"Whirring" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... There was blank electric current whirring faintly on his ear. He thought she had rung off—rung off not only this conversation, but all converse in the future. At last, after the waiting of despair, came the voice, curiously meek. "Can you ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... away! For the Master's eye is on us, Never off us, still upon us, Night and day! Work away! Keep the busy fingers plying, Keep the ceaseless shuttles flying; See that never thread lie wrong; Let not clash or clatter round us, Sound of whirring wheels, confound us; Steady hand! let woof be strong And firm, that has to ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... of a motor's starting crank, the chug of an engine. As its strident whirring continued her captor came again to her side, and with rudeness aided her to the seat of what she took to be a small car. She felt the leap of the car under his rude driving as he turned the gas on full, felt it sway as it set to its pace. ...
— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough
... garb. Then he heard the black man mutter behind him: "But He was to come the second time in clouds of glory, with the nations gathered around Him and angels—" at the word a shaft of glorious light fell full upon the child, while without came the tramping of unnumbered feet and the whirring of wings. ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... delight to hoot, the bats go whirring past, the moonbeams surely cast their kindest rays; by day the pigeons coo from the topmost boughs their tales of love, while squirrels sit blinking merrily, or run their Silvios ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... ... I can't ... it's gone ... and even if it weren't...." He dropped back in his chair and took his head between his hands. He had forgotten what he wanted the money for. He made a great effort to regain hold of the idea, but all the whirring, shuttling, flying had abruptly ceased in his brain, and he sat with his eyes shut, staring straight into darkness.... The clock struck, and he remembered that he had said he would go down to the dining-room. ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... her geraniums, awning, whirring fan, and other ladylike appurtenances. Mr. V.V. sat down by the white iron bed and introduced a thermometer into her mouth. He possessed himself of her wrist, took out his silver watch and presently wrote something on the chart. He took out the thermometer ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... the sway of summer lay over all things. But, though the heat was broiling, the walk was lovely. All about me was alive with voice or perfume. Clouds of linnets fluttered among the branches, golden beetles crawled upon the grass, thousands of tiny whirring wings beat the air—flies, gnats, gadflies, bees—all chorusing the life—giving warmth of the day and the sunshine that bathed and penetrated all nature. I halted from time to time in the parched glades to seek my way, and ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... heard a whirring sound familiar to his senses, and saw the oscillating reflection of a bright light around a bend in the road; an automobile. He hastily dived into the underbrush at the side. He had no reason to be afraid, but he felt a shivering repugnance to showing himself ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... which brought out a sweat of apprehension upon the baby's father. Adoree, on the other hand, had invested heavily in animals; her gifts included a roaring lion, a peacock with a lease-breaking voice, an elephant that walked, accompanied by strange, whirring, abdominal sounds, besides many other products of the toy-makers' fancy. There was a huge doll which Miss Deniorest had purchased because of its resemblance to herself and which was promptly christened "Aunt Adoree"; there were ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... make Esther stop singing, it won't help matters, Betty, dear, the summer has gone," she exclaimed. "Little Brother and I have just seen quail whirring about in the underbrush. See I lay our autumn bouquet at your feet," and she tossed her flowers over to Betty. "Where ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill • Margaret Vandercook
... life to be seen. But occasionally, with a whirring sound of rushing wings, a bright-plumaged jungle cock with his attendant bevy of sober-clad hens swept up with startled squawks from under the huge feet and flew to perch high up on neighbouring trees, chattering and clucking indignantly ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... have been two hours, and I was beginning to feel very much cramped when I heard a whirring of great wings, and then the toucan alighted on the ground beside me. He had evidently spied the basket and was curious to know what it was. He came over and then I could feel him pecking at the peaches ...
— The Enchanted Island • Fannie Louise Apjohn
... outstretched hand, and affect to be wing-broken and wounded, and yet have just strength to tumble along, until she has drawn you, fatigued, a safe distance from her threatened children and the young hopes of her heart; and then will she mount, whirring with glad strength, and away through the maze of trees you have not seen before, like a close-shot bullet, fly to her ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... child!" he cried, and, stooping, gathered up a dying thing, whose watchfulness was all over. The glass was broken; the case was open; it lay in his hand a mangled creature. Mary heard the rush of its departing life, as the wheels went whirring, and the hands ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... back to his office. White-Eye and Pino watched the wheel, while the man with the deformed shoulder and his companion stood watching the faro game. The room was quiet save for the soft click of the chips, the whirring of the ball, an occasional oath, and the monotonous ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... whirring noise, that made Mr. Winkle start back as if he had been shot himself. Bang, bang, went a couple of guns—the smoke swept quickly away over the field, and ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... squire yielded; and Janice, with glad tears in her eyes, turned and thanked Philemon by a glance that meant far more than any words. Then she went to her room, only to lie for hours staringly awake, listening to the wild whirring and whistling of the wind as she bemoaned her unintentional treachery to the aide, and sought for ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... produced any but the happiest moral results. The amusing presumption of domestic animals, and the comparative fearlessness of many wild creatures in the presence of man; the white clouds of gulls that hover about each incoming steamer in expectation of an alms of crumbs; the whirring of doves from temple- eaves to pick up the rice scattered for them by pilgrims; the familiar storks of ancient public gardens; the deer of holy shrines, awaiting cakes and caresses; the fish which raise their ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... little while, and the jailer raised the candle from the water, and dropped down a stone from some he kept there for that purpose. This stone struck the wall half-way down, and went from side to side, crashing and whirring till it met the water with a booming plunge; and there rose a groan and moan from the eddies, like those dreadful sounds of the surge that I heard on lonely nights in the sea-caverns underneath our hiding-place ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... pigeons of a dark brown colour, with a white patch on the extremity of the wing, which I have alluded to in the earlier part of the work relating to King's Sound, as always inhabiting rocky districts and making a whirring sound, like a partridge, ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... you to believe me that, as I did so, the whirring of wheels within the contrivance stopped, and at that moment I heard a human throat inhale a long breath with a frightened gasp! It was as if the balanced glass eyes of the figure had recognized me or seen in my coming ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... the bank; it is philosophy. Before I am driven far Inland—where even you cannot come and get me—and lose it altogether, I claim the right to begin the journey of my own accord. I want you to give me again that delicious, soothing treatment, that electric whirring, that takes away ...
— In the Border Country • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... the next room, where Jean became so fascinated by the whirring wheels and the men whose steady hands guided them that it was with difficulty she could be persuaded to ...
— The Story of Glass • Sara Ware Bassett
... been in position more than half an hour—by which time the sun, magnified to twice his size by the evening vapours through which he glowed, palpitating like a ball of white-hot steel, hung upon the very edge of the horizon—when a whirring of wings warned them to be on the alert, and a moment later a flock of some fifty teal, which must have been feeding on some far-off marsh during the day, settled down upon the surface of the water, ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... railing, some three feet in height, shut in the Dingle. Barrett jumped this lightly, and entered forthwith into Paradise. The place was full of nests. As Barrett took a step forward there was a sudden whirring of wings, and a bird rose from a bush close beside him. He went to inspect, and found a nest with seven eggs in it. Only a thrush, of course. As no one ever wants thrushes' eggs the world is over-stocked with them. Still, it gave promise of good things to come. Barrett pushed on through the bushes ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... grass. C., with the .405, stayed to direct and protect the men; while I, with the Springfield, sat down at the head of the ravine. Soon I could hear the shrieks, rattles, shouts, and whistles of the line of men as they beat through the grass. Small grass bucks and hares bounded past me; birds came whirring by. I sat on a little ant hill spying as hard as I could in all directions. Suddenly the beaters fell to dead silence. Guessing this as a signal to me that the beast had been seen, I ran to climb a higher ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... in America, but everywhere to-day, Where snow-crowned mountains hold their heads, the vales where children play, Beside the bench and whirring lathe, on every lake and stream And in the depths of earth below, men share a common dream— The dream our brave forefathers had of freedom and of right, And once again in honor's cause, they ...
— Over Here • Edgar A. Guest
... hand on the buzzer of his coil, and gave a screw a turn. Already the car was losing speed. The fellow behind was coming on like a red-headed whirlwind. For a moment the missing seemed to cease, and the speed surged back to the hum of the whirring gears. ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele
... roof of her house, and a Partridge flew up out of the snow with a great whirring of wings. The Dog followed the Partridge and ...
— Wigwam Evenings - Sioux Folk Tales Retold • Charles Alexander Eastman and Elaine Goodale Eastman
... the wash of the feathery grasses, a sea with many a sun-swept billow, Heart to heart in the heart of the summer, lover by lover asleep they lay, Hearing only the whirring cicala that chirruped awhile at their poppied pillow Faint and sweet as the murmur of men that laboured ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... with the joy of life; the midges dancing over the water in the still sunshine, and the trout jumping for them—oh, it's the bonny, bonny place. You would think so too. You would like it, tramping knee-deep in the heather, to see the moorcock rise whirring at your feet; you would like to set sail with the fisher folk after the silver herring. It would make you feel good to see the calm faces of the shepherds, the peace in the eyes of the women. Ay, that was the best of it all, the Rest of it, the calm of it. I was pretty ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... door closed with a cushioned soft definiteness. The inside of the rocket suddenly seemed extraordinarily still. The silence was oppressive. It was dead. Then there came the whirring of very many electric fans, stirring ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... September weather. About them the air was heavy with the damp odors of decaying leaves, for the road they followed was shut in by the autumn woods, that now arched the way with sere foliage, rustling and whirring and thinly complaining overhead, and now left it open to broad splashes of moonlight, where fallen leaves scuttled about in the wind vortices. Adelais, elate with dancing, chattered of this and that as her gray mare ambled homeward, but ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... turkey gobblers were the most difficult game to stalk. Dale shot two of them. The others began to run like ostriches, thudding over the ground, spreading their wings, and with that running start launched their heavy bodies into whirring flight. They flew low, at about the height of a man from the grass, and ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... The cars were still whirring up and down Stoney Island Avenue when Sommers left the cottage, but he did not think to stop one. Instead, he walked on heedlessly, mechanically, toward the city. Frequently he stumbled and with difficulty saved himself from falling over the dislocated planks of the wooden ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... ever and anon, the tired and sleepy citizens are startled from their dreams by whoops, hurrahs, snatches of songs, and outbursts of rude laughter ringing through the frosty air and mingling with the clattering of horses' feet and the whirring rumble of swift-revolving wheels, as some party of roystering blades, excited by deep potations, drive shouting ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... long braided hair, feathers in his head, and his right hand flourishing a bayonet. The dancing consisted in the actors leaping suddenly to their feet with a whoop, and working the whole body convulsively up and down while standing on their toes, without moving from their position, a monotonous whirring sound being kept up all the time, in which the squaws sitting around assisted. This was kept up long enough for me to sketch one man, when with another whoop and a flourish they sank into a squatting position, the drums still going on unceasingly. After a little rest up they got again, ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... hawk or eagle, the bitter cackling laugh of blue jay or woodpecker, the loon's ghostly cry—solitary notes, and unhappy, as though wrung by pain out of the choking silence; or away on the hillside a grouse began drumming, or a duck went whirring down the long waterway until the sound sank and was overtaken again by the river's ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Joanna became Mrs. Sutherland's right hand, she was always ready to do her bidding. Mrs. Sutherland would call across the room full of shirts and towels and whirring machines, "Mrs. Boyd, my dear, could you find me the back of this shirt? I must have mislaid it." And Joanna would run and wait on her hand and foot, Joanna who used to throw the dishwater so it would splash over into ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... ring in his loud laugh as, with the bullets whirring and whistling about him and a cross fire concentrated upon where he stood, he too leaped down, to begin running, while a burly-looking sergeant literally rolled over the wall, followed by two more men from the rear company, all plainly seen now dashing towards where Lennox was running ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... breast. The dull, dead, half-inanimate leaden crouch Of sheer exhaustion on this shabby couch Is all my week's repose. Read? But the tired eyes close, The book from nerveless fingers drops; Almost the slow heart stops. But the clock halts not on its restless round. Weariness shudders at the whirring sound, As the sharp strike declares Swift to its closing wears One more of those brief interludes from toil Which leave us still the labour-despot's spoil, Slaves of long hours and unrelaxing strain, Unstrengthened and unsolaced, soon again To tread the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 8, 1893 • Various
... meeting us on the shore. It is all so enchantingly fresh and green on one of these rare bright days: the trig lass bleaching her "claes" on the grass by the burn near the little stone bridge; the wild partridges whirring about in pairs; the farm-boy seated on the clean straw in the bottom of his cart, and cracking his whip in mere wanton joy at the sunshine; the pretty cottages, and the gardens with rows of currant and gooseberry bushes hanging thick with fruit that ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... is the lawn-mower. All the birds know this, and that is why, when it is at rest, there is always at least one of them sitting on the handle with his head cocked, wondering how the delicious whirring sound is made. When they find out, they will change their note. As it is, you must sometimes have thought that you heard the mower very early in the morning, and perhaps you peeped in neglige from your lattice window to see who was up so early. It was really ...
— What Every Woman Knows • James M. Barrie
... not sleep. The window stood open, and the room was filled with the soft mysterious twilight of the summer night with its thousand wandering perfumes, its tiny sounds of bats and whirring wings. ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... coincidence, the words were hardly out of his mouth when we heard the familiar warning, the whirring, never-to-be-forgotten sound of the beast known to the Indians as ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... run home and light is come, And dew is cold upon the ground, And the far-off stream is dumb, And the whirring sail goes round, And the whirring sail goes round; Alone and warming his five wits, The white owl in ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... we watched the shimmer of the fireflies. We sat so silently that the only thing to tell us that the wild duck sought his mate amidst the grass, was the swaying of the reed stems, or the rising of the teal with whirring wings. ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper
... was looking round me and the elder Gorman was wriggling about on the floor, Tim worked the lantern behind our backs. The thing, or some part of it, hissed in an alarming way. Then it made a whirring noise and a bright beam of light shot across the room. A very curious thing happened to that light. Instead of splashing against the far wall of the barn, exhibiting the cracks and ridges of the masonry, ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... crowded heart of the city. They passed close to dark houses grimy with the accumulated smoke of many passing locomotives. Great factories loomed before the train, factories where girls looked up for a moment at the whirring cars and turned again to the grinding life of loom or machine. The sight disheartened Phoebe. Was life in the city like that for some girls? How dreadful to be shut up in a factory while outdoors the whole panorama of the seasons moved on! She would miss the fields and woods ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... sought merely a purposeless whirring of machinery. It is important, of course, that every man and woman in the country be able to find work, that every factory run, that business and farming as a whole earn profits. But Government in a democratic Nation ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Super-elephants would say, and quite properly, "What a horrible life!" But it naturally seems stimulating to simians. Boys envy the fellow. On the other hand whenever we are told about factory life, we instinctively shudder to think of enduring such evils. We see some old workman, filling cans with a whirring machine; and we hear the humanitarians telling us, indignant and grieving, that he actually must stand in that nice, warm, dry room every day, safe from storms and wild beasts, and with nothing to do but fill cans; and at once we groan: "How deadly! What monotonous ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day
... to her gaze; she only saw "horribly ugly" inscribed on sky and water. Her soul seemed to leap forward and view nearer the myriad motes that floated in the haze of the future. She leaned over the vast whirring lottery wheel of life, and saw a blank come up, with her name stamped upon it. But the grim smile faded from her lips, and brave endurance looked out from the large, sad ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... adorned with many-colored counterpanes, and hung with natty curtains, showing the skill of the mistress of the house. The other end was my father's workshop, filled with five or six "stocking-frames," whirring with the constant action of five or six pairs of busy hands and feet, and producing right genuine hosiery for the merchants at Hawick and Dumfries. The "closet" was a very small apartment betwixt the other two, having room only for a bed, a little table and a chair, ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... up and down: the bowl was soon emptied by ten wooden spoons, and then the three eldest boys slipped off to bed, being tired with their rough bodily labour in the snow all day, and Dorothea drew her spinning-wheel by the stove and set it whirring, and the little ones got August down upon the old worn wolfskin and clamoured to him for a picture or a story. For August was the artist of ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... small grassy plain, and cheer themselves with the music of their own quiet and self-complacent song. A playful performance on the wind succeeds. Expanding his soft velvet-like plumage, one glides with quivering pinions to the centre of the open space, singing as he flies, then turns with a rapid whirring sound from his wings—somewhat like a child's rattle—and returns to his place again. One by one the others perform the same feat, and continue the sport for hours, striving which can produce the loudest brattle while turning. These games are only played during the season of courting and ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... as the interested Englishman watched, he heard a loud, shrieking, whirring sound, somewhat resembling the very rapid exhaust from a locomotive, and a flash of flame leaped out close alongside one of the guns, followed by a loud explosion and a great cloud of smoke and dust. And when this cloud had cleared away, he saw that ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... But repair'd to hear the music, When the ancient Woinomoinen, When the Father joy awaken'd. E'en at Woinomoinen's harping 'Gainst the hedge the bear up-bounded. There was nothing in the forest On two whirring pinions flying, But with whirl-wind speed did hasten; There was nothing in the ocean, With six fins about that roweth, Or with eight to move delighteth, But repair'd to hear the music. E'en the briny water's mother {38} 'Gainst the beach, breast-forward, ...
— Targum • George Borrow
... pilgrim bark; Crown'd with her pail the tripping milkmaid sings; The whistling ploughman stalks afield; and, hark! Down the rough slope the ponderous waggon rings; Through rustling corn the hare astonish'd springs; Slow tolls the village clock the drowsy hour; The partridge bursts away on whirring wings; Deep mourns the turtle in sequester'd bower, And shrill lark carols clear ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... with almost human faces; small, perky clocks; clocks of strange shape; and one dingy, medium-sized clock in particular which had made her cry out with delight. Her visit had chanced to begin shortly before eleven in the morning, and she had not been in the room ten minutes before there was a whirring, and the majority of the clocks began to announce the hour, each after its own fashion—some with a slow bloom, some with a rapid, bell-like sound. But the medium-sized clock, unexpectedly belying its appearance of being nothing of particular importance, had performed its task ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... a trumpet. The barrel-organ accompanying the wooden horses sent through the air its shrill jerky notes. The lottery-wheel made a whirring sound like that of cloth being torn, and every moment the crack of the rifle could be heard. And the slowly moving throng passed on quietly in front of the booths after the fashion of paste in a fluid condition, with the motions of a flock of sheep and the awkwardness of ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... it ride at that, to my great relief, and didn't talk any more about me at all. As we flew under silent whirring blades, turning our backs on the settled country which lay near the Trade City, we talked about Darkover itself. Forth told me about the trailmen's fever and managed to give me some idea about what the blood fraction was, and why it was necessary to persuade ...
— The Planet Savers • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... whirring, singing sound? Was that a new signal that Barney was trying? Was it—Whirr, s-st! Down like a shot dropped Tam's head, and like an arrow he leaped forward, swerving sideways to escape the danger he had scented,—the danger of a lariat ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry
... wind. On our left was the mouth of a river with the tide running out. While in front, the low flat land stretched away into the mist—which prevented one from seeing very far in any direction. A pair of wild ducks with craning necks and whirring wings passed over us and disappeared like ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... and we 'll be off like a streak of lightning across the hills to New Hampshire. How lucky that Riverboro is only thirty miles from the state line!—It looks like snow, and how I wish it would be something more than a flurry; a regular whizzing, whirring storm that would pack the roads and let us slip over them with ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... answer had been received by the captain of the Adamant, two shells went whirring and shrieking through the air toward Repeller No. 7, and after that the cannonading from the bow, the stern, the starboard, and the port guns of the great battle-ship went on whenever there was a visible object on the ocean which looked in the ...
— The Great War Syndicate • Frank Stockton
... North Breaker Shoal now compelled us to haul off the shore and steam farther out. It began to look ugly for us, when all at once there was a flash from the shore followed by a sound that came like music to our ears,—that of a shell whirring over our heads. It was Fort Fisher, wide awake and warning the gunboats to keep their distance. With a parting broadside they steamed sulkily out of range, and in half an hour we were ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... at stake to get his part of a shoe finished as soon as another man, so as not to clog and balk the whole system, had no time for rebellion. He was in the whirlpool which was mightier than himself and his revolt. After all, a man is a small and helpless factor before his own needs. For a time those whirring machines, which had been evolved in the first place from the brains of men, and partook in a manner of both the spirit and the grosser elements of existence, its higher qualities and its sordid mechanism, ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... years ago, wherein are bright-eyed English girls, Irish colleens and Scots lassies by the ten thousand, whose dexterous fingers flash nimbly to and fro, slender fingers, yet fingers contriving death. I have wandered through a wilderness of whirring driving-belts and humming wheels where men and women, with the same feverish activity, bend above machines whose very hum sang to me of death, while I have watched a cartridge grow from a disc of metal to the hellish contrivance ...
— Great Britain at War • Jeffery Farnol
... she knew of the great presence was a loud whirring of wings; she raised her head, and saw around her a crowd of evil birds. So afraid was she that she gave a loud and sudden cry, and at the sound the ill birds rose and hovered in the air between her ...
— The Story and Song of Black Roderick • Dora Sigerson
... moment of silence, no sound of word, no movement of horse or foot upon the ground. Insects among the trees were grinding their scythes for tomorrow's reaping, it seemed, whirring in loud, harsh chorus such as one never heard out on the ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... the manager, sharply, and the play proceeded, while the young moving picture operator clicked away at the handle of his camera, the long strip of film moving behind the lens with a whirring sound, and registering views of the pantomime of the actors and actresses at the ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Under the Palms - Or Lost in the Wilds of Florida • Laura Lee Hope
... river a native instrument thrummed monotonously, like the whirring of a giant mosquito in the darkness. Everard turned with a slight gesture of impatience and ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... flew out of the hedges, with a whirring sound, to settle further on, while an incessant chatter was kept up on ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... to, she could safely do so, and partly because it irritated Irene, to whom the most forthright interpretation was difficult. Her foot slipped now, through force of habit, upon the hard pedal, and in a moment she heard the whirring ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... makes your heart burn within you with a burning that cleanses and mellows and melts down, that we seem to hear only by getting away from the noise of the whirring ...
— Quiet Talks on the Crowned Christ of Revelation • S. D. Gordon
... great morass lay in white and sinister tangle under the wild spring moon, when the dark and dreadful swamps were rife with horrible croaks and snaps, the whirring of the wings of waterfowl or the noise of a disturbed puff adder, Philip stretched himself upon the seat of the music-machine and slept through the twilight and the early evening. When the camp ahead, glimmering brightly through the live oaks, was silent, ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... it to me. Give me the idea." Corkey's eye brightens. He is a man of ideas, not of words. He has an idea. His head quakes. The tongue begins its whirring like the fan-wheel before the ...
— David Lockwin—The People's Idol • John McGovern
... some of them pause and circle slowly over us, as if to ascertain whether we are dead or not. A small piece of the kopje jerked at them by the most energetic member of our party, usually assures them of the negative, and with a few flaps of their wings they go whirring on. Ugh! I forgot to mention for the edification of any of our lady friends that at night rats emerge from beneath the various rocks and sportively run over one's recumbent form. So, for guarding kopjes, no ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... the dimensions of the room should be measured not in feet, but in acres. It was enormous, but huge as it was it was all too small for the tangle of machinery it contained. To Bonbright's eyes it seemed a tangle. A labyrinth of shafting, countershafting, hung from the high ceiling, from whose whirring pulleys belts descended to rows upon rows of machines below. It looked like some strange sort of lunar forest, or some species of monstrous, magic banyan tree. Here were machines of a hundred uses and shapes, singly, in batteries—a ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... flying on whirring pinions, and sing of the noble and the great, that will still sprout in the hearts of men, down in the town which is ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... them, came tilting along over the sea as if they were alive,—and so they were,—and drew up, as if in order of battle, just before the mouth of the cave; and then a silver trumpet sounded on the shore, and a swarm of hornets appeared, whizzing and whirring all about the cave; and then there was another trumpet, and another, about as loud as you may hear from a caged blue-bottle, and compliments were interchanged, and a salute fired, which frightened the little lady-fairies into all sorts of shapes, and made ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various
... frequency, there would come interruptions, like iron bars striking dark, jagged holes in the tissue of life. From time to time I heard inexplicable noises—the whirring of motors, the skid-skid of tires on invisible streets, the rumble of carts around corners of a world where there were no carts. Again and again those moments of confusion would come over me, when I seemed to be looking into two worlds at once, one superimposed ...
— The Chamber of Life • Green Peyton Wertenbaker
... seem that the birds were coming thicker from all quarters. Doubtless many were going as well as coming, but the mass seemed never to get less. Each bird seemed to sound some note of fear or anger or seeking, and the whirring of wings never ceased nor lessened. The air was full of a muttered throb. No window or barrier could shut out the sound, till the ears of any listener became dulled by the ceaseless murmur. So monotonous it was, so cheerless, so disheartening, so melancholy, that ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... the third day, just at dawn, came a new sound, a great whirring like a thousand racing automobiles, and then two loud explosions, one after the other, different from the roar of cannon or the shots from the field guns that night at El Paso. The whole building shook ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... go, Stumble still on the corpses that sleep below. "What, Francis!" "Give Charlotte my last farewell." Wilder the slaughter roars, fierce and fell. "I'll give——Look, comrades, beware—beware How the bullets behind us are whirring there—— I'll give thy Charlotte thy last farewell, Sleep soft! where death's seeds are the thickest sown, Goes the heart which thy silent heart leaves alone." Hitherward—thitherward reels the fight, Darker and darker comes down the night— Brothers, God grant when this life is o'er, In ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... bird. The flock of chattering birds flew by with whirring wings. "Oop! oop!" called some to ...
— Old Indian Legends • Zitkala-Sa
... ducks begin to fly south, affording excellent sport among the marshes. A week or so after this winter commences, with light falls of snow occasionally, and hard frost during the night. Flocks of snow-birds (the harbingers of cold in autumn, and heat in spring) begin to appear, and soon the whirring wings of the white partridge may be heard among the snow-encompassed willows. The first thaw generally takes place in April; and May is characterised by melting snow, disruption of ice, and the arrival of the first flocks ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... huge. Stark and immense it pointed up at the sky, a mass of steel and glass, set in a huge slab of concrete. Even as they watched the gun moved on its swivel base, whirring underneath. A slim vane turned with the wind, a network of ...
— The Gun • Philip K. Dick
... the hammer of the auctioneer. What an all-powerful thing is an auctioneer's hammer! And now from the great parlors, and the library, and the "hall," and the guest-chambers echo the rattle of spinning-jennies and the dull booming of whirling pulleys. And above the song of whirring wheels came the songs of girls at their work—voices that alone might have been harsh and discordant, but blending with the monotone of the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... cattle country. A billion mosquitoes filled the air with an unceasing low-pitched drone, and settled upon the horses in a close-fitting blanket of gray. The girls tried to fight off the stinging pests that attacked their faces and necks in whirring clouds. But they fought in vain and in vain they endeavored to urge the horses to a quickening of their pace, for impervious alike to the sting of the insects and the blows of the whip, the animals plodded along in the ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... went on for many miles, until, as they approached a cottage by the roadside, Ned thought he heard a familiar air. Indeed, he was sure that something important was about to happen, for the bluebird was whirring around in circles and singing as if her life depended upon the way she ...
— The Magic Soap Bubble • David Cory
... bring me out dear old Welsh nurse's spinning wheel [Exit John into cottage, L. 2 E.] by the side of which I have stood so often, a round eyed baby wondering at its whirring wheel. [Reenter John with wheel, places it near cottage, L. 2 E.] There, that will do famously. I can catch the full scent ...
— Our American Cousin • Tom Taylor
... to see, Thy whirring sound is dear to me: Oh, swiftly turn by night and day, And toil for him that's ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... alligator pear. They filled with fruit the shirts they wore, till they bulged like St. Nicholas, and made many trips between the trees and their canoe. As Dick was standing beside a lime tree, he heard a sound near him like the whirring of a big locust. Dick had never before heard the angry jarring of the rattles of the great king of snakes, but he didn't need to be told the meaning of the blood-curdling sound, which seemed to come from all directions ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... into stillness and grew dim; she was aware of it only as the scene, the region in which one thing, her terror, moved and hunted her. Among sounds of the rustling of leaves, and the soft crush of grass, and the whirring of little wings in fright, she heard it go; it went on the other side of the hedge, a little way behind her as she skirted the wood. She stood still to let it pass her, and she felt that it passed, and that it stopped and waited. A terrified bird flew ...
— The Flaw in the Crystal • May Sinclair
... box?" he said, thinking the old woman was somewhere in the shop. But he got no answer, and sat down without one. Around him were a great many toys of all prices, from a penny up to shillings. All at once he heard a gentle whirring somewhere amongst them. It made him start and look behind him. There were the sails of a windmill going round and round almost close to his ear. He thought at first it must be one of those toys which are wound up and go with clockwork; but no, it was a common ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... reality she was held tortured and struggling all the time in the first grip of that masterful hold wherewith the potter lifts his clay when he lays it on the eternal whirring ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... hundreds of miles around? In the same way I have seen, hundreds of times, motor cars turning around on their owners and chasing them—chasing them fairly out of their lives. And hundreds of thousands of little wood-and-rubber Things with nickel bells whirring, may be seen ordering around people—who pay them for it—in any city ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... over. The birds sing no more, but only chatter about time-tables. The bee keeps to his hive, and the bewildered butterfly, in tattered ball-dress, wonders what has become of his flowery partners. The great cricket factory has shut down. Not a wheel is heard whirring. The squirrel has lost his playful air, and has an anxious manner, as though there were no time to waste before stocking his granary. Everywhere berries have taken the place of buds, and bearded grasses the place of flowers. Even the goldenrod has ...
— October Vagabonds • Richard Le Gallienne
... they said between their yawns. But Jack heard that clock a-whirring and knew he hadn't a moment to lose, so he just gabbled off his orders. Then the clock began to strike, and the little men flew out of the ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel
... either. Nine-tenths of them are traveling the road to ruin, I'm told, and apparently they can't get over the ground too fast. Just look!" and the sages joined in the amused and mournful contemplation of the different types of motors innumerably whirring up and down the drive before them, while they choked in ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... There was a whirring sound inside the Plush Bear as the clock work wheels began to turn, and soon his head moved slowly from side to side, he raised his paws and lowered them, and out of his red mouth came a growling ...
— The Story of a Plush Bear • Laura Lee Hope
... direction, so the pass was no different in color from the rest of the forest floor. When they looked behind them or peered fearfully under the spruce boughs for dwarfs or giants, of course they were not watching the trail carefully, and so, when suddenly there was a loud whirring noise above the trees and a great bird flew almost over their heads, they were so startled they just ran without noticing which way they were going. Bello was startled too, and began to bark. This started the goats, and before you could say "Jack Robinson" children, dog, goats, and all were ...
— The Swiss Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... was, sat in the pose and apparel that the world knows through pictures, and which pigment can never well render any more than it can catch the power of a sunset or an American autumn. The marble-shops were very pleasant places. A whirring sound lulled the senses into dreamy receptiveness, as the stone wheel heavily turned with soft swiftness, giving the impression that here hard matter was controlled to a nicety by airy forces; and a fragrance floated from the wet marble ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... aspiration valves, ignited the divine spark plugs, and whiz! went their motor-meters in a whirring, ...
— The Re-echo Club • Carolyn Wells
... claim infallibility in matters of opinion. A distinguished philosopher and vivisector of three hundred years ago, Rene Descartes, put forth the theory that animals, being without souls, cannot suffer pain, and that their cries under vivisection were simply as the whirring of wheels in an intricate piece of machinery. We can easily imagine a modern follower of Descartes declaring, as the philosopher would have done, that "NO SUFFERING WAS FELT." A professor of physiology in Harvard Medical School, in course of an address before a State medical ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... was strong in his might, and, like his Maker, warmed the northern world into exuberant life. Mosses, poppies, saxifrages, cochlearia, and other hardy plants began to sprout, and migratory birds innumerable—screaming terns, cackling duck, piping plover, auks in dense clouds with loudly whirring wings, trumpeting geese, eider-ducks, burgomasters, etcetera, began to return with all the noisy bustle and joyous excitement of a family on its annual ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne |
