"Drum" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... now fired by the French crew, but without other results than to alarm the ship-of-war; the drum beat to quarters, lights were seen at her ports; a tremendous flash was accompanied by the report of a cannon as she fired an alarm-gun; this was quickly answered by a shot from a battery ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... troops-of-the-line,—twenty shambling men in short jackets, with hair shaved close, looking most like children's wooden monkeys, by no means live enough for the real ones. They straggle along, scarcely less irregular in aspect than the main body of the procession; they march to the tap of the drum. I never saw a Fourth-of-July procession in the remotest of our rural districts which was not beautiful, compared to this forlorn display; but the popular homage is duly given, the bells jangle incessantly, and, as the procession passes, all men uncover their heads or have their ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... ensignes, and so thrust all on together in a hurrey, as they are directed by their Generall. Their Ensigne is the image of S. George. [Sidenote: Horsemen drummes.] The Bulsha Dworaney or chiefe horsemen, haue euery man a small drum of brasse at his saddle bowe, which he striketh when he ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation v. 4 • Richard Hakluyt
... literally "head of the mat," perhaps because when the company sat around or on the mat his place was at its head, was the official who had charge of the tunkul or wooden drum, with which public meetings, dances, summons to war, etc. were proclaimed, and with which the priests accompanied their voices in reciting the ancient chants (Cogolludo, Hist. de Yucatan, Lib. IV, cap. V). He was called ahholpop, ...
— The Maya Chronicles - Brinton's Library Of Aboriginal American Literature, Number 1 • Various
... Lincoln's Zouaves." Much amused by their military enthusiasm she presented them with a flag, and the President formally reviewed them. Willie was colonel, Budd, major, and Hally, captain, while Tad insisted on having the rank of drum-major or nothing, and all of them had old-fashioned swords which were given to them by General McClellan, who greatly enjoyed their pranks and sometimes suggested new ones. When other amusements failed, the quartet spent their time ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... enlistment merely for sixty days as absurd. With such soldiers, he justly argued that no comprehensive campaign could be entered upon. The officers held a meeting to decide upon this question. In the morning, at drum-beat, they informed the soldiers of the conclusion they had formed. Quite unanimously they decided that they would not go back on a six-months term of service, but that each soldier might do as ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... fair golden idols Sit in darkness and in silence While the temple drum beats solemnly and slow; Where the tall cryptomerias Sway in worship round about And the rain that is falling whispers low; I can hear strange voices Of the dead and forgotten, On the dimly rising incense I can see The lives I have lived, And ...
— Many Gods • Cale Young Rice
... the trained bands were a force especially intended for the defence of the city, greater activity was shown in making the city's troops as perfect in their drill as circumstances permitted.(397) Boys from Christ's Hospital and Bridewell were taught to play the drum and fife, weapons were marked, and musters held in Goodman's Fields and elsewhere under the eye of Captain John ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... intellectual understanding of the theory and form of our government but they do not know what ward they live in, they are vague as to the district, have never met their Congressman and do not know a primary from a kettle drum.... ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... parents was subsequently made that saving a fortnightly moistening of her lips with cold water, the child had neither ate nor drank anything for the last twenty-three months. The whole region of the belly was tympanitic, and the muscular walls of this cavity were tense and drum-like—a condition not infrequently concomitant of a well-known class of nervous disorders. The child's intellectual faculties and special senses were perfectly healthy. Before her illness she was very much devoted to religious reading. ...
— Fasting Girls - Their Physiology and Pathology • William Alexander Hammond
... of which he did not know, Victor Nelson opened his eyes slowly, for his head throbbed like a savage's war drum. Uttering a stifled groan he shut the lids to still an overpowering sense of nausea which gripped him, but a moment later he made another attempt to discover in what sort of place he found himself. Gradually, his eyes ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... the courtyard, but the schoolroom opened over the Place—a bad arrangement surely, seeing what distractions to lessons may take place in a public square, what pigeons feeding in the sun, what bands with drums and drum-majors, ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... foot of the tree, kicked a moment, and then shammed dead, not budging any more than a log. The Auvergnat wished nothing more; believing the ape done for, he cleared out, never to put his feet in Cut-in-half's drum again. But the vagabond Gargousse watched him out of the corner of his eye, all wounded as he was, and as soon as he saw himself alone and Auvergnat at a distance, he gnawed the cord with his teeth. The Boulevard Monceau, ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... only about twelve and fourteen years of age, saw the enemy making preparations to land at an isolated point. No men were near to defend the place, or to whom warning could be given. A bright thought struck one of the girls. Accustomed to play the drum, she well knew how to beat the call to arms, and no sooner had this thought entered her mind, than she began a tattoo, calling her sister to take the fife as an accompaniment. Together they marched toward the shore, careful to ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... calm and stainlessly she shone. The music and the mirth of the fete, the fire and bright hues of those lamps had out-done and out-shone her for an hour, but now, again, her glory and her silence triumphed. The rival lamps were dying: she held her course like a white fate. Drum, trumpet, bugle, had uttered their clangour, and were forgotten; with pencil-ray she wrote on heaven and on earth records for archives everlasting. She and those stars seemed to me at once the types and witnesses of truth all regnant. The night-sky ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... till the bush is withered and dead; lastly, the society is not in the least degree exclusive, but takes under its comprehensive care the whole range of the theatre and the concert-room, from the manager in his room of state, or in his caravan, or at the drum-head—down to the theatrical housekeeper, who is usually to be found amongst the cobwebs and the flies, or down to the hall porter, who passes his life in a thorough draught- -and, to the best of my observation, in perpetually interrupted ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... Mudjikewis, when you are in other people's lodges." So he sat down. Then, in turn, they took the drum, sang their songs, and closed the meeting with a feast. The youngest told them not to whisper their intention to their wives, but to prepare secretly for their journey. They all promised obedience, and Mudjikewis was the ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends: North American Indian • Anonymous
... declared a holiday in Woodbridge. Stores and factories were closed and the village decorated from stable to Town Hall with colored streamers, flags and bunting. Since early morning fire companies had been arriving in town headed by bands and drum corps until the place was crowded with uniformed figures from every ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump
... Dageyagooanno, and it was always danced by men only. One warrior beat upon the drum, ganojoo, and another used gusdawasa or the rattle made of the shell of a squash. A dozen warriors danced, and players and dancers alike sang. It was a most singular dance and Robert, as he ate and drank, watched ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler
... of meat and drink, the latter being the "mysterious liquid," water, for which wine was substituted later on. The ancients roasted millet and pieces of pork; they made a hole in the ground and scooped the water from it with their two hands, beating upon an earthen drum with a clay drumstick. Thus they expressed their reverence for ...
— Religions of Ancient China • Herbert A. Giles
... of marching riflemen. In front of one of these, the fife and drum corps playing behind him, was a young Tory, who had insulted the company, and was, therefore, made to carry a gray goose in his arms with this maxim of Poor Richard on his back: 'Not every goose has ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... I've no headache next morning. But I do go to the smaller concerts, when I can; for they are very good, as you say, Sibyl: and I always get a reserved seat somewhere near the orchestra, where I am sure I can see the kettle-drummer drum. ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin
... steal the cotton wool most times. We know where Fortune has got a lot of it put away. Iris does not think it quite right to steal, but the rest of us don't mind. And we have banners, and Orion plays the Jew's harp, and I beat the drum, and Iris sings, and Apollo digs the grave, and the dead 'un is put into the ground, and we all cry, or pretend to cry. Sometimes I do squeeze out a tiny tear, but I'm so incited I can't always manage it, although I'm sure I'll cry when Rub-a-Dub is put into the ground. Then afterwards ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... Freidrich Kuchelmeister, Brux, Austria-Hungary, was granted a United States patent on a coffee roaster having a double-walled drum, the inner being of wire gauze, and the outer of solid iron, designed to prevent ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... cut and measured, Titus Wilson," snapped Tabitha. "If one of them lads'll bide quiet while you can drum ABC into his head that it'll tarry there a week, 'tis more than I dare look ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... God,' rejoined Shubin; and suddenly grinning and brightening,—'but I didn't like it, my dear boy, the stuff sticks in my throat, and my head afterwards is a perfect drum. The great Lushtchihin himself—Harlampy Lushtchihin—the greatest drunkard in Moscow, and a Great Russian drunkard too, declared there was nothing to be made of me. In his words, the bottle does not speak ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... While a youth he talked aloud to himself—a privilege that should be granted only to those advanced in years. He would grunt out prayers and expletives at uncertain times, keep up a clucking sound with his tongue, sway his big body from side to side, and drum a tattoo upon his knee. Now and again would come a suppressed whistle, and then a low humming sound, backed up by ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... affected my heart so that its pulse has from that time incessantly throbbed like a drum in my ears, and has made me a constant sufferer from insomnia, turned out to be a heavenly blessing. Thinking myself a dead man, I only then began to live, and applied myself very eagerly to learning. With my little mother as my teacher, I turned to the study of religion. I sought books, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... we heard the familiar sound of the Uganda drum. Maula, a royal officer, with an escort of smartly-dressed men and women and boys, had brought a welcome from the king. One thing only now embarrassed me—Grant was worse, without hope of recovery for some months. This large body of Waganda could not ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... may be practicable to multiply ratchets or toothed bands will, of course, depend upon the thickness of the spur-wheel, and when this latter has been greatly enlarged, with the object of providing for this feature, it becomes virtually a steel drum having bevelled steps accurately cut longitudinally ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland
... with the aid of a river rat, our trunk, jettisoned by the excellent Quin, was fished up; and being tight as a drum, its contents had come to little harm with their sudden baptism. At last, our dozen silk trunks—holding a treasure of thirty thousand dollars and whereon we looked to clear a heavy profit—were safe in the Reade Street loft; ...
— The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2 • Various
... had a moment of consolation, because I met with something which seemed to me ideally perfect. It was a poor drummer beating the tattoo in the streets of Paris. I walked behind him in returning to the school on the evening of a holiday. His drum gave out the tattoo in such a way that, at that moment at least, however peevish I were, I could find no pretext for fault-finding. It was impossible to conceive more nerve or spirit, better time or measure, more clearness or richness, ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... of the town, leaving the venerable nag behind to be baited at a big gray barn by a big, shapeless, kindly woman hostler whose wooden shoes clattered on the round cobbles of her stable yard like drum taps. ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... holidays, and if, by that time, we have neither of us changed our minds, and I am settled in business and all that sort of thing, we can be married. There's no danger of our changing our minds, so that's all right, but I declare I don't see the use of a fellow's tying himself down to some hum-drum business, when ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... beat his drum; louder and louder he sang his love song until his soft rich voice broke into a wail. Presently the door-skin of Granny's lodge was gently pushed aside, and ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... shields—her own golden target, and the rough hide buckler I had won—and so protected both of us whilst I paddled, and though many stones clattered against the shields, and hit the hide covering of the boat, so that it resounded like a drum, none of them did damage, and we drew quickly out of ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... fertile in the production of fashionable tortures; and when that outraged and indignant poet savagely asserted, that 'Man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn,' I have an abiding conviction that he had just been victimized at a 'Reception,' or 'German,' or 'Kettle-drum,' or 'Masque Ball,'—or some such fine occasion, where people are amused by treading on each other's toes, and gnawing ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... weight of silvery cornucopias. Native and tropical fruits were tied on here and there; and dolls were tied on also with cords around their necks, their feet dangling. There were smiling masks, like men beheaded and smiling in their death. Near the base of the Tree there was a drum. And all over the Tree from pinnacle to base glittered a tinsel like golden fleece—looking as the moss of old Southern trees seen at ...
— Bride of the Mistletoe • James Lane Allen
... still sings at night, lamenting his fate. When a chief was dying in pain he was mercifully strangled,—though the common people were allowed to linger to their end,—and his deeds were rehearsed in ballads sung to the drum. There was a belief in ghosts, albeit they could not be seen in the light, unless in a lonely place, nor by many persons. When they did mingle with the people it was easy to distinguish them from the living, as they had no navel. What became of the wicked after death we do ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... would not be back until luncheon-time. Marie Louise steeped herself in a hot tub, then in a long sweet sleep in a real bed. She was wakened by the voices of children, and looked out from her window to see the Widdicombe tots drilling in a company of three with a drum, a flag, and a wooden gun. The American army was not much bigger compared with the European nations in arms, but ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... apse built in the walls themselves. The eight columns, placed in a circle about the centre of the edifice, divide it into a circular nave and a central rotunda, and support eight arches which, in turn, support an octagonal drum, and above this is the dome." This room is of simple and charming architectural conception, and even in melancholy ruin, it has much beauty. It gains in comparison with the re-constructed baptisteries of Provence, for something of a primitive character has been preserved ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose
... encamped on a pretty height, in high spirits, each party laughing at the other, in consequence of something that had happened in the course of this ferrying business, as they called it. A little antic drummer afforded them great diversion by floating on his drum, etc. All this was greatly encouraged; and they really began to think themselves superior to other men, and that neither the rivers nor the seasons could stop their progress. Their whole conversation now was concerning what they would do when they got about the enemy. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... white clouds out of the sky and draped them about the body of Morning Zai and bore him forth from his valley behind the hills, and muffled the mountain peaks with snow, and beat upon their summits with drum sticks carved of ebony, playing the dirge of the gods. And the echoes rolled about the passes and the winds howled, because the faith of the olden days was gone, and with it had sped the soul of Morning Zai. So through the mountain passes the gods came at night bearing ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... House, and enjoying the kind hospitality of Sir Charles and Lady Mitchell, my ear was often gladdened by the sound of the cavalry bugle and the roll of the drum, those striking symbols of British sway, as the troops passed my window in their early morning rides. I am persuaded that these outward evidences of latent power, impress not only the minds of Englishmen, but of natives also, in this distant land. There cannot ...
— A Winter Tour in South Africa • Frederick Young
... remembered that the time was melodramatic itself; it is, however, saved from such accusation by the truthfulness of the handling; and the homeliness of a portion of it recalls the ballad of "Up at the villa, down in the city," with its speeches of drum and fife. Nevertheless, here are combined the true elements of modern sensational writing: there are the broad canvas, the vivid colors, the abrupt contrast, all the dramatic and startling effects that weekly fiction affords, the supernatural heroine, the more than mortal ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... some have grown bitter over a story that he favored the schemes to break the slavery-limitation in Ohio. Such writers have not stopped to consider that it is more probable that a few Southern members, eager to drum in recruits, falsely claimed the favor of the President, than that Jefferson broke the slavery-limitation which he himself planned. Then, too, came the petitions of the abolition societies against slavery in Louisiana; and Hildreth blames Jefferson for ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... multitude, Mr Foster desired that no more might come on aboard which was agreed to: Yet suddenly all the Spaniards left their boat and boarded the Primrose, all being armed with rapiers and other weapons which they had brought secretly in the boat, and had even a drum along with them ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... raised on a sort of drum composed of twelve pieces, perforated with round windows and supported on four massive piers. On the level of the eye are frescoes by Luini of S. Rocco, S. Sebastian, S. Christopher, and S. Antony—by no means in his best style, and inferior to ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... when the guard issues from the assembly hall, or doelen, in a sudden call to action. Captain Cocq leads the way with Lieutenant Willem van Ruytenberg, of Vlaerdingen, and as he advances gives orders to his fellow officer. The drum beats, the ensign unfurls the standard, every man carries a weapon of some sort. One is priming a musket, another loading his gun, another firing. A mass of lance-bearers press on from the rear. In the confusion a dog scampers into the midst and barks furiously at the drum. A little girl ...
— Rembrandt - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... cut short by that rolling sound of a drum which makes the heart of every true man-of-war's man leap with joy. It followed the captain's order to the first lieutenant, "Beat to quarters." What magic was there in the sound of those words! In an instant every one, from the first lieutenant to ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... lay revealed. There was a powerful spring, which could be wound up with a key, and a drum wound with filament-like wire and connected with a simple clock-work to revolve it. Two small dry-batteries were secured to one side of the box, their wires running ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... must have felt the impressiveness of the long line as it slowly filed down the broad street under the graceful arches of the tall old elms, in the cold light of the cloudy afternoon. First came the drum corps, with wailing fife and muffled drum; next appeared the gray uniforms of the company who marched two by two, with bowed heads and reversed arms, to escort the hearse in their midst. Directly behind the hearse trotted a small, yellow ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... of such a leisure class might very well be supposed to have created the supply. Throughout the London season, and measurably throughout the London year, there is an incessant appeal to the curiosity of the common people which is never made in vain. Somewhere a drum is throbbing or a bugle sounding from dawn till dusk; the red coat is always passing singly or in battalions, afoot or on horseback; the tall bear-skin cap weighs upon the ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... "I naturally had many opportunities to study remorse; but I have never seen any to equal that of this man. What gives him that flaccidity, that pallor of the cheeks where the skin was once as tight as a drum and bursting with the good sound health of a man without a care? What has put those black circles round his eyes and dulled their rustic vivacity? Did you ever expect to see lines of care on that forehead? Who would ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... led by a hot-strutting drum major. They parade the field and the men students pile down and fall in behind the team. They sing and shout ...
— Three Plays - Lawing and Jawing; Forty Yards; Woofing • Zora Neale Hurston
... did men arm in the Netherlands; the drum beat everywhere in the Flemish and Walloon provinces, all roads were covered with military trains. In the Netherlands too there were a great number of Italians, Corsicans and inhabitants of the States of the Church and Neapolitans, in splendid accoutrements; there were the brothers ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... the fort tolled the tenth hour of morning, the groups of dispersed soldiery, warned by the rolling of the assembly drum, once more fell into their respective ranks in the order described in the opening of this volume, Soon afterwards the prisoner Halloway was reconducted into the square by a strong escort, who took their stations as before in the immediate ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... From a drum on top of the pole a thin wire cable ran to the extreme edge of the field and was attached to the steering lever of a small gasoline tractor. About the tractor two mechanics fluttered. At command from Dick they cranked the motor and ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... occurring about that fort. When Lieut. Fulmer called for volunteers to scale the walls, dozens of men responded. Lieuts. Hawkins and Wilson performed noble service, and were a credit to themselves and their regiment. Battalion Adjutant Drum, with his face smeared with powder and the dust of battle, was as cool as he was courageous. Captains Phillips, Rogers, Lyons and Hutton were with their respective commands, encouraging their men and doing ...
— The Battle of Bayan and Other Battles • James Edgar Allen
... gayly up to meet glad summer's smile; And pennons gay were floating there, and banners fair to see, A mighty host arrayed, I ween, in war's proud panoply; And as I gazed a cry arose, a low, deep-swelling hum, And loud and stern along the line broke in the sullen drum. ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... offered to let them eat the rice if they would admit him to their company; they agreed and he went on with them to steal; they broke into a rich man's house and the thieves began to collect the pots and pans but Jhore felt about in the dark and got hold of a drum and began to beat on it. This woke up the people of the house and they drove away the thieves. Then the thieves abused Jhore and said that they could not let him stay with them: "Very well", said ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... is suddenly started in Paris, in October 1789, at the call of a young woman who seizes a drum and cries aloud, "Descend O Mothers; Descend ye Judiths to food and revenge!" Ten thousand women, quickly responding to this call, press through the military guard to the armory in Hotel de Ville, and when supplied with arms march on foot to Versailles, and, taking ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... that we're all set to show him the Gaflooey chummy roadster, while he and the mechanic stays behind to look over the car and see that everything is workin' fairly perfect. I got as far as the porch and a guy in a drum-major's uneyform without the hat nails me. He was as big as the Woolworth Buildin' and just as emotional. He looked like what them ...
— Alex the Great • H. C. Witwer
... and his following of urchins; or that his whim would lead him to expend all the money in tin flutes. In one case the group he so incongruously headed would be for that one day a gang of make-believe banditti; in another, they would constitute themselves a fife-and-drum corps—with barreltops for the drums—and would march through the streets, where scandalized adults stood in their tracks to watch them go by, they all the while making weird sounds, which with them passed ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... in the merry month of May, When bees from flower to flower do hum, And soldiers through the town march gay, And villagers flock to the sound of the drum. Young Roger swore he'd leave his plough, His team and tillage all begun; Of country life he'd had enow, He'd leave it all and ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... nature of the roots of the plant upon which they are grafted. Grafting is also adopted for some of the Cactuses to add to the grotesqueness of their appearance; a spherical Echinocactus or Mamillaria being united to the columnar stem of another kind, so as to produce the appearance of a drum stick; or a large round-growing species grafted on to three such stems, which may then be likened to a globe supported upon three columns. As the species and genera unite freely with each other, it is possible to produce, ...
— Cactus Culture For Amateurs • W. Watson
... a salute, etc. Beat his drum, etc. Blew his horn, etc. Drew his sword, etc. Aimed his gun, etc. Fired his gun, etc. Shouldered arms, etc. Pranced ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger
... Gates then showed another bit of generalship that called anew for Monsieur's nods of approval. Since our own helmsman would be as much exposed as the man on the Orchid—whom we intended to "shoot until he ran downstairs"—the mate brought up some line, bent it several times around the wheel drum, passed it through newly fastened blocks, and let it run into the cockpit. By this arrangement he could lie on the floor, as safe as you please, and steer according to orders sung up by the old skipper who, stationed below with a shaving mirror—suggesting a trench periscope—would ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... ridges, the horses responding gallantly to the shrill "Hi-hi-kerat! hi-kerat! hi-kerat!" Her costume on this occasion represented joint concessions to her sex and the work that was before her, as the head of a family at the dipping-vat. She still wore the drum-shaped rabbit-skin cap pulled well down over her forehead for driving. The great, cable-like braids of hair stood out well below the cap, giving her head an appearance of denseness and solidity, but the rambling curls were still blowing about her face, perhaps adding to the sum total of grotesqueness. ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... clamour came the roll of a drum, and, clear and musical, the ringing of bugles blown by men who had marched with Grant and Sherman when they were young. The effect was stirring, and a cheer went up, for there were other men present in whom the spirit which, underlying immediate issues, had roused the North to arms was living yet; ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... six years about town, as hackney author, with his good birth, his brilliant wit, and his scanty means, had made him well acquainted with every phase of society, "from the Minister at his Levee, to the Bailiff at his spunging-house; from the Duchess at her drum, to the Landlady behind her bar"; but it was in the rural seclusion of an old cathedral town that he wooed and won the beautiful Miss Cradock. Indeed it is impossible to conceive of Sophia as for ever domiciled in streets. The very apostrophe which heralds her first appearance in Tom Jones ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... out of the forest, and in a trice drove away the hare, and eating up his dinner, licked the plate clean. Then, standing on his hind-legs, the badger blew out his belly until it was as round as a bladder and tight as a drum, and beating on it with his paws to show his victory, scampered off to the woods. But the old man, who was very angry, caught the badger, and tying him by the legs, hung him up head downward under the edges of the thatch in the shed where his ...
— Harper's Young People, June 22, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... as if it had been a cane; then fell down again plump, and would have destroyed the grinder on the spot, had he been there; but the tremendous shock had sent him flying clean over the squatter board, and he fell on his stomach on the wheel-band of the next grindstone, and so close to the drum, that, before any one could recover the shock and seize him, the band drew him on to the drum, and the drum, which was drawing away from the window, pounded him against the wall ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... Southwark, and had to boil fourteen days. From there it was to be brought to the 'Swan Tavern,' in Fish Street Hill, accompanied by a band of music, playing 'What lumps of pudding my mother gave me!' One of the instruments was a drum in proportion to the pudding, being 18 feet 2 inches in length, and 4 feet in diameter, which was drawn by 'a device fixed on six asses.' Finally, the monstrous pudding was to be divided in St. George's Fields; but apparently ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... Elizabeth used this expression, and practised this art whenever she wished to prepossess the minds of her people in favor of any extraordinary measure of government. The hostile effects of this music were apprehended by her successor, and severely felt by his son. "When pulpit, drum ecclesiastic," &c. See Heylin's Life ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... DOOR. It's a melancholy thought to me that we can no longer express ourselves with the bass-drum; there used to be the whole of the Fourth of July in its ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... me up and down, and my riding cock-horse and that it was not the first time I had done so; then I fell flat on her, she heaved me up and down and squeezed me till I cried. I scrambled of! of her, and in doing so, my hand, or foot went through a drum, I had been drumming on, ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... should be obliged to go against the Scots, as if destiny had inevitably attached victory, even to his remains. John Zisca, the same who, to vindication of Wicliffe's heresies, troubled the Bohemian state, left order that they should flay him after his death, and of his skin make a drum to carry in the war against his enemies, fancying it would contribute to the continuation of the successes he had always obtained in the wars against them. In like manner certain of the Indians, in their battles with the Spaniards, carried ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... top of each upright was lashed a snatch-block, over which, from summit to base of the hill, were stretched the carrying wires. Along these, suspended by blocks and tackle, loads up to thirty pounds in weight were hauled by means of a thin wire, which was wound upon a drum fixed between, and passed through, pulleys attached to the top of each of the two upper standards. The lift was so contrived as to be double-acting, the turning of the drum and a ratchet causing one wire bearing its load of supplies to ascend, whilst ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... want to interrupt your eating, Brown and Hanson," said Colson, "but couldn't you stir us up a little with the drum and fife?" ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson
... In came Hofer and gave us a toast and a song, and then they called on me, and I gave them the old Lied, that thou hast so often played, and for a toast, 'Fifine.' If Fifine had been there she would have been lying on my shoulder, but since I rescued her from the teasing of a big drum-major she has grown shy and doesn't like company; and though she would soon be a pet with most of our men, keeps her love for me alone, and would be a very charming companion if I had time to devote to her pretty ways.' So you see Franz and Hofer ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... company of Broad Brims for to stop the May Dance about the pole at Sinnington, and others acting by concert did the like at Helmsley, Kirby Moorside and Slingsby, singing and praying they gat them round about the garland pole whilst yet the may Queen was not yet come but when those with flute and drum and dancers came near to crown the Queen the Broad Brims did pray and sing psalms and would not give way while at the finish up there was like for to be a sad end to the day but some of the Sinnington Bucks did ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... slow march and muffled drum And crowds distrest, And book and bell, at length I have come To my ...
— Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with - Miscellaneous Pieces • Thomas Hardy
... make painful progress by getting close together and moving forward in close formation. In any case, the pathos is there. Consider a children's May party, on its way to Central Park. A fife-and-drum corps of three little boys in uniform leads the way. The Queen of the May, all in white, walks with her consort under a canopy of ribbons and flowers, a little stiffly, perhaps, and self-consciously, but not more so than older queens and kings on parade. A long line of boys and girls ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... from his belt the apparatus he used to capture meteors. A powerful electromagnet, with a thin, strong wire fastened to it, to be hurled from a helix-gun. He set the drum on which the wire was wound upon the metal at his feet, fastened it with its magnetic anchor, wondering if it would stand the terrific strain ...
— Salvage in Space • John Stewart Williamson
... middle of the studio, and went and sat down on his engraving-stool in the corner, with a somewhat haughty look, and a defiant smile lurking behind his beard. He rested his elbow on the table and began to drum with his fingers. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... of—"Prince," my pony, a skittish little bay from the Spanish main; and "Dandy," a sturdy dapple-grey Canadian roadster, that in appearance was quite the reverse of what his name would imply. The old horse, however, was as sound and steady as a veteran drum-major and thoroughly reliable; and my father prized him highly, always riding him from choice and not minding any ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... point is this. Some of your journals did their best to prevent our people from desiring your success by declaring that your success would be followed by aggression on us. The drum, like strong wine, is apt to get into weak heads, especially when they are unaccustomed to the sound. An Englishman coming among you is soon assured that you do not wish to attack Canada. Apart from considerations of morality and honor, he finds every ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... just as we were eating breakfast, the two chiefs commenced beating their war-drums, which was a signal to call their men together. The war-drum, or what the Comanches call a "tum-tum," was made of a piece of hollow log about eight inches long, with a piece of untanned deerskin stretched over one end. This the war chief would take under one arm and beat on it with ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan
... on the drum of the ear, These thoughts in cat language conveyed— The which I interpret lest it should appear Of ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... nervous system. Reflecting upon it at the time, again I summoned whatever philosophy I had at command, as well as I could. I conceived that possibly in the excitement of verse-writing, in the silence of the night, some tenseness had affected the drum of my ear; that hearing, or imagining that I heard some unusual sound, amid the perfect stillness around me, a continuous disordered state of physical functions had produced a similar effect at a correspondent hour; and that this experience not unnaturally culminated ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous
... stretch her right along th' ship. That keeps them plugs in, don't it? an' it's some'at to hang short lines to, ain't it? Werry well then; say we has a hundred or two hundred short lines bent on to that wire, genelmen, an' on each short line is a hempty drum, bunged up tight—" ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... were both edible and palatable. Varieties which the colonists soon learned to eat included sheepshead, shad, sturgeon, herring, sole, white salmon, bass, flounder, pike, bream, perch, rock, and drum, as well as oysters, crabs, and mussels. Seafood was an important source of food for the colonists, and at times, especially during the early years of the settlement, it was the ...
— New Discoveries at Jamestown - Site of the First Successful English Settlement in America • John L. Cotter
... supplying London with coach horses and cart horses. These animals were so far from being fit for any military purpose that they had not yet learned to obey the bridle, and became ungovernable as soon as they heard a gun fired or a drum beaten. A small body guard of forty young men, well armed, and mounted at their own charge, attended Monmouth. The people of Bridgewater, who were enriched by a thriving coast trade, furnished him with a small ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... tyrants and fathers! hip, hip, Hurrah!" and the hideous diapason nearly split the drum of the ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... drum-heads filled the air. The entrance to the hut was darkened by a tall, swarthy Arab in long, flowing robes, followed by negro-bearers, who cast on the ground bales of cloth and guns. The Arab wore on his head a red fez, round which a coloured turban scarf was wound. ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews
... every root of the [philosophic] language. They resemble the reed in the hautboy—they give B metallic ring in the words where they occur. They may be compared to the sound of the trumpet in a concert; the other consonants are the sound of the drum—rub-a-dub-dub." ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... That's nonsense. I've a little pad and a big pencil, and a hot potato in my pocket for to warm the numb fingers at. And father's got an old typewriter in his office that's to be put in order for me; and nights I shall drum upon it and print off what was written down in the morning, and study to see why it's all wrong. I think I'll never write anything but tales about people who love each other. 'Cause a fellow wants to stick to what he ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... "drum ecclesiastic" beat to arms. In view of the impending danger that their scattered fellow-countrymen might come into mutual fellowship on the basis of their common faith in Christ, the Lutheran leaders at Halle, who for years ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... name from its similarity to a drum as made by the Romans, but its origin was Egyptian. It is a current wheel with frame like Fig. 23, to the outside of which a set of chambers or tubes are fixed, radiating spirally, so as to lead the water to the shaft as the wheel ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 799, April 25, 1891 • Various |
