"Thumping" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... thumping against his ribs at this strange and amazing coincidence, the American ducked his head carefully under the port ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... heart thumping as that healthy organ had not thumped for years. "I feel a bit that way," he gasped. "You remember what we were talking ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... know how he feels, but I feel extremely ill!" grumbled Elsie, her sympathy suddenly changed to resentment. "Sticking your face into mine and laughing in that crazy fashion. Never do it again! My heart is right up in my throat, and thumping like a steam-engine. I can't work any more. I am going to recover ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... you much about it. It was something to do with business. I got an offer of a thumping big partnership three ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... you?" said FitzGerald, thumping on the table with both his fists. "We must get a move on and try to corner Krauss; that rope was a preliminary experiment, and all but landed ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... that the heavy thumping of his heart did not shake his whole broad chest, "how long ago was it that you were a helpless, dying little girl without strength to cut up your own food? How long since you have served ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... upon his face, as Miss Dodge had adjusted his mask of gauze, but, as Burns recalled it, this was a common matter with many surgeons, and it might easily have been characteristic of Leaver himself, even though Burns had not remembered it. His own heart was thumping heavily in his breast, as it had never thumped when he had been the chief actor in ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond
... cautiously walk together along the front of the French ramparts under cover of night, one of them carrying a mallet, with which he was to hammer the ground at short intervals. The French sentinels, it seems to have been supposed, on hearing this mysterious thumping, would be so bewildered as to give no alarm. While one of the two partners was thus employed, the other was to lay his ear to the ground, which, as the adviser thought, would return a hollow sound ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... first looked and listened with a thumping heart and a strong feeling that, visible to all, the letter T might be somewhere sewn or branded upon his own person, by degrees grew bolder. There wasn't any letter there, that was certain, and a slight sense of personal danger might even become a welcome sauce ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... may be very pretty things to recollect; but, thank my stars, I can remember things very near as pretty. The beginning of my Roman history was spent in the asylum, or conversing in Egeria's hallowed grove; not in thumping and pommelling king Amulius's herdsmen. I was sometimes troubled with a rough creature or two from the plough; one, that one should have thought, had worked with his head, as well as his hands, they were both so callous. One of the most agreeable circumstances I ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... here interested in adventure, I talked the matter over before my first audience in a little hall by the country road. A piano having been brought in from a neighbor's, I was helped out by the severe thumping it got, and by a "Tommy Atkins" song from a strolling comedian. People came from a great distance, and the attendance all told netted the house about three pounds sterling. The owner of the hall, a kind lady from Scotland, would take no rent, and so my lecture ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... for the other. Frank looked down upon the school-boy as an unlicked cub without two ideas; the bodily defect he endeavoured to cure by frequent outward applications, but the mental shortcoming was beneath his efforts. Johnny meanwhile, who was as hard as nails, no sooner recovered from a thumping than he renewed and redoubled his loud contempt for a great lout over six feet high, who had never drawn a sword or pulled a trigger. And now for the winter this book would be a perpetual snowball for him to pelt his big brother with, and yet (like a critic) be scarcely ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... Off goes the citizen's hat. Children, come out here; here is one of the soldiers of Gettysburg! Yes, sir; and this knee—you see I can't bend it much—got stiffened at Chickamauga; and this scratch here in the neck was from a bullet at Gaines Mill; and this here, sir—thumping his chest—you notice I don't dare to cough much —after the explosion of a shell at Petersburg I found myself lying on my-back, and the only one of my squad who was not killed outright. Was it the imagination of the citizen or of the soldier that gave the impression that the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... mere matter of fact, Nurse was no witch, nor had she, of her own will and knowledge, done Balder any harm. On the contrary, she was already at work, with trembling hands and painfully thumping heart, to relieve his sad case. She was touched and agitated to a singular degree. It was not the first time in the patient's life that she had tended him. The reader has guessed her secret,—that she ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... a handful of them, had already reached the Thuria's deck, as Carthoris glanced in the direction the Lotharian had indicated. The sight that met his eyes set his heart to thumping in joy and relief—Thuvia of Ptarth might yet be saved? For from below there poured a stream of giant bowmen, grim and terrible. Not the bowmen of Tario or Jav, but the bowmen of an odwar of bowmen—savage fighting men, ...
— Thuvia, Maid of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Dinah's thumping heart gave a great start and seemed to stop. "Oh yes," she gasped desperately. "Yes, I couldn't possibly—be ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... helm the loud shout and the clapping of hands of those who looked on, and found himself gripping with nervous intensity the butt of a broken spear, his mouth clammy with excitement, and his heart thumping in his throat. ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... feeling happier. At least, she had amused him. She marched off with the air of a grenadier going to some stern and difficult duty. From the door she flung back at him a look of speechless admiration, then broke into a run, afraid she might have been immodest or too forward. They heard her thumping overhead. ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... the Minstrel, the sick boy, Don Jaime? He has trouble with his chest. He cannot work, and he spends his time lying in the shade thumping on a tambourine and mumbling verses. He's a white lamb, a chicken, with eyes and skin like a woman's, incapable of standing up before a brave man. He aspires to Margalida, too," but the Little Chaplain ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... guest, what sound short of the muffled noises made by the undertakers as they turn the corners in the dim-lighted house, with low shuffle of feet and whispered cautions, carries such a sense of knocking-kneed collapse with it as the thumping down in the front entry of the heavy portmanteau, rammed with the changes of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... they were going to try and stampede us with a dry cowskin tied to that steer's tail they had down. As they let him up, it was clear I had called the turn, as they headed him for our herd, the flint thumping at his heels. Dick rode out in a lope, and I signaled for my crowd to come on and we would back Dick's play. As we rode out together, I said to my boys, 'The stuff's off, fellows! Shoot, ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams
... near. With utmost wariness we crawled from bush to bush, pausing every now and then, and crouching low. Then, judging the way still clear, we crawled forward, and finally gained the top of the ridge. With thumping hearts we rested a moment in a crouching posture, for we had at last arrived upon the scene. Slowly and breathlessly raising our heads, we peered through the leafy screen and beheld the love dance ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... man Ryer, still stiff from his long, cold bath, hobbled out, and Pete ran before him. Yes, it was mother, the children and all the animals! For the first time in his life, the mean old sinner felt his heart thumping, in grateful emotion, under his woolen jacket, with its two gold buttons. Something like real religion had finally oozed out from under his ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... with noise. Red noises, an almost tangible din that he could nearly feel as well as he could see and hear it. And after a while his breath came raspingly, and there was a thumping sound that was the beating of his heart and ...
— Happy Ending • Fredric Brown
... to come yet. For a few days Life showed indecision, and Uncle Mo and Aunt M'riar had a thumping heart apiece each time they stood by the little, still, white figure on the bed and thought the breath was surely gone. They were allowed in the ward every day, contrary to visitor-rule, apparently because of Uncle Mo's ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... we imagined every noise a rumbling earthquake, the swift running feet of the children as if the house was coming down, the noisy thumping of the washing stones as indicative of the rocks falling over us. This induced us to think, much to Schillie's horror, of seeking a new abode during the very hot weather on a smooth plain where no rocks could cover us, nor ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... and whirled until it seemed to be spinning dreams, thick as motes in the sun. The clay rose in smooth spirals under his hand, and the wheel sang, 'Shall the vessel reprove him who made one to honour and one to dishonour?' And I saw the potter thumping his wet clay, and the clay, plastic as dream-stuff, shaped swift as light, and the three Fates stood at his shoulder. Dreams, dreams, and all in the spinning of the wheel, and the rich shadows of the old broken courtyard where he sat. And the wheel stopped and the thread broke, and the ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck
... no security, or even give it away, for so are we commanded; and therefore, Mr O'Donahue, you will tell Mr Sleek to let him have the money; there's the last and best point of all, eh?" wound up Mr Small, with a thumping blow upon the ribs of the middy, that almost took away his breath. We give this as a specimen of Mr Small's style of practical and ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... Thurtell; and a score besides of famous crimes. The thing was as clear as an illusion; he was once again that little boy; he was looking once again, and with the same sense of physical revolt, at these vile pictures; he was still stunned by the thumping of the drums. A bar of that day's music returned upon his memory; and at that, for the first time, a qualm came over him, a breath of nausea, a sudden weakness of the joints, which he ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... hardly surprised when, a day or two after the rumor of the girl's disappearance reached him, a heavy step thumping outside his office door announced the arrival of Squire Rawson. When the old man opened the door, Keith was shocked to see the change in him. He was haggard and worn, but there was that in his face which made Keith feel that whoever might be concerned ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... and musket-barrels, the roll of their drums ascending past me, and the fife ever and anon piercing through,—these things have wakened a warlike fire, peaceful though I be. Close to their rear marches a battalion of schoolboys ranged in crooked and irregular platoons, shouldering sticks, thumping a harsh and unripe clatter from an instrument of tin and ridiculously aping the intricate manoeuvres of the foremost band. Nevertheless, as slight differences are scarcely perceptible from a church-spire, ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... glass and a bottle of brandy. Setting them upon the table, he took the key from the outside of the door, inserted it upon the inside, turned it, and then withdrew it, and put it in his pocket. Yates rose and watched him, his face pale, and his heart thumping at his ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... wild night. The wind howling without went crashing through the old trees of the old rookery round about the old church. The long bedroom windows went thump thumping; the moon could be seen through them lighting up the graves with their ghastly shadows; the yew-tree, cut into the shape of a bird, looked particularly dreadful, and bent and swayed as if it would peck something off that other yew-tree ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... back to the brink Of that volcanic crater where the best Sit tight, scarce caring if they swim or sink. Silent they bear it, as they quietly think The end approaching to their life at last, And face each other, with a smile or wink Outwardly stoic, tho' their hearts beat fast As, thumping down, great shells ...
— Over the Top With the Third Australian Division • G. P. Cuttriss
... Sally had been climbing up to the second floor, and the door of his room was opened, through which his voice had sounded, calling to Sally, she had run hurriedly up the stairs out of sight, her heart thumping with excitement when he had ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... any importance to it at first, but as time wore on, the fluttering increased. He grew anxious. For about a week, his health remained the same, when one day, after dinner, he was quite alarmed to feel his heart thumping vigorously against his chest. "What is this coming to?" ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... Rabbit darted from the darkness into the great cone of light from the lantern, gazed at that wonder for a moment, gave a "thump" and disappeared. Then another came; then two or three. They gazed into this unspeakably dazzling thing, then one gave the alarm by thumping, and all were lost ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... the ground as soon as Keith, and together they ran to the place—the bunk-house. The thumping continued vigorously; evidently a small boy was kicking, with all his might, upon a closed door; it was not a new sound to the ears of Beatrice, since the arrival in America of her young nephew. Keith flung the door wide open, upsetting ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower
... under a palm tree with a necklace of teeth, a ring through her nose, tropic breezes playing on that velvet skin. (Please, I know naught of Trinidad or its customs and am only guessing.) And here stood Ida, thumping, thumping on the ironing press, nine hours, lacking ten minutes, a day, on the sixth floor of a laundry in Harlem, that we in Manhattan might ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... passage from the Isle of Wight I had noticed now and then, when the waves tossed more than usual, that a dull, heavy, thumping sound was heard aboard the yawl, and gradually I concluded that her iron keel had been broken by the rock at Bembridge, and that it was swinging free below my boat. This idea increased my anxiety to get in safely; and to make sure of ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... took a drink or two, and sprinkled to their several huts, and Black Hat was at peace, There were no dogs or cats to make night hideous—no uneasy roosters to be sounding alarm at unearthly hours—no horrible policemen thumping the sidewalks with clubs—no fashionable or dissipated people rattling about in carriages. Excepting an occasional cough, or sneeze, or over-loud snore, the most perfect peace reigned ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... by running and mounting guerrillas, roused her hope. They had sighted the cowboys and were in flight. Rapid thumping of boots on the porch told of men hurrying from the house. Several horses dashed past her, not ten feet distant. One rider saw her, for he turned to shout back. This drove Madeline into a panic. Hardly knowing what she did, she began to run away from the house. Her feet ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... joined them and, launching and reloading the canoes again, with Richards and Easton in one canoe and Pete and I in the other, we followed Fred and Stanton, who preceded us in the rowboat, keeping our canoes religiously within earshot of Fred's thumping oarlocks. Finally the fog lifted, and not far away we caught a glimmer of lights at the French Post. All was dark at the Hudson Bay Post across the river when at last our canoes touched the sandy ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... gunwale, smashed in the bulwarks, and deposited half a ton of ice on deck. Scarcely had this danger passed when a new enemy appeared in sight ahead. Directly in their way, just beyond the line of floe-ice against which they were alternately thumping and grinding, lay a group of bergs. There was no possibility of avoiding them, and the only question was, whether they were to be dashed to pieces on their hard blue sides, or, perchance, in some providential nook to find ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... the unblinded window, but there was no light in the room. There was something almost malignant to Robin's mind about the searching brilliance of this lamp. He hid his eyes from it, huddling his face in the bed-clothes, listening intently the while for Dick's coming but hearing only the dull thumping of his ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... Venning's heart was thumping against his ribs; but he steadied himself for the shot, and fired. The lion sprang forward, snarling, and faced about towards his enemies. Then up went his tail, and with a savage growl he charged straight down to within about thirty feet, when he stood for a moment, as ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... into the farmhouse he heard a slight scream coming from the sitting-room. The scream was followed by exclamations from two men, and then a wild thumping as if someone was hitting the floor ...
— The Rover Boys at Colby Hall - or The Struggles of the Young Cadets • Arthur M. Winfield
... commencement which consists in watching the flies when standing close to the master who is showing off his skill on a customer, to being able to play the guitar with such proficiency that, holding the neck in his left hand and pressing the cords with the fingers, he shall, by thumping the instrument on the big toe of his left foot, cause it to vibrate the air of the immortal Cachucha or the Bolero, while with his right hand he plays ...
— Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes - Spanish and Portuguese Folklore • Charles Sellers and Others
... better than a man with a red nose would like to be called Hot-poker. But it was such a fine morning, and there were so many dew-worms lying out in the cool grass that the neighbours could not stop to be crabby. So Spottleover flew off with his snail, and Flutethroat soon had hold of a thumping, great worm, and set to work, tug-tug, to draw it from its hole, and then pulled and poked it about till it was easily to be packed in a knot, when he took it in his bill and flew off to the laurel bush, where Mrs Flutethroat was busy sitting upon four green speckly eggs, and ...
— Featherland - How the Birds lived at Greenlawn • George Manville Fenn
... man kept Ranny many minutes, thumping, sounding, intimately and extensively overhauling him. For more minutes than Ranny at all liked, he played about him with a stethoscope. Then he fired off what Ranny supposed to be the ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... know what a terrible load this lifts from my shoulders!" cried the little plebe, in ecstasy. "Nobody shall ever fight for me again! I can't lick anybody, but I will stand up and take my thumping when it is necessary. I am going to write to mother tomorrow that it is absolutely impossible for a fellow to get along here without fighting, and I am going to ask her to release me from my promise. I won't lie for anybody, but I am going to fight ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... on my part was but a cloak for my real feelings, for I will not here disguise the fact that the prospect before me was anything but agreeable; indeed my heart was thumping in a most unpleasant manner, and my tongue and lips had become strangely parched and ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... in dressing-gown and slippers, came thumping hastily down-stairs, in response to Bressant's summons. The strange solemnity in the latter's tone, no less than the ominousness of the hour, probably gave him premonition of some disaster. He reached the threshold of the room, and paused a moment ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... coughed both together and came nigh choking outright (a highly dangerous thing in one of his weight), which necessitated my loosening his steenkirk and thumping him betwixt the shoulder-blades, while Jack strode up and down, swearing under his breath, and Mr. Tawnish took another pinch ...
— The Honourable Mr. Tawnish • Jeffery Farnol
... my heart to stop thumping, I lighted the match and shielded it with both hands until it was well under way, and then dropped the blazing splinter on the ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... entrance shut. He gave a rap at the door. But as every one inside was bent upon laughing, they naturally did not catch the sound; and it was only after he had called and called, and made a noise by thumping at the door, that they at last heard. Imagining, however, that Pao-yue could not be coming back at that hour, Hsi Jen shouted laughing: "who's it now knocking at the door? There's no one to go ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... till night they keep thumping away,— No sound but the anvil the whole of the day; His afternoon's nap and his daughter's new song, Were banished and spoiled by their ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... for a couple of hours, when greatly to his mortification and amazement, he found his schooner floundering and thumping on a sand bank. She soon knocked a hole in her bottom, and the crew with great difficulty made their escape to land, which was not far off. Even then the skipper was disposed to believe ha had found an island on the Bank ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... knees and commenced scraping the earth away with the point of a knife that had appeared in his hand with the magical suddenness of a conjuring trick. As the man worked away Bryce peeped out from his hiding-place and saw then that it was indeed Cumshaw. He watched fascinated. His heart was thumping away like the piston of a steam-engine, and some queer unnamed instinct told him that the chase was drawing to a close. Cumshaw was digging up something of vital importance; it might be the treasure ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... from the ridge and cut a circuitous channel through a small swamp. Here there were signs of wild life which set Rod's heart thumping and his blood tingling with excitement. In places the snow was literally packed with deer tracks. Trails ran in every direction, the bark had been rubbed from scores of saplings, and every step gave fresh evidence of the near ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... e'en a merry core [one, gang] O' randie, gangrel bodies [rowdy, vagrant] In Poosie Nansie's held the splore, [carousal] To drink their orra duddies. [spare rags] Wi' quaffing and laughing, They ranted an' they sang; Wi' jumping an' thumping ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... searing pain in his throat, but shutting it out of his consciousness was the steady, thumping beat ...
— The Alternate Plan • Gerry Maddren
... trying, for this was plainly meant to annoy. But Anthea would not give herself time to think this. She led the way up the stairs, taking three at a time, and bounded to the level of Jane, who sat on the top step of all, thumping her doll to the tune of the song ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... the battle-field. The thumping of artillery was renewed, but not fiercely. Our wounded were removed to the other side of the river. A kind providence had favored them, for the weather had been delightful. Had such weather prevailed as ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... soft swish of lace and muslin, but the active swing of linsey and simple homespun; no French fiddler's bows and scrapings, no intricate lancers, no languid waltz; but neat shuffling forward and back, with every note of the music beat; floor-thumping "cuttings of the pigeon's wing," and jolly jigs, two by two, and a great "swinging of corners," and "caging the bird," and "fust lady to the right CHEAT an' swing"; no flirting from behind fans and under stairways and little nooks, but honest, open courtship—strong arms about healthy waists, ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... morning adventure on the beach, espied him, and with a red-mouthed huskie smile, came bounding up the trail, wriggling an extravagant and clumsy welcome. With loud whispers hissed through fiercely protruding lips, Loll tried to shoo him away, but the dog only whirled about, thumping him with a joyously wagging tail and poking a cold damp nose down the neck ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... hitch to his trousers, which Is a trick all seamen larn, And having got rid of a thumping quid, He spun this ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert
... coming to the table, found the jug empty, therefore out I went to the place beyond where I judged was the pump, and here found a bucket brimming with water wherewith I filled the jug. Creeping back to the kitchen, I stopped at once, my heart thumping, for to my wonder and dismay I beheld the prisoner on his feet, free of his bonds and rubbing and chafing his wrists and hands and arms. Then all at once this pitiful creature leapt to swift and terrible ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... Ralph before he went away. He seemed very down on his luck, poor dear! He's been trying to persuade Penelope to say yes and to fix an early date for their wedding, as he's got the offer of a very good short tour in America—really thumping fees—and he won't accept it unless she'll marry him first and ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... whipping old Rene smartly. And in another minute we were thumping and bumping over great paving-stones, too noisily for conversation to be carried on, and getting into a melee of carts, wagons, and horsemen, all bound for Beaucaire. The women were now in great delight, looking from side ...
— Jacques Bonneval • Anne Manning
... the skis were already slipping over the snow. To preserve her balance she was forced to go, and for seconds that seemed like hours she slid down the hillside, her heart thumping in her throat; her nerves straining and twitching to check that maddening progress. For she knew that sound. She had heard it before, had shrunk secretly many a time before its coarse brutality. It was the yell of a man in headlong, furious wrath, an animal yell, unreasoning, ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... How can you—how dare you—" she began, arising indignantly, yet a trifle carried away by his impetuous manner. Her heart was thumping tumultuously and she dared ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... as fast as I can," retorted Goddard sturdily; his heart thumping as he saw her confusion. "Miss Newton—Nancy—I mean every word I have said. ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... will require to be eaten at about the same time as the peaches. There is something pleasantly annoying in this superfluous abundance; it is like standing under a tree of ripe apples, and giving it a shake, with the intention of bringing down a single one, when, behold, a dozen come thumping about our ears. But the idea of the infinite generosity and exhaustless bounty of our Mother Nature is well worth attaining; and I never had it so vividly as now, when I find myself, with the few mouths which I am to feed, the sole inheritor ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... may not be familiar to the majority of readers, and as it is a specimen of the current songs of Little Britain, I subjoin it in its original orthography. I would observe that the whole club always join in the chorus with a fearful thumping on the table and clattering ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... baffled spy. "I propose, Jack, that we make for Harwich and cross over to the Continent, avoiding the usual English routes and English steamers. We want to get there as quietly as we can. It wouldn't be healthy to arrive in Upper Burmah thumping a drum to let 'em know we were on their track. They've got ways of their own of gettin' rid o' people they want to see ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... "There's a thumping big trout under that bridge," he informed her eagerly; "he ran downstream just now, but I can't seem ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... nothing was heard of Gerald: indeed, Marian understood him well enough to expect that nothing would be heard. As she was on her way to her own room, looking wistfully at his door, Lionel overtook her; and thumping her hard on the back, exclaimed, "Isn't it a ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... thumping him hard in the back, and saying in accents of terror—at least, he says not, but Oswald knows what ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... the next logging season he would annex Joyce Birkdale to his few belongings—the cabin, his dog and gun. The idea had not roused him much, but it had been a pleasurable conclusion to arrive at; and now? Every nerve was aching and the boy's heart was thumping heavily. Again he dropped his head, and he cursed everything his thought touched upon—even the girl he meant, in some way, ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... dawn. They passed through the pitmen's village, all shut up and silent now, and through the turn-pike; and then they were out in the real country, and plodding along the black dusty road, between black slag walls, with no sound but the groaning and thumping of the pit-engine in the next field. But soon the road grew white, and the walls likewise; and at the wall's foot grew long grass and gay flowers, all drenched with dew; and instead of the groaning of the pit-engine, they heard the skylark, saying his matins high up in the air, and the pit-bird ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... called out: "I'm comin' down, clear the track for old Dan Tucker," and from the convulsive gripping of his hands and arms and the hysterical intake of his breath we who had seen Joe Nevison dive from the top of the old tree, from limb to limb to the bottom, knew what he was doing. His heart was thumping audibly when he finished, and we tried to calm him. For a while we all sat about him in silence—forgetting the walls that shut us in, and living with him in the open, Slaves of the Magic Tree. Then one by one we left and ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... his life into close touch with dangerous happenings, and conducted himself with average pluck. He never attempted to conceal from himself, however, that these few minutes were minutes of breathless, unreasoning fear. His heart was thumping against his side, and the muscles at the back of his neck were almost numb as he slowly looked round the room. His eyes paused at the door. It was slightly open, to his nervous fancy it seemed to be shaking. His teeth chattered, he felt his ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... round of cordiality he was reluctantly torn and conducted to the platform. After thumping the desk with his fist he announced that the gathering would "come to order right off, as there was consider'ble business to be done and it ought to be goin' ahead." He then proceeded to read the call for the meeting. This ceremony was no sooner over than Abednego Small, "Uncle Bedny," was on his ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the key, he had left the home stables. Then they had led him into that box on wheels and the trouble had begun. Men shouted, bells clanged, whistles shrieked. Bonfire felt the box start with a jerk, and, thumping, rumbling, jolting, swaying, move ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... things very simply—impulsively—and not in a form to be intelligible if set down as they occurred to her; but the notions swam in her head along with her love for Keith and her joy in the love which he returned. She saw his dear face so close to her own, and heard her own heart thumping vehemently, quicker and quicker, so that it sounded thunderously in her ears. She could see Keith's eyes, so easily to be read, showing out the impulses that crossed and possessed his mind. Love for her she was sure ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... a half-jealous, half-anxious look, but her face was turned away from him. He lifted his tankard and, bowing towards her, drank the contents. When the toast was fully pledged, Farmer Jocelyn got up, amid much clapping of hands, stamping of feet and thumping on the boards. He waited till quiet was restored, and then, speaking in strong resonant ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... the Agreement out of his pocket and threw it on the desk, thumping his fist down hard on top of it right under Rattlesnake's sharp nose, causing Dalton ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... warning, in a moment, and I tried to subdue myself, to say to myself that it was nothing, some flutter of the nerves, some physical disturbance. I laid myself down upon my sofa to try if rest would help me, and kept still, as long as the thumping and throbbing of this wild, excited mechanism within, like a wild beast plunging and struggling, would let me. I am quite aware of the confusion of the metaphor; the reality was just so. It was like a mechanism deranged, going wildly with ever-increasing ...
— The Open Door, and the Portrait. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... subsequently replaced by another two, by the order of their hospitable entertainer. On Donald, however, his libations were now beginning to produce, in a very marked manner, their usual effects. He was first getting into a state of high excitation; thumping the table violently with his fist, and sputtering out furious discharges of Gaelic and English, mingled in one strange and unintelligible mess of words, and seemingly oblivious of the fact that not a ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... for that honest boast. There came a thumping of feet in the hall. The man who burst in was flushed and ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... in a town in the north of Holland. All the cheese-fanciers are out, thumping the cannon-ball Edams and the millstone Goudas with their bare red knuckles, plugging in with a hollow steel tool for samples. In Holland the business of judging a crumb of cheese has been taken with great seriousness ...
— The Complete Book of Cheese • Robert Carlton Brown
... this place whenas the elfin knight Approached, him seemed that the merry sound Of a shrill pipe, he playing heard on height, And many feet fast thumping the hollow ground, That through the woods their echo did rebound; He nigher drew to wit what it mote be. There he a troop of ladies dancing found Full merrily and making gladful glee; And in the midst a shepherd piping ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... Wragge, Captain Anstruther and Captain Murray faced Professor Andrew Fraser, whose face was as set as a stone sphinx. His feeble heart was thumping, for the stolen jewels were not his to return now. He cursed the day ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... little man ceased, and here the company commenced a raising of voices, and thumping of tables, which lasted with little intermission during the remainder of the evening. Other toasts were drunk. Mr. Luffey and Mr. Struggles, Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Jingle, were, each in his turn, the subject of unqualified eulogium; and each in due ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... of black-arts went to the pot of broth, and, taking off the lid, began smelling of it. But no sooner had he sniffed a smell of the steam than he began thumping his head with his knuckles, and tearing his hair, and stamping his feet. "Somebody's had a finger in my broth!!!" he roared. For the master knew at once that all the magic had been taken out of it by the touch ...
— Pepper & Salt - or, Seasoning for Young Folk • Howard Pyle
... which the island is said to have been peopled in ancient times. However, Miss Edgeworth's Irish postilion and “Knockecroghery,” could scarcely have afforded us more amusement than our Sarde driver and his horse, whose good qualities he ludicrously vaunted, alternately cursing and glorifying, thumping and coaxing, the vicious beast, while we heaved at the wheels. Our united efforts at length succeeded in extricating the vehicle from the sandy hollow; and after jolting for awhile over the new-formed road, the material having become solid and compact, we rolled at our ease ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... ask him," and without the least appearance of hurry, though my heart was thumping like a big hammer, I ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... went jauntily downstairs there remained nothing of his mood of intoxication except a still thumping heart. ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... had no inclination to walk further was evident, for they still stood there in conversation, facing each other and speaking earnestly. I listened attentively to every word, my heart thumping so loudly that I wondered they did ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... horse that was coming down to drink. The mud-turtle said to the horse: "Just as I get sound asleep you are sure to come past and wake me up. We always used to have a good quiet time down here in the swamp till you got in the habit of thumping along this way. I am conservative and like to keep in my shell. I have been pastor of thirteen other mud-turtles, and we always had peace until you came, and next week at our semi-annual meeting of mud-turtles we shall either have ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... within call, and now set him at work moving two other arc lamps to a position where they made the ground about the growing piles of timber nearly as light as day. Through the night air he could hear the thumping of the planks on the wharf. Faintly over this sound came the shouting of men and the tramp and shuffle of feet. And at intervals a train would rumble in the distance, slowly coming nearer, until with a roar that swallowed all the other ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... which made one realise that one was watching war and not a Brock's Benefit. The roar of the artillery lasted all night, and when I woke early in the morning it was still going on. Just about five o'clock, however, it suddenly stopped, and I realised with a thumping heart that the Australians and Kents and Surreys were going over the ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... the brook. I determined to catch a dozen as quickly as he did. So I strung my half-pound fish on a hazel twig, and scud along to the next bend of the brook. I had no more than looked to my bait and dropped in there, when I had a bite and (this time more carefully) swung out a thumping big trout that would have weighed near a pound! His sides were well specked with red; ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... do!" answered I, thumping my nieve down with all my might on the counter, and throwing back my cowl behind me into a corner. "No, man!" added I, snapping with great pith my finger and thumb in Thomas's eyes, "not for all the ministers and elders that ever were cleckit! They may do their best; and ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... pleasant thing it is to see a little country lad riding one of the plough-horses to water, thumping his naked heels against the ribs of his stolid steed, and pulling hard on the halter as if it were the bridle of Bucephalus! Or perhaps it is a riotous company of boys that have come down to the old swimming-hole, and are now splashing and gambolling through the water like a drove of white ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... and made for the bear, but he had gone. His growls sounded farther and farther away. Still Strongarm stood with his ax ready, his heart thumping and his eyes big. When he saw that the bear was not coming back, he dropped his ax with a gruff laugh. Then Burr and the boys came creeping out of their holes. And they all laughed and talked at once, telling how scared ...
— The Cave Boy of the Age of Stone • Margaret A. McIntyre
... transactions came to claim a payment that was not due him. Aunt Mary explained to him that he was not entitled to it, and refused to see him again. He returned another day, and she would not allow the door to be opened. He then remained outside pulling the bell and thumping for admittance. Aunt Mary spoke to him from the balcony above, and requested him to leave. He vowed he would not stir without his money, and tried to coerce her by the most frightful threats and oaths. "When his imprecations were at their highest, Aunt Mary descended, and throwing ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... she told herself, as her feet touched the bottom step of the front veranda, if her presence were discovered there would be no disgrace attached to the apprehension. Her heart was thumping out a lively tattoo however, as she stole up to the heavy double doors and felt for the knocker. There was a light in the hall and in the room at the left of it. Miss Susanna was surely at home. ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... about to follow Wampus when a revolver shot arrested him. This sound was followed by a quick thumping against the ground of the steel bar, and then Wampus emerged from the tent holding a dark, squirming object on the end of the rod extended ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... Most of the Moslems had finished their noisy ritual ablutions, and at dawn we had been dimly conscious of the strings of camels, mules and donkeys jingling out under the arch beneath us. Yet there was a great din from the courtyard of wild hoofs thumping on the dung, and of scurrying feet as if a mile-long caravan were ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... was very different from that which had reached our ears while in the open river; it was more subdued, and did not convey that suggestion of savage exultation that had been the dominant note of the other, and I also now noticed that the deafening clamour of horns and thumping of tom-toms had ceased. The idea conveyed to my mind was that one act in a drama of absorbing interest had closed and that another was about to open. But I had no time for further observation, as the general now came up with the men, and we at once proceeded to make our final arrangements ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... bag that lay beside me chinked together ceaselessly; the clock and the barometer wagged to and fro like pendulums; and overhead, seamen were singing out at their work, and coils of rope clattering and thumping on the deck. Yet it was long before I had divined that I was at sea; long before I had recalled, one after another, the tragical, mysterious, and inexplicable events that had brought ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... Jim plunged and ran with the speed of a frightened deer, until he had gone a few rods, when he darted to one side, ran a little farther, and dropped flat on his face. For a moment, while he lay listening, he heard nothing but the thumping of his own heart, which ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... morning of the fifth night after the captain had left the ship that all on board were startled by a mighty thumping, accompanied by a shock that threw the ...
— Facing the World • Horatio Alger
... forgets that dreary hour When, as with misty eyes, To call the old familiar roll The solemn sergeant tries,— One feels that thumping of the heart As ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... Langbourne thanked him, and came back again to beg the clerk to be careful and not have him called in the morning, for he wished to sleep. Then he went up to his room, where he opened his window to let in the night air. He heard a dog barking; a cow lowed; from a stable somewhere the soft thumping of the horses' feet came at ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... was thumping wildly. It seemed to her that a great gulf yawned before her and that she was about to plunge into it. Mrs. Livingston was speaking again. Her voice sounded far ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge
... their steady flight onwards to distant feeding-grounds. Later in the season, sitting there in the warm evenings, I could hear the pheasants utter their peculiar roost-cry, and the noise of their wings as they flew up in the wood: the vibration is so loud that it might almost be described as thumping. ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... the way, To watch a potter thumping his wet clay; And with its all-obliterated tongue It ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston
... long park and the mouth of it held a thicket of small pines. Just as we got half way out I saw bobbing black objects above the high grass. I peered sharply. These objects were turkey heads. I got a shot before Copple saw them. There was a bouncing, a whirring, a thumping—and then turkeys appeared to be running ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... application has slipped my memory, but I fancy the horn should be ground small and mixed in all you eat and drink. If I am wrong, send me word when it begins to take effect, and I will make a point of arriving in time to give you a thumping big funeral. But by the horn, (not now, alas! by the buffalo,) there hangs a tale. The animal charged me in the most ferocious manner when I was passing peaceably upon my lawful occasions, and had I not snatched my gun from my boy, who promptly bolted, your dearest ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... northern wing of the ranch-house, strongly lighted, came a tumult of sound; music, thumping feet, a man's voice ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... there are bugle calls, sounded from without. Or, again the hungry man puts the forearm bearing his wrist watch in front of his face, as if to ward off a blow, when he wants to know the time. Save for the clanking of spurs and the thumping of rubber boots, it is a pretty quiet office, singularly so, in fact, considering the work that is done ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces
... heavy thumping at the door leading into the other room, and the vrouw's shrill voice was heard ordering them ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... sea—and all his companions. He swore, as he alighted heavily on his heels, that he would never, never any more associate with any fool that "hadn't savee enough to know his knee from his elbow." He managed by his thumping to scare the last remnant of wits out of Jimmy. We could hear the object of our exasperated solicitude darting to and fro under the planks. He had cracked his voice at last, and could only squeak miserably. His back or else his head rubbed the planks, now here, now there, in ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... thumping the bar. "There ain't no law west o' the Pecos! And he's west o' the Pecos now! The only law here is this kind," and ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... clothes-lists, and unitemised bills of extras; wrote to Head and House masters, matrons, nurses and doctors, and grieved or rejoiced over half-term reports. Young Wyndham Fowler repaid her in his holidays by calling her 'Gatepost,' 'Postey,' or 'Packthread,' by thumping her between her narrow shoulders, or by chasing her bleating, round the garden, her large mouth open, her large nose high in air, at a stiff-necked shamble very like a camel's. Later on he filled the house with clamour, argument, and harangues as to his personal ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... saw behind him the puffy pink face of a fezzed Jew, watching him as a stoat watches a rabbit. When he moved the Jew followed and took position at a commanding angle. The old man glanced from me to him and renewed his solicitations. So one could imagine an elderly hare thumping wildly on a tambourine with the stoat behind him. They told me afterwards that Jews own most of the stalls in Assouan bazaar, the Mussulmans working for them, since tourists need Oriental colour. Never having seen ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... lay on her sleepless pillow, she felt as if all the batteries of the gold mines were thumping on her heart. ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... well-wishing wits of friends below, gave Larry a few precious moments more than he had counted on. He was barely out on the rain-greased tin roof, with the trap down, when Gavegan came thumping up the stairs and into the studio. At sight of the recumbent Casey, head limply on Hunt's knees, and his loose face being laved by a wet towel in Hunt's hands, Gavegan let ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... indeed, that I could barely note it with my ear at his chest. But life was surely there, and with a hasty glance about to assure me that I was unobserved, I ran to the lake shore. I returned with hat full of water, with which I thoroughly drenched him, rubbing his numbed hands fiercely, and thumping his chest until at last the closed eyes partially opened, and he looked up into my anxious face, gasping painfully for breath. His lips moved as I lifted his head in my arms; and I bent lower, not certain but he was dying ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... discordant noises all blend into one hoarse, deep, drowsy body of sound, for which we can find no suitable term. Cows lowing, sheep bleating, pigs grunting, horses neighing, men shouting, women screaming, fiddlers playing, pipes squeeling, youngsters, dancing, hammering up of standings and tents, thumping of restive or lazy animals, the show-man's drum, the lottery-man's speech, the ballad-singer's squall, all come upon us; and lastly, the unheeded sweep of the death-bell, as it tells with sullen tongues that some poor mortal has for ever departed from the cares and amusements, ...
— Lha Dhu; Or, The Dark Day - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton |
