"Rumbling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to have a wild night, Tom, I think," said Uncle Richard; and as he spoke there was a rumbling noise amongst the woodwork overhead, caused by a passing blast. ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... with watching throng after throng of maskers, of the unmasked, of peering into the cartsful of singing minstrels, into carriages of revellers, hoping for a glimpse of Pierre the devout. The allegorical carts rumbling by with their important red-clothed horses were beginning to lose charm, the disguises showed tawdry, even the gay-hued ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar
... of half an hour, the clouds, which seemed previously to have discharged all their moisture, collected into a dense canopy, darkening the whole heaven, and rumbling with thunder, that became every moment louder and heavier. Then came gusts of wind, groaning through the forest, rattling among the dead limbs of the girdled trees, and whistling over the palisades of the fort. These were succeeded by louder peals of thunder, and vivid flashes of lightning, which ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... perhaps because it had nearly spent itself; at all events the lightning discharges now succeeded each other at steadily lengthening intervals as the storm passed away to the southward, the thunder died down to a distant booming and rumbling, and finally ceased altogether in about an hour and a half from the commencement of the outbreak, while the lightning became a harmless, fitful quivering of vari-coloured ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... moment I heard the loud thump. Then for a few seconds he stood looking about as though nothing had happened; but presently came a second flash and thump, and others followed at lessening intervals, until at last the serenade rolled a way like the galloping of horses or the rumbling of ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume VIII, No 25: May 21, 1887 • Various
... there, I remain a few minutes motionless, then I rise, and I fix my eyes upon a heavy, dark cloud coming from the west, whilst from the same quarter the thunder is rumbling loudly. What a sublime genius I should have appeared in the eyes of my two fools, if, having a short time before taken notice of the sky in that part of the horizon, I had announced to them that my operation would ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Yankee wit carried him safely through a bargain with the driver, and they were soon jolting and rumbling along to their destination. He had asked the man behind the news-stand about a hotel, casually mentioning that he had money—plenty of it—and wanted a "bang- up good place." The spirit of mischief had entered the heart of the news-man, ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... weathered and worn, racked and convulsed into deep ravines, with ridges between. We climbed and fell and toiled on, always with the bay of the hounds in our ears. We leaped fissures, we loosened avalanches, rolling them to crash and roar below, and send long, rumbling echoes ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... sound or sight in the world about us struck on our taut senses like the trump of doom. A cloud passed over the sun and as the sudden shadow swept across the orchard we turned pale and trembled. A wagon rumbling over a plank bridge in the hollow made Sara Ray start up with a shriek. The slamming of a barn door over at Uncle Roger's caused the cold perspiration to break out on ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... nation has waded, how mournfully suggestive was the response the proclamation received from the democratic triumphs which followed so close upon its footsteps. Well, thank God that the President did not fail us, that the fierce rumbling of democratic thunder did not shake from his hand the bolt he leveled against slavery. Oh, it would have been so sad if, after all the desolation and carnage that have dyed our plains with blood and crimsoned our borders with warfare, the pale young corpses trodden down by the hoofs ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... informant of the depot platform had used his "ups" and "downs" indiscriminately in indicating the direction of Wallencamp. In the inky blackness by which I was surrounded I was conscious, clearly, of but one sensation—that of going up and down. The rumbling of the wheels reached me as something far off and ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... have resisted the attractions of the way through that narrow, deep and sombre valley, where they walked on the banks of a winding river all white with foam, rumbling with an echo like thunder among the pine-woods which skirted both ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... Naturally, as it progressed northwards it would dissolve, and the cracking and thunderous noises I had heard in the night, sounds very audible now when I gave them my attention—sometimes a hollow distant rumbling as of some great body dislodged and set rolling far off, sometimes an inwards roaring crack or blast of noise like the report of a cannon fired deep down—advised me that the work of dissolution was perpetually progressing, and that this prodigious island ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... from a document, and Senator North laid aside his pen and listened attentively. So did several other Senators. It was a very long document, and Betty, who could not understand one word in ten as delivered by the clerk's rumbling monotonous voice, was desperately bored, and was glad her Senators had the solace of the cloak-rooms. Several did in fact retire to them, but when the clerk sat down and Senator North rose, they returned; and Betty felt a personal ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... everything they might say, Curdie ventured to slide down a smooth part of the rock just under him, to a projection below, upon which he thought to rest. But whether he was not careful enough, or the projection gave way, down he came with a rush on the floor of the cavern, bringing with him a great rumbling ...
— The Princess and the Goblin • George MacDonald
... added the neighing of horses, bellowing of cattle, rumbling of wheels over the stones, cries of the soldiers, sounds from trumpets, drums, fifes, and the complaints of the inhabitants, with hundreds of persons all together asking questions at the same time, speaking German to the Italians, and French to the Germans, how could it be possible ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Memoirs of Napoleon • David Widger
... rout along: Less fierce the winds with rising flames conspire To whelm some city under waves of fire; Now sink in gloomy clouds the proud abodes, Now crack the blazing temples of the gods; The rumbling torrent through the ruin rolls, And sheets of smoke mount heavy to the poles. The heroes sweat beneath their honour'd load: As when two mules, along the rugged road, From the steep mountain with exerted strength Drag some vast beam, or mast's unwieldy length; Inly they groan, big drops of ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... hears a rumbling and a creaking, and cracking of whips; and when I looks out, what do I see but the bullock-dray from Simmons' coming up the flat. It was the only thing on wheels within forty mile, and Simmons had brought it his own self to see if ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... the death of the kid was their cue, masses of thick thunderheads turned over with a deep rumbling thunder. The sky became crystal clear, and a greenish glow could be seen working its way across the horizon. The sky darkened as the glistening thunderheads now taking on an ominous coloring warned the farmers of the ...
— The White Feather Hex • Don Peterson
... hundreds of pigeons. The wind blew through the iron bars and the air was filled with a weird and pleasing music. It was the noise of the town below us, but a noise which had been purified and cleansed by the distance. The rumbling of heavy carts and the clinking of horses' hoofs, the winding of cranes and pulleys, the hissing sound of the patient steam which had been set to do the work of man in a thousand different ways—they had all ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... so, she heard a queer rumbling sound,—something rolling about on the second shelf, something which had not been there before Mr. Sleuth's arrival. Slowly, laboriously, she tipped the chiffonnier backwards and forwards—once, twice, thrice—satisfied, yet strangely troubled in her mind, for she now felt sure ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... rain, that I took my seat in the four-horse coach, with Fido between my feet. I remember the feeling which came to me when the huge vehicle started. I felt that I was almost leaving the earth, despite the rumbling and the jolting, when I thought of my destination. The heavy clouds and the swishing rain held no gloom for me. For above the clouds was the broad, blue sky, with the sun somewhere in it, and somewhere beyond ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey
... said Sergeant Madden, rumbling. "The Cerberus had to land on her rockets. She had some ground speed. She burned a ten-mile streak on the ground, coming down." He growled. "Commercial skippers! Should've matched velocity aloft! ...
— A Matter of Importance • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... more certain. It was ten o'clock and Las Palmas lay sunk in slumber, and after the down train which was now due had passed, there was nothing likely to disturb her slumber until at sunrise the great army of dirt-diggers with shrieks of whistles, with roars of dynamite, with the rumbling of dirt-trains and steam-shovels, again sprang to the attack. Down the hill, a hundred yards below Standish, the night train halted at the station, with creakings and groanings continued toward Colon, and again ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... under a part of the hill which was hidden from our view by the broad leaves of the banana trees, which grew in great luxuriance in that part. Jack was just preparing to force his way through this thicket, when we were startled and arrested by a strange pattering or rumbling sound which appeared to us quite different from any of the sounds we had heard during the previous ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... had ceased, but between Klein-Gorschen and Kaya terrible cries arose, and I could hear the heavy rumbling of artillery, neighing of horses, cries and shouts of drivers, and cracking of whips. Without knowing why, I dragged myself to the wall, and scarcely had I done so, when two sixteen pounders, each drawn by six horses, turned the corner ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... had beheld few sights as sinister as this Indian army advancing, keeping step to its ferocious chant. Henry saw Yellow Panther come into view, and then Red Eagle, and then the rumbling guns with their gunners, and then Blackstaffe and Wyatt, and then the English Colonel, Alloway, his second, Cartwright, and three or four more officers riding. After them came the caissons and the other ammunition wagons, and then more warriors, hundreds and hundreds, ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... and gas in the bowels are indications of overeating. More food is taken than can be digested. A part of it ferments and gas is a product of fermentation. A very small amount of gas in the alimentary tract is natural, but when there is belching or rumbling of gas in the intestines it is a sign of indigestion, which may be so mild that the individual is not aware of it, or it may be so bad that he can think of little else. When there is formation of much gas it is always necessary to reduce the food intake, and to give special attention to the ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... to launch it. The sea ran high; tide coming in; the sou'-wester still increasing in force to a gale; at the signal-staff on the cliff, the danger-cone was hoisted. White spray danced in air. Big black clouds rolled up seething from windward; low thunder rumbling; ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... the tramp of infantry and of cavalry, and by the rumbling of the heavy artillery over the pavements, rose from their beds, and crowded the windows, and thronged the streets. In the early dawn, the king, accompanied by the officers of his staff, entered the capital. He was dressed in the garb of a civilian, and was entirely unarmed. All were ready ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... tremblingly, like the shadows of a paralytic skeleton. There were houses here and there upon this boulevard; stately houses, entre cour et jardin, and with plaster vases of geraniums on the stone pillars of the ponderous gateways. The rumbling hackney-carriage drove upward of three-quarters of a mile along this smooth roadway before it drew up against a gateway, older and more ponderous than any of those ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... large as an ox, and weighing from two to three thousand pounds each. They make a very loud noise, a sort of moaning cry, like "yoi hoey, yoi hoey." The young seals are of a dark mouse color, but the older ones are of a light-brown. At a distance the braying of these sea-lions sounded like the rumbling of a railroad train. There is a hole in the rock on one of these islands, where the air is drawn through with a sound like the ...
— Scenes in the Hawaiian Islands and California • Mary Evarts Anderson
... little disposed, in these dismays and in this darkness, to divert attention to the international disturbances which now were rumbling across the newspapers in portentous and enormous headlines. Ireland was pressed away. It was all Europe now—thrones, chancelleries, councils, armies. He tried to say, "What of it?" Many in Great Britain ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... this year, the Amphion frigate, of 32 guns, commanded by Captain Pellew, lay refitting at Plymouth. Her captain and two other officers were in the cabin at dinner, when a rumbling noise was heard. The captain, followed by his lieutenant, rushed into the quarter-gallery—the instant afterwards the ship blew up; the greater number of persons on board, amounting to nearly 300, perished, they and forty others only escaping with ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... many. The people believed so, at any rate, though they were perplexed by the failure of the little red fish to run into the harbor just before she breathed her last, as it was believed that they always made their appearance prior to a death in the royal family. The rumbling and hissing and the sounding of a heavy major chord in the depths of Kilauea that followed the funeral of Kaiulani were directly attributed to ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... pushed and heaved at it, till it began to roll, and giving it a final thrust with his foot, away it went, at first rumbling and rolling slowly, and then faster and with a thumping, till presently it bounded and leaped ten yards at a time, and at the bottom of the hill sprang over the hedge like a hunter, and did not stop till it had gone twenty yards out into the stubble towards the straw-rick. Bevis laughed ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... sounds from out of the night. A door opened, and through the hall there came the great, rumbling voice of a man, half laughter, half shout; and then there were other voices, the slamming of the door, and THE voice again, this time in a roar that reached to the farthest walls of ...
— God's Country—And the Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... among the crowd on her deck, when there was a sound of a rolling chain and a slight rocking of the boat, which provoked an indelicate man near me to take off his helmet and pretend to be sick in it. There was a rumbling of the engines as their wheels began to revolve, and a throbbing of the Redbreast's heart as though she found difficulty in getting under way with such a load. Then a sudden and alarming snort ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... interval of silence. From time to time, a gust of wind shook the window-panes and bore fitfully with it the distant roar of the city and the rumbling of carriage wheels. The light was cold and limpid as spring water; shadows were gathering thickly in the corners of the room and in the folds of the Oriental curtains; from pieces of furniture, here and ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... No—never was known in this riotous sphere Such a breach of the peace as their singing, my dear; So bad, too, you'd swear that the god of both arts, Of Music and Physic, had taken a frolic For setting a loud fit of asthma in parts, And composing a fine rumbling base to a cholic! ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... to go may be death! When a Roman falls, the foe has one more arrow aimed at his heart; an arrow barbed with revenge, and sent with unerring precision. Hark! that shout is music to every soldier's ear. Hear you that tramp of horsemen? that rumbling ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... things was the lift in which, at no great pace and with much rumbling and creaking, the porter conveyed the two gentlemen to the alarming eminence, as Mr. Longdon measured their flight, at which Vanderbank perched. The impression made on him by this contrivance showed him as unsophisticated, yet when his companion, at the top, ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... from May to the middle of June; then, one very hot, still day, about three o'clock, I was sitting at my cottage window when I caught the sound of a rumbling cart and a man singing. As the noise grew louder my interest in the approaching man and cart was excited to an extraordinary degree; never had I heard such a noise! And no wonder, since the man was driving a heavy, springless farm cart in the most reckless manner, urging ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... Eugenie, who heard all that took place from the head of the stairs. Silence was restored in the house, and the distant rumbling of the carriage, ceasing by degrees, no longer echoed through the sleeping town. At this moment Eugenie heard in her heart, before the sound caught her ears, a cry which pierced the partitions and came from her cousin's chamber. A line of light, thin as the ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... The rumbling of the great hempen cable out through the hawse-pipe served as a signal to some dozen or more of poor scurvy-stricken wretches who lay gasping in their hammocks in the stifling forecastle. They had heard the cry of "Land ho!" some hours before, and had groaned with bitter impatience when the subsequent ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... the emperor or the senate; a casual traveller coming at a lively trot in his hired gig; a couple of ladies carefully protecting their complexions from sun and dust as they rode in a kind of covered wagonette; a pair of scarlet-clad outriders preceding a gorgeous but rumbling coach, in which a Roman noble or plutocrat is idly lounging, reading, dictating to his shorthand amanuensis, or playing dice with a friend; a dashing youth driving his own chariot in professional style to the disgust of the sober-minded; a languid ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... moment, and in that moment there came a crash. The treacherous clay cliff crumbled, and the great mass of it on which she was lying slid down bodily on to the shining sand. The young man started up, roused by the rumbling. Had he been a few feet nearer to the cliff he must have been buried alive. He and Beth stared at each other stupidly, neither realising what had happened for the first few minutes. He was the first to ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... never forget his first dogwatch, spent by the boatswain's side, pacing the poop deck. How niftily he had gained his sea legs! He had easily learned the trick of throwing his body to meet the ship. He had learned lots, besides, from the deep voice rumbling in ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... remember him as the wisest man I ever knew. Why, if it wasn't for Penelope I should go back to the valley, just to be near him. It would be better than golf—to sit with him on the store porch on a sunny day listening to the mill rumbling by the creek and the killdee whistling in the meadow, to watch the shadows crawl along the mountains, and now and then to hear Bill Hansen say something. That would be ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... of reflection, rather, when the mellow sunlight streams into the room and, instead of the dull gray buildings opposite, you catch a mental glimpse of green tree-tops waving in the wind, and hear, above the rumbling of the busy 'buses, the buzzes ... the bumbling ... what I mean to say is you ought to sit down calmly and read the book from cover to cover, as I am ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 4, 1919. • Various
... It was the order of a master to the dog at heel. Bombini responded. He drew his knife and started to advance upon the Jew. But a deep rumbling, animal-like in its sound and menace, arose in the throats of those about ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... orders came for the battalion to return to the front. There were two days of bustling preparation, and then the troops entrained and were carried back to where the noise of the seventy-fives on the one side and the seventy-sevens on the other, came rumbling and thundering again to their ears, and the pall of smoke along the horizon marked the location of the ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... the inmates of the monastery retired to rest, when they were awakened by deep rumbling and surging sounds. Unable to find repose while these noises rent the air, they decided to visit the chapel; and the nearer they got to it the louder the sounds became. Regarding each other with looks of mingled fear and curiosity, they reached ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... night, while I was at old Master Jack's, I was awakened by a rumbling noise like that of heavy wagons, which continued steadily and so long a time that I finally concluded it must be an army passing, and such I found to be the case, upon getting up and venturing out, the rumbling which had awakened me being caused by the passing artillery. I was afraid ...
— Thirty Years a Slave • Louis Hughes
... flung themselves on their horses and made off. Varia ran into the court, crying for Nerissa; without ado Marius lifted her into the chariot, of which Wardo held the reins. The chariot of Eudemius, driven by himself, was already rumbling through the gateway. There was a terrified scurry of slaves from under his horses' feet. He swung into the road and lashed the stallions to a gallop. Close at his heels Wardo followed, his grays leaping in the traces, ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... with wings, to gain The region of the spheral chime; He does but drag a rumbling wain, Cheer'd by the coupled bells of rhyme; And if at Fame's bewitching note My homely Pegasus pricks an ear, The world's cart-collar hugs his throat, And he's too wise to ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... rumbling of the earth went on; it sounded as if the world were turning herself over, and thrashing to and fro in a fit of anger; before every convulsion she uttered a roar which seemed as if it came from a metal ball ...
— A Lost Hero • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward and Herbert D. Ward
... resumed his attitude of meditation. Night came. One by one the stars came out. The moon rose brilliantly in the cloudless sky. The soldiers moved with noiseless footsteps, and spoke in subdued tones. The rumbling of wagons and the occasional boom of a distant gun alone disturbed ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... was empty. Moo Kow, Miaow, and the Gee Gees had disappeared. Presently there was a booming crash and a long, deep rumbling among the distant hills. Then they knew they were near the old Moulmein Pagoda, and the dawn had come up like thunder out of China 'cross the bay. It always came up that way there. The strain was too great, and day was ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... minister of the parish, gives an account of the first recorded earthquake in the district. During the autumn of 1789 loud noises, unaccompanied by any concussion, were heard by the inhabitants of Glenlednock; but on the 5th of November of that year they were alarmed by a loud rumbling noise, accompanied with a severe shock of earthquake, which was felt over a tract of country of more than twenty miles in extent. The Rev. Mr Mackenzie, successor to Mr M'Diarmid, writing in 1838, in the last Statistical Account, says that "at and after ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... due time, deposited us in the purlieus of Covent Garden. The hoarse note of the drowsy night-guard reverberated through the long aisle of the now-forsaken piazzas, as the trembling flame of the parish lamp, flittering in its half-exhausted jet, proclaimed the approach of day; the heavy rumbling of the gardeners' carts, laden with vegetables for the ensuing market, alone disturbed the quiet of the adjoining streets. In a dark angle might be seen the houseless wanderer, or the abandoned profligate, 341gathered up like a lump of rags in a corner, and shivering with the nipping air. ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... your newspaper, half-opens your letters, and leaves you to yourself. And you go to sleep again, lulled by the rumbling of the morning wagons. Those terrible, vexatious, quivering teams, laden with meat, those trucks with big tin teats bursting with milk, though they make a clatter most infernal and even crush the paving stones, seem to you to glide over cotton, and vaguely remind you ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... of a rocke did rise A spring of water, mildly rumbling downe, Whereto approched not in anie wise The homely shepheard, nor the ruder clowne; But manie Muses, and the Nymphes withall, That sweetly in accord did tune their voyce To the soft sounding of the waters fall; That my glad hart thereat did much reioyce. But, while herein I tooke my chiefe ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... no heed to the rumbling of her discontent; he said: "Now, you quite understand. You'll stick to them like a leech. You won't give him any chance of talking to Mum alone. ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... guns levelled at them. He laid down the right one, keeping the left one aimed, and moved some knobs on a dial and threw over a big switch. A muffled rumbling and whirring began somewhere; and then, slowly, a block of tables and apparatus ten feet square rose upward toward the ceiling. A section of the floor on which they stood came up, supported by columns, and now formed the roof of a room ...
— The Einstein See-Saw • Miles John Breuer
... blast marked when the gas-cloud ignited. The billowing flames were blue. They writhed in tortured convulsions through the air. Endless explosions merged into one rumbling roar. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... 'tis true, there's a mighty to do, and my belly keeps rumbling about; And the puddings begin to clatter within and to kick up a wonderful rout: Quite gently at first, papapax, papapax, but soon papappappax away, Till at last, I'll be bound, I can thunder as ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... guard come in, their spell being over, and the second relief takes their place. The cattle are quiet; not a sound breaks the silence except the low crooning of some of the boys on duty. But suddenly, what is that noise?—like the distant rumbling of guns on the march, or of a heavy train crossing a wooden bridge! To one with his head on the ground the earth seems almost to tremble. Oh, we know it well! It is the beating of 8000 hoofs on the hard ground. The cowboy recognizes the dreaded sound instantly: it wakens ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... preceding the storm, and a distant rumbling of thunder was heard. The house door was left open as well as the long French windows ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham
... ponderous. The steel-blue of the sky bleached from the furnace-circle of the horizon;—the lukewarm river ran yellow and noiseless as a torrent of fluid wax. Even sounds seemed blunted by the heaviness of the air;—the rumbling of wheels, the reverberation of footsteps, fell half-toned upon the ear, like sounds that visit a ...
— Chita: A Memory of Last Island • Lafcadio Hearn
... centuries is broken by mill-wheels, the buzzing of saws, the stroke of the axe, the blow of the hammer and trowel. The stageman cracks his whip in the passes of the mountains. The click of the telegraph and the rumbling of the printing-press are heard at the head-waters of the Missouri, and borne on the breezes there is the laughter of children and the sweet music of Sabbath hymns, sung ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... a low, rumbling peal of thunder. Mr. Swift started and peered from a window. There came a flash of lightning and another vibrant report ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-boat - or, The Rivals of Lake Carlopa • Victor Appleton
... and falling. Tom's eyes ached. He was not sorry when he was relieved. Still, neither he nor any one else felt inclined to go below; no one could tell what might happen. The thick clouds hung down like a dark canopy, apparently just above the masts' heads. The thunder, which had been rumbling in the distance, now began to roar loudly, while flashes of forked lightning came zig-zagging through the air, threatening every instant to strike the ship. But, though they played round on all sides, ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... go, but they had not gone twenty yards before there was a crash and a loud report like thunder, and a slow rumbling, rattling noise very ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit
... We are in the country—the glorious country! Outside of the thronged streets; away from piled up bricks and mortar; outside of the clank of machinery; the rumbling of carriages; the roar of the escape pipe; the scream of the steam whistle; the tramp, tramp of moving thousands on the stone sidewalks; away from the heated atmosphere of the city, loaded with the smoke and dust, and gasses of furnaces, and the ten ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... deeper-toned roar now, and they stood looking up once more, with Saxe troubled by a feeling of awe, as the noise came rumbling and ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... taken their seats, and the accused stands awaiting the charges to be read, when suddenly there is a quick cry of terror. A strange rumbling sound fills the air, and the walls of the judgment hall are trembling to their base—the monastery and the city of London are being shaken by an earthquake! Friar and prelate grow pale with superstitious awe. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... to his head, and his mouth grew feverish at the thought. As he licked his cracking lips, he caught a faint, tinkling, rumbling sound of falling water somewhere to the right. Of a sudden his sufferings of mind and body were merged into one burning desire to drink, and he turned eagerly in ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... wonderful mosaic shade; a little book-case was filled with books and magazines. Margaret went to one of the three windows, and looked down upon the bare trees and the snow in the park, and upon the rumbling green omnibuses, all bathed ...
— Mother • Kathleen Norris
... sound of approval ran through the circle. A chant, in which the voices of the men and women blended, like the shrill wind in the pine-trees above the rumbling thunder of a waterfall, rose and fell in ...
— The First Christmas Tree - A Story of the Forest • Henry Van Dyke
... trees came peltering down upon me shells, husks and fruit, the remains of a feast the monkeys were having upon the thick boughs that sheltered them from the bad weather, and from afar came a low, dull sound like the deep rumbling noise that often precedes ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... thee, when the tossing waves' low rumbling Creeps up the hill; I go to the lone wood and listen trembling When all ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... her route. Her determination was immediately taken. She passed over the wall with her attendant; and they found themselves in a narrow lane, close to the city walls, with none but a few ruinous outhouses on either side. A low whistle from the man was soon answered by the rumbling of wheels; and from some distance, as it seemed, a sort of caleche advanced, drawn by a pair of horses. Paulina and her attendant stepped hastily in, for at the very moment when the carriage drew up a signal-gun was heard; which, ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... do not make a practice of fainting on provocation, but Madeline came as near to it as she ever had in her life. For an hour she crouched on the floor, listening to the heavy voices of the men rumbling up and down in mimic thunder. Like familiar chords of childhood melodies, every intonation, every trick of her husband's voice swept in upon her, fluttering her heart and weakening her knees till she lay half-fainting against the door. It was well she could neither ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... their machines, and scraped off the verdigris and accumulated dust of storage; millmen began to reset the tables, strip the damaged plates, and lay in new water pipes to drip ceaselessly over the powered ore. Over all these watched Bill with his bandaged face, rumbling orders here and there, and tirelessly active. Out on the pipe line, winding by cut and trestle from the reservoir in the high hills, Dick superintended repairs and ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... noon, Mr. George Bell, acting master, was in the act of crossing from the starboard gangway to the quarter-deck, to report twelve o'clock to the captain, who was looking over the larboard quarter-deck hammocks at the land, and strange sail, when he suddenly heard a rumbling noise, as if a top-sail-tie had given way, and the yard was coming down. He looked aloft, but saw nothing amiss, and then perceived that the ship was aground. Mr. Bell instantly sprang into the main-chains, and dropped the hand lead over. Only ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... into bits. The noise of the other train came slowly nearer, but so slowly that all listened breathlessly. After a little they could hear the rumbling of an exhaust, and Jawn muttered, ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster
... wait for the morning. The same conditions prevailed out of which a century before had come an Amos, a Hosea, a Micah and an Isaiah. Israel needed judgment and the North again stirred with its possibilities. Who would rise and spell into a clear Word of God the thunder which to all ears was rumbling there? ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... at the insult, and so, a day later, did the collective face of all Irishmen, North and South. For a while there was aghast silence from the Emerald Isle, a silence sullen and embarrassed. And then a great rumbling roar ...
— The Golden Judge • Nathaniel Gordon
... line, increasing from the clapping of children clothed in white, standing on the steps of the capitol, to the tumultuous vociferation of hundreds of thousands of enraptured multitudes, crying "Huzza! Huzza!" Gleaming muskets, thundering parks of artillery, rumbling pontoon wagons, ambulances from whose wheels seemed to sound out the groans of the crushed and the dying that they had carried. These men came from balmy Minnesota, those from Illinois prairies. These were often hummed to sleep by the pines of Oregon, those were New England lumbermen. ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... away and Nanahboozhoo resumed his journey. By and by he reached a dangerous rocky point on the shore. Just as he was at the worst point the partridge suddenly flew almost from under his feet with a rumbling noise, and so startled him that he jumped up, sprang quickly aside, fell into the water, and got a great wetting. So even Nanahboozhoo had to confirm the name of the ...
— Algonquin Indian Tales • Egerton R. Young
... granddaughter stood silently upon the platform of this shed, their luggage beside them, and watched their trunks tumbled out of the baggage car ahead and the train start, gather speed, and go rumbling on its way. Then the girl looked around her to discover that the primitive station was really the only ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)
... the wagons saw the chase in perfection. When the lions observed the dogs coming on, they took right up, and three of them crossed over the sky ridge. The dogs, however, turned one rattling old lioness, which came rumbling down through the cover, close past me. I ran to meet her, and she came to bay in an open spot near the base of the mountain, whither I quickly followed, and coming up within thirty yards, bowled her ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... standing long after it he cannot tell).... After which he was at good ease, and so continued, and so fell to sleep, and we went down whither W. Stankes was come with his horses. But it is very pleasant to hear how he rails at the rumbling and ado that is in London over it is in the country, that he cannot endure it. He supped with us, and very merry, and then he to his lodgings at the Inne with the horses, and so we to bed, I to my father who is very well again, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... spat. Then he held up his hand. He was listening. Far off in the drumming downpour of the rain there was a rumbling sound. He had heard it before. It was partly made up of the noise of internal-combustion engines of unthinkable power, and partly of grumbling treads forcing a way through reluctant trees. It was a long way off, now, but ...
— Morale - A Story of the War of 1941-43 • Murray Leinster
... moustache. "I beg your pardon," he said slowly. But at this moment the door was opened; a rumbling voice remarked: "Morning, Paul. Who's your visitor?" Harz saw a tall, bulky figure in ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... sensitive could have detected sight or sound indicative of the approaching catastrophe. Forgetful of past warnings, and undisturbed by present misgivings, the unreflecting crowd plunged into the exciting pleasures of gay carnival. About half-past five o'clock, the town was alarmed by a distant rumbling, such as might be produced by the rapid passage of a number of carriages over a stone pavement. This unnatural sound was followed by another, and a louder, which seemed to combine the crackling of flames, the rattling of hailstones, the muttering of thunder and the dashing of the waves on ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... I heard Buck's voice rumbling like a train going under a bridge. The request did not appear to find favour with him. Then came an interlude of soothing speech from Mr Fisher. I could not distinguish the words, but I gathered that he was pointing out to him that, on this occasion only, the visit being for the purposes of ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... toward the stairs, and peered into the face of the old engineer. "We are betrayed!" he whispered, leaning heavily upon the stand. His wrist shook violently, causing the table to quiver. The smoking outfit upon the table made a low, rumbling noise. "What's that?" he ...
— Snow on the Headlight - A Story of the Great Burlington Strike • Cy Warman
... banked up in the darkness behind, and between two stones at the mouth there were the remains of a recent fire. Suddenly he remembered the cave. It was the cave of the Carasdhoo men. He eould hear the voice of Pete in its rumbling depths; he could hear and see himself. "Shall we save the women, Pete?—we always do." "Aw, yes, the women—and the boys." The tenderness of that memory was too much for Philip. He came out of the cave, and walked back ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... sundown, just as we finished supper, there came from the near prairie the mighty, portentous rumbling roar of a bull—the bellow that he utters when he is roused to fight, the savage roar that means "I smell blood." It is one of those tremendous menacing sounds that never fail to give one the creeps and make one feel, oh! ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... about one and two-third miles longer than that of Mount Cenis, and more than three miles longer than that of Arlberg. While the train is passing with a dull rumbling sound under these gloomy vaults, let us explain how the great work of boring the Alps ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various
... first, of course; But since to the backdoor they led Most usually a Cossack horse Upon the Don's broad pastures bred If they but heard domestic loads Come rumbling up the neighbouring roads, Most by this circumstance offended All overtures of friendship ended. "Oh! what a fool our neighbour is! He's a freemason, so we think. Alone he doth his claret drink, A lady's hand doth never kiss. 'Tis ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... and wishes, on this occasion, frightened the officers. They said nothing, but let me curse myself out, to my heart's content. A man soon wearies of so bootless a task, and the storm passed off, like one in the heavens, with a low rumbling. I gave myself no concern about the matter afterwards, but things took their course until noon. While the people were at dinner, the mate came forward again, however, and called all hands to shorten sail. Going on deck, I saw a very menacing black cloud astern, and went to work, with a will, ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... The train went rumbling on through the darkness; the lamps, hanging from the ceiling, swayed back and forth; the people in the car were very quiet,—some of ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... wonder if they yet will bury me, Thinking me dead? To wake up in the grave, And hear a wagon rumbling overhead, Or a chance footstep passing near the spot, And then cry out and never get reply; But hear the footstep vanish far away, And know the cold mould smothers up all cries, And is above, beneath, and round me, Is bitter thought. To lie back then and die, Suffocating slowly while I tear my hair, ...
— Stories in Verse • Henry Abbey
... close! the City nears— Like a burnt paper it appears, Studded with tiny sparks! Methinks I hear the distant rout Of coaches rumbling all about— We're close above ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... by a jam in the boats and vessels before it, as a hack might be stopped in Broadway in New York. Sometimes it went under bridges, and sometimes through dark archways, where Rollo could hear carriages rumbling over his head in the ...
— Rollo in Holland • Jacob Abbott
... now," yelled the second engineer at once, as though he had been all the time looking out for Jukes. The donkeyman, a dapper little chap with a dazzling fair skin and a tiny, gingery moustache, worked in a sort of mute transport. They were keeping a full head of steam, and a profound rumbling, as of an empty furniture van trotting over a bridge, made a sustained bass to all the ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad
... by some arched iron girders. From recent experience I knew that this must be strongly guarded, but reasoned that if I closely followed a train I should in all probability find the line free for a few seconds. Presently a freight train came rumbling along, and I rushed after it in a whirl of air, in my haste almost being knocked down by the end carriages. As the bridge was rather long and the train going fast, in a very short time I was being left stranded. When I ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... halted at a wayside farmhouse to see if anything in the shape of a lunch could be secured for love or money, he even called the attention of his two mates to a faint rumbling far away ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... and appearance pertaining to the ponies of country pedlars—a certain placid, unhasting leanness, as of a nag that has encountered troubles of his own and has lived them down by sheer patience and staying power. From the bright red wagon proceeded a certain metallic rumbling and clinking as it bowled along, and two or three nests of tin pans on its flat rope-encircled top flashed back the light so dazzlingly that Jedediah seemed the beaming sun of a little planetary system all his ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... practise astrology to find lucky times to commence undertakings. Falling stars are considered to be the opening of heaven, and anything asked for at that moment will be granted. Thunders are the rumbling which S. Elias makes with his car. Amulets are worn, especially near the Turkish border. It is considered lucky to spill wine on oneself. To meet a snake, a viper in the house, or a centipede crawling over the walls is also lucky. On the other hand, misfortune ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... rumbling laugh. Sometimes fortissimo, sometimes pianissimo; now vivace, now largo; but ever those same two lines, and ever followed by the same low, rumbling laugh; still to this day the iron wheels sing to me ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... thither bent their eager course With car, and elephant, and horse, And youthful captains on their feet With longing sped their lord to meet, As though the new-come prince had been An exile for long years unseen. Earth beaten in their frantic zeal By clattering hoof and rumbling wheel, Sent forth a deafening noise as loud As heaven when black with many a cloud. Then, with their consorts gathered near, Wild elephants in sudden fear Rushed to a distant wood, and shed An odour round them as they fled. And every silvan thing that dwelt Within ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... Let it snow for a week on end, and let the blast from the mouth of Glen Urtach pile up the white drift high against the outer row of stacks, the horses will be put in the mill-shed, and an inner stack will be forked into the threshing loft, and all day long the mill will go with dull, rumbling sound that can be heard from the road, while within the grain pours into the corn-room, and the clean yellow straw is piled in the barn. Hillocks was not a man given to sentiment, yet even he would wander among the stacks on an October evening, and come into the firelight full of moral reflections. ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... glowing view the cruiser cautiously changed her course and bore away, for fire was an enemy with which she could not contend. Presently there arose a shower of blazing matter heavenward, while a confused shock and a dull rumbling report filled the atmosphere, as the guilty brigantine was blown to atoms! Hemmed in as she was there could be no hope of escape. Her mission was ended, and her crew followed their usual orders, to destroy the ship rather than permit ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... The rumbling of a carriage was heard far away on the street, it drew nearer and nearer, rolled in through the gate of the house, and was silent. Miss Mary, all in white, her hair hanging over her shoulders, hastened to Darvid's ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... made our party. Though the distance was short, the walk was long, because rugged, dirty, and melancholy. Now and then we heard a growling noise, like distant thunder, but far more dreadful. When we had got about a third part of the way, a heavy rumbling sound made us stop to listen. It was approaching nearer and nearer, and we soon found that we were followed by innumerable carriages, and ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... But these maxima are of no avail. His feet are feet of clay, not good to stand on, only good to stumble with. His hands are cold, tremulous, and useless. There is a very disagreeable feeling in the back of his neck, and a spinning sensation about the brain. A queer rumbling seizes his ears. He has heard that "conscience makes cowards of us all." What mortal sin has he committed? His moral sense answers back, "None. You are only that poor creature, a bashful youth." And he bravely calls on all his nerves, ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... glass of port to hide his face. Was this the first rumbling of the tempest? Though expected hourly, he was not prepared for it. His hand trembled. He dared not put the wine to ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... "foresaw these catastrophes two or three days in advance. They were sure of their approach when they perceived a hazy atmosphere, the red aspect of the sun, a dull, rumbling, subterranean sound, the stars shining through a kind of mist which made them look larger, the nor'west horizon heavily clouded, a strong-smelling emanation from the sea, a heavy swell with calm weather, and sudden changes of the ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk
... doubt whether it was prudent to remain in the neighbourhood; at any moment it might send up not only lava, but ashes and stones, and huge rocks, which might in an instant overwhelm the boats. Now came a fearful rumbling noise, louder than a thousand Woolwich infants roaring together. Tom declared that the whole mountain seemed to shake, while the summit appeared covered with ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... followed by a rumbling reverberation, marks the fall of an avalanche. Water everywhere trickles through the shaly debris scattered around. In the full sunshine the rocks are almost too hot to bear touching. A few hours later the cold is deadly, and all becomes a frozen silence. In such scenes of desolation ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly
... the distance the rumbling of cannon, coming to batter down that worn-out civilization, ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... dark side of the round house; the band was playing behind them, the sea was rumbling in front; there was a shuffle of feet, a sudden rustle of a dress; the lady glanced to the right, the gentleman looked to the left, and then for a fraction of an instant they were ...
— Capt'n Davy's Honeymoon - 1893 • Hall Caine
... Then he went out to the factory—the rest of the household was still asleep. There he came into contact with the workmen, and saw their hopeless, wretched, impoverished lives; listened to Bitska's jests, and to the rumbling of the wagonettes—identified himself with the life of the factory, which dominated all like some fabulous ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak |
