and the rattle of rolling flints died away above. Lancelot looked up, startled at the silence; laughed aloud, he knew not why, and sat, regardless of his pawing and straining horse, still staring at ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... went home, pondering and thinking,—for I didn't wait for the tea and cake that are supposed to be essential to all these gatherings,—I heard the patter of a light foot behind me, and in a minute ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... she was gone, and Richard heard the patter of her feet far up the gravelled walk ere he had recovered from his surprise. Who was she, and why had she remembered him? The voice was very, very sweet, thrilling him with a strange melody, which carried him back to a summer sunset years ago, when on the banks of the ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... not answer. They all kept quiet, but all they could hear was the patter of rain drops ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at Meadow Brook • Laura Lee Hope
... them, 'this excessive and applauded productiveness, both of your juvenile and your senile, in your modern literature, is it ever a crop? Is it even the restorative perishable stuff of the markets? Is it not rather your street-pavement's patter of raindrops, incessantly in motion, and as fruitful?' Mr. Semhians appeals to Delphica. 'Genius you have,' says she, stiffening his neck-band, 'genius in superabundance':—he throttles to the complexion of the peony:—'perhaps criticism is wanting.' Dr. Gannius adds: 'Perhaps it is ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... rain began to patter on the leaves. Thunder began to mutter, then growl in the distance. I ran on. The rain fell heavier. At length the thick leaves could hold it up no longer; and, like a second firmament, they poured ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... there wasn't a priest of any denomination; I don't know whether the omission was purposed. The man's face grew convulsed with agony, his eyeballs stared out very white and vivid, as he struggled with the two men. He began to curse us epileptically for compassing his damnation. A hoarse patter of Spanish imprecations came from the crowd immediately round me. The man with the voice like Ramon's groaned in a lamentable way; someone else said, "What infamy . . . ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... moved forward, I heard a kind of pitter-patter above my head. Sometimes this noise increased and became a continuous crackle. I soon realized the cause. It was a heavy rainfall rattling on the surface of the waves. Instinctively I worried that ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... Narcone staring at him now, as he sat nodding to the senseless patter of the Chief in a sort of breathless, terrifying suspense. Would his own face recall to the fellow's mind that night in the forest of Terranova and set his fears aflame? Blake's reason told him that such a thing was beyond the faintest probability, yet the flesh upon his back was crawling ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... had not formerly been conscious of it, hurrying into the lights and comforts and noise of the town. There might only be for him now a night and day of freedom, but, during that time, he must not, he must not be alone. The patter of Bunker's feet beside him pleased him. Bunker was now a fact ...
— The Prelude to Adventure • Hugh Walpole
... all,—who will talk and laugh with you as long as it suits your respective humors and you are prosperous and happy,—the blessed butterfly-race who flutter about your June mornings, and when the clouds lower, and the drops patter, and the rains descend, and the winds blow, will spread their gay wings and float gracefully away to sunny southern lands where the skies are yet blue and the breezes violet-scented. They are not only agreeable, but deeply wise. So long as a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... once—while all these preparations were soberly fulfilling, the agitation of the hundred-and-three was desperate indeed. The air grew thick, it quivered with the lashing of tails; hoarse mews echoed along the stone walls, paws were raised and let fall with the rhythmical patter of raindrops. A furtive beast played the thief: he was one of the one-eyed fraternity, red with mange. Somehow he slipped in between us; we discovered him crouched by the newspaper raking over the contents. This was no time ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... Hopen Playgrounds for the Young! That's the patter of the platformers; and don't they jest give tongue! Well, it's opened with a flourish, and there's everyone content; Pertiklerly the landlords round as ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, Jan. 9, 1892 • Various
... thousand dollars anywhere; but, situated as it was on the next claim to the Lost Burro, it was worth incalculably more. It was too good a claim to let get away and as he listened perfunctorily to the Professor's patter he planned how he would open it up. First he would shoot off the face, to be sure there was no salting, and send off some samples to the assayer; and then he would drive straight in on the vein as long as his money lasted. And if it widened out, if it dipped and went down, he would ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge
... which the desert could be seen beyond the palms. There seemed to be no guests in the hotel. The verandah was deserted, and the peace of the soft evening was profound. Against the white parapet a small, round table and a cane armchair had been placed. A subdued patter of feet in slippers came up the stairway, and an Arab servant appeared with a tea-tray. He put it down on the table with the precise deftness which Domini had already observed in the Arabs at Robertville, and swiftly vanished. She sat down in the chair and poured out the tea, leaning ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... the veteran burns within him, but he makes no sign. And now—hark! Patter, patter, patter. It ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... "spar" with each other behind their respective rulers like Bismarck and Gortschakoff did. Yen-tsz's interview with Shuh Hiang, when the pair discussed the vices of their respective dukes, is almost as amusing as a "patter" scene in the pantomime, a sort of by-play which takes place whilst the curtain is down in preparation for the next formal act (see ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... of the mountain, away from the village street, perched the little hut of Grandfather Viaud. And here, on Christmas Eve, sat the old man and his wife, looking very sad and lonely. For there was no sound of childish laughter in the little hut, no patter of small feet, no whispering of Christmas secrets. The little Viauds had long since grown up and flown away to build nests of their own in far-off countries. Poor Josef Viaud and old Bettine were quite alone this Christmas Eve, save for the Saint Bernard who was stretched ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith
... by the waves of cool, fresh air that came out of the west. Washed by the rain the dry grass straightened up, and the dying leaves opened out, springing into new life. Faster and faster came the drops and now the sound they made was like the steady patter of musketry. Henry opened his mouth and breathed the fresh clean air, and he felt that like the leaves and grass he, too, ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... hardship—I'm used to it—I like it. I like to get awake in the night and look at the stars and to feel the wind in my face. When it rains, I pull the tarp over my head, and I love to listen to the patter on it. The sheep 'bed' all around me, and some of them lie on the corners, so it's not lonely." She said it with a touch of defiance, as though she resented his pity and wished him to believe there was ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... night. The custodians know me and let me moon about in the dark. When all that is ignoble and mean has faded away with the daylight, it seems to me the ghosts of the old time come back upon the sands. I can fancy the patter of light hoofs, the glancing of spectral horns. I can imagine the agile tread of Romero, the deadly thrust of Montes, the whisper of long-vanished applause, and the clapping of ghostly hands. I am growing too old for such skylarking, and I sometimes come away with a cold in my head. But you will ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... so they named the movement,) did indeed permeate, in a manner, all classes. But it was to the haut monde that its primary appeal was made. The sacred emblems of Chelsea were sold in the fashionable toy-shops, its reverently chanted creeds became the patter of the boudoirs. The old Grosvenor Gallery, that stronghold of the few, was verily invaded. Never was such a fusion of delightful folk as at its Private Views. There was Robert Browning, the philosopher, doffing his hat with a courtly sweep ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... one and wondered, for here was the main gun-deck. Ten great pieces a side I counted, with ports for divers more. I was yet wondering at the emptiness about me when I heard sudden uproar from the deck above my head, shouts, cries, a rush and patter of many feet, and above ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... that way to see his friend, "for we are friends, I know." And so he went into the wood. It was a wood of very ancient trees, and the dark leaves roofed over the grassy track making a tunnel. The heavens too grew dark above, and Paullinus heard the drops patter upon the leaves. Generally he loved well enough to walk in the woodways, but here it seemed different. He would have liked a companion. Something sinister and terrible seemed to him to hide within those gloomy ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... with his, but no moisture came to her burning eyes; and there these two, soon to separate, passed the remaining hours of that long wretched night of watching. The stormy day lifted her pale, mournful face at last, and with it came the dreary patter and sobbing of autumn rain, making it doubly harrowing to commit the precious form to its long, last resting-place. Electra stood up beside her cousin and ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... mansions. Further on, in the direction of the college, a smoky street lamp burned dimly. A nitrous exhalation rose from the street; the squall of a vagrant cat; the heavy step of a belated soldier. From the city at her back came strange and alarming sounds: the patter of hurrying feet, an ominous, incessant rumbling, a muffled murmur without a name that chilled her blood. Her heart beat loudly in her bosom as she bent her ear to listen, and still she heard not the ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... mountain side hid in a grassy nook Where door and windows open wide that friendly stars may look. The rabbit shy can patter in, the winds may enter free, Who throng around the mountain throne ...
— The Nuts of Knowledge - Lyrical Poems New and Old • George William Russell
... cobweb curtains of their east window. In the summer-time, robins and orioles sang sweetly among the green branches of the maple tree which shaded the west window. Even when it stormed, Mother Graymouse and her little ones enjoyed the patter, patter of the rain-drops upon the roof and window-panes. They were thankful for such a ...
— The Graymouse Family • Nellie M. Leonard
... the year was dominated by the Presidential canvass. Taft, called by many a "stand-patter"; Roosevelt, "the insurgent," who proposed to mend all the troubles of the political public by his usual brusque methods; and Woodrow Wilson, the "conservative with a move on," made their appeals for popular support. Until the verdict in November ...
— A Brief History of Panics • Clement Juglar
... and mother sit There's a drift of dead leaves at the door Like pitter-patter of little feet ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various
... hour, on top of a stagecoach; it is greater speed than forty by rail. It nurses one's pride to sit aloft, and rattle past the farmhouses, and give our dust to the cringing foot tramps. There is something royal in the swaying of the coach body, and an excitement in the patter of the horses' hoofs. And what an honor it must be to guide such a machine through a region ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Officer; We ain't like to get no further, if we even get as fur. 'Tain't encouraging, my hearty. As for me, I'm old and grey, 'Tis too late now for promotion if it chanced to come my way; And my knowledge, and my patter, and my manners—well I guess They mayn't be percisely fitted for a dandy ward-room mess. But the Navy of the Future, TOMMY ATKINS, is our care, We have gone through many changes, and for others must ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 31, 1891 • Various
... a patter of rapid feet. A small body hurled itself against Doble's leg and clung there, beating his thigh with a valiant ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... out in the street, A popular martial strain; While the constant patter of countless feet Keeps time to the strokes of the drum's quick beat, And the echoing voices that mix and meet Swell ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... The patter of feet was heard, and the next instant the little one came tripping downstairs, with her doll clasped by one arm to ...
— The Story of Red Feather - A Tale of the American Frontier • Edward S. (Edward Sylvester) Ellis
... razed the cross in 1647 than in the stony fidelity of detail which hurts the eye in the modern work, and refuses to be softened by any effect of the mellowing London air. It looks out over the scurry of cabs, the ponderous tread of omnibuses, the rainfall patter of human feet, as inexorably latter-day as anything in the Strand. It is only an instance of the constant futility of the restoration which, in a world so violent or merely wearing as ours, must still go on, and give ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... changed, and a fine drizzling rain set in. So gently come the autumn showers that dull and fine are subject to uncertain alternations. The shades of twilight gradually fell on this occasion. The heavens too got so overcast as to look deep black. Besides the effect of this change on her mind, the patter of the rain on the bamboo tops intensified her despondency, and, concluding that Pao-ch'ai would be deterred from coming, she took up, in the lamp light, the first book within her reach, which turned out to be the 'Treasury ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... strikingly different in type from those one meets elsewhere whether in Peking or the provincial capitals. The latter men are literally mediaeval when they are not late Roman Empire, though most of them have learned a little modern patter to hand out to foreigners. The former are educated men, not only in the school sense and in the sense that they have had some special training for their jobs, but in the sense that they think the ideas and ...
— China, Japan and the U.S.A. - Present-Day Conditions in the Far East and Their Bearing - on the Washington Conference • John Dewey
... on with absorbed attention. I did not hear the dripping on the roof, nor the patter-patter of the drops from the ceiling, nor the beating of the storm against the glass. My candles blew in the draught, and shadows crossed and recrossed the page. Do you remember ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... "Go patter thy petitions to heaven," said the fierce Norman, "for we on earth have no time to listen to them.—Ho! there, Anselm I see that seething pitch and oil are ready to pour on the heads of these audacious traitors—Look that the cross-bowmen ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... excellent English the moment they drop the mask of their personage. This is very characteristic. Many educated Americans take great delight, and even pride, in keeping abreast of the daily developments of slang and patter; but this study does not in the least impair their sense for, or their command of, good English. The idea that the English language is degenerating in America is an absolutely groundless illusion. Take ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... an ordinary jeweller; not so did it undo Thangobrind; the watchman only saw a crouching shape that snarled and laughed: "'Tis but a hyena," they said. Once in the city of Ag one of the guardians seized him, but Thangobrind was oiled and slipped from his hand; you scarcely heard his bare feet patter away. He knew that the Merchant Prince awaited his return, his little eyes open all night and glittering with greed; he knew how his daughter lay chained up and screaming night and day. Ah, Thangobrind knew. And ...
— The Book of Wonder • Edward J. M. D. Plunkett, Lord Dunsany
... hereda proprajxo. Patriot patrioto. Patriotism patriotismo. Patrol patrolo. Patrol (night) nokta patrolo. Patron proktektanto, patrono. Patronage protekto. Patronize favori, protekti. Patron saint patrona sanktulo. Patrons (clients) klientaro. Patter guteti. Pattern patrono, modelo. Paunch ventro. Pauper malricxulo, almozulo. Pause pauxzo. Pave pavimi. Pavement pavimo. Paving-stone pavimero. Pavilion tendo, paviliono. Paw piedego. Pawn (chess) ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... with two of the male correspondents of the London Press. Conversation, in the sense of a mere flow of talk, is never difficult with newspaper men. They are among the most articulate of the British, although much that they articulate is only patter. These two had plenty of miscellaneous information, much of which I received in a sceptical spirit, but I learned some interesting facts, which I verified from other sources later on. Chief of these was the effect produced upon Young Italy ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... fairy or of gnome, With its waxen taper still alight, And beaming in its leafy chalice, That lit the revellers down below, When the nights were long, and the moon was low You might have heard, far-off and sweet, The sound of the elfin revelries, Like a bugle strain blown over seas, And the patter and beat of dancing feet,— If you had been like me awake, What time the Great Bear seems to shake, Down through the trackless realms of air, Frost-lances from his shaggy hair; And all around—beneath—across, The round globe lies ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... too, for some hours, but woke with a start in the night. It was raining heavily. He could hear the loud patter of a fierce tropical shower on the roof of his hut. His Shadow, at his feet, slept still unmoved; but when Felix rose on his elbow, the Shadow rose on a sudden, too, and confronted him curiously. The young man heard the rain; then he bowed ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... and joy, that he will declare himself incapable of ever loving again, and may actually be so. Having no rivals and a deeper soil, love can ripen better in such a constant spirit; it will not waste itself in a continual patter of little pleasures and illusions. But unless the passion of it is to die down, it must somehow assert its universality: what it loses in diversity it must gain in applicability. It must become a principle of action and an influence ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana |
