"Rattle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Doctor Brown's bringin' so much typhoid and diphtheria into town just as Hiram 's goin' to get married a tall. She says she 's got enough to worry over about Hiram without that. She says she 's feelin' worse over him every day. She can't talk about it without chokin'. She says she 's got his rattle and his first sock pinned up by the clock, so every time she looks up at the time she can see 'em 'n' cry again. She says it ain't in reason as Lucy 'll ever understand Hiram. She says Hiram 's a very singular disposition, but if you always ask him to do what you don't ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Neighbors' Affairs • Anne Warner
... a mass of blood. They rocked under the shark's movements, which beat them with indescribable fury. Ned Land had not missed his aim. It was the monster's death-rattle. Struck to the heart, it struggled in dreadful convulsions, the shock of ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... noisy, and at last uproarious. The snatches of songs, peals of laughter, and rattle of plates at last grew so loud that the other study-boys were afraid lest one of the masters should come up and catch the revellers. All of them heard every word that was spoken by Eric and his party, as the walls between the rooms were very thin; and very objectionable much ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... corner. The first flag in South Carolina was blue, with a crescent in the corner, and received its first baptism under Moultrie. In 1776, Col. Gadsen presented to Congress a flag to be used by the navy, which consisted of a rattle-snake on a yellow ground, with thirteen rattles, and coiled to strike. The motto was, "Don't tread on me." "The Great Union Flag," as described above, without the crosses, and sometimes with the rattle-snake and ...
— Key-Notes of American Liberty • Various
... on Mike's suggestion that Psmith and himself went in first. Mike knew the limitations of the Wrykyn bowling, and he was convinced that, if they could knock Bruce off, it might be possible to rattle up a score sufficient to give them the game, always provided that Wrykyn collapsed in the second innings. And it seemed to Mike that the wicket would be so bad then that ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... passed, and no fresh light was thrown upon the catastrophe, nor did anything occur to rattle the usual surface of life in the village. A man—it was Torrini, the Italian—got hurt in Dana's iron foundry; one of Blufton's twin girls died; and Mr. Slocum took on a new hand from out of town. That was ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... was over: the rattle of the gravel on the coffin; the last long, lingering look of friends and lovers; the rosemary sprigs had been cast down by all who were fortunate enough to have brought them—and oh! how much Sylvia wished she had ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... back and forth through the wood as he talked. The rattle of the shot-guns never ceased, and the dogs whimpered a little and ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling
... Lark in Lord Towney's cab—again to take up with him, being put down at the end of Bloomsbury Buildings, fearing the rattle of wheels in that quiet cul-de-sac would disturb the old Larks. Having found the door, and spent five minutes by the hinges—searching for the key-hole, he gets within; and spends five more—trying to ignite an extinguisher;—cautiously stealing to bed, throwing his paletot ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... becomes aware of a broad fresh-water lagoon (one arm of which he crosses), and beyond, of a grove of noble palms, sheltering the house of the trader, Mr. Keane. Overhead, the cocos join in a continuous and lofty roof; blackbirds are heard lustily singing; the island cock springs his jubilant rattle and airs his golden plumage; cow-bells sound far and near in the grove; and when you sit in the broad verandah, lulled by this symphony, you may say to yourself, if you are able: 'Better fifty years of Europe . . .' Farther on, the floor of the valley is flat and green, and dotted ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... evening Monmouth's forces amounted to a thousand foot and a hundred and fifty horse. The men were armed as fast as they were enrolled, and scarce a field or quiet avenue in the district but resounded to the tramp of feet, the rattle of weapons, and the sharp orders of the officers who, by drilling, were converting this raw material into soldiers. On the Saturday the rally of the Duke's standard was such that Monmouth threw off at last ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... fled. As when from a steep mountain's precipice-brow Leaps a huge crag, which all-resistless Zeus By stroke of thunderbolt hath hurled from the crest; Crash oakwood copses, echo long ravines, Shudders the forest to its rattle and roar, And flocks therein and herds and wild things flee Scattering, as bounding, whirling, it descends With deadly pitiless onrush; so his foes Fled from the lightning-flash of ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... was struck asunder by the iron mace of Destiny; and the silence was straightway broken by a roar as if of many waters, by the wrathful shouts of armed millions—the thunderings of cannon, blent with the rattle of musketry—the wild shrieks of dismay and suffering—the wailings of sorrow and terror—the shouts of triumph and exultation—the despairing cry of sinking dynasties, and the crash of falling thrones. And with what strange ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... all on deck before the crew had surrounded the wheelhouse. There was a rattle of steamer folded chairs, a pounce by the third mate, and out came the unfortunate ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... the second rank to fix bayonets. The pushing back of the crowd once more. The crack of a revolver. Then the dozen shots fired almost simultaneously. The great surge of the mob forward. The quick order, and the rattle of guns, as they rose to the shoulder. Another order, and the sheet of flame. The great surge of the mob backwards. Then silence. Silence in the ranks. Silence in the mob. Silence in those who lay on the ground between ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... October 1856) "I have ever seen in my life of that kind was the arrival of my friend Mr. Cooke one morning this week, in an open phaeton drawn by two white ponies with black spots all over them (evidently stencilled), who came in at the gate with a little jolt and a rattle, exactly as they come into the Ring when they draw anything, and went round and round the centre bed of the front court, apparently looking for the clown. A multitude of boys who felt them to be no common ponies rushed up in a breathless state—twined themselves like ivy about the railings—and ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... as he was preaching in the day-time, in the parish of Girvin, and being in the fields, one David Mason, then a professor, came in haste trampling upon the people, to be near him. At which he said, There comes the devil's rattle-bag; we do not want him here. After this, the said David became officer and informer in that bounds, running through rattling and summoning the people to their unhappy courts for non-conformity, at which he and ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... is Lord Chiltern again, and I know by the rattle of his horse's feet that something ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... Grandpa Croaker in such a deep bass voice that he made the dishpan on the gas stove rattle as loudly as if Bully or Bawly were drumming on it with a wishbone from the Thanksgiving turkey. "Let me dig the well," went on the old gentleman frog. "I just love to shovel the dirt, and I can dig a well so deep that no fish will ever ...
— Bully and Bawly No-Tail • Howard R. Garis
... fulness of time is come, we alight at Fort-William-Henry Hotel, and all night long through the sentient woods I hear the booming of Johnson's cannon, the rattle of Dieskau's guns, and that wild war-whoop, more terrible than all. Again old Monro watches from his fortress-walls the steadily approaching foe, and looks in vain for help, save to his own brave heart. I see the light of conquest shining in his foeman's ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... he said. "I'm damned if we scapegraces have not missed thy good-looking face. Thou art a fine fellow, Roxholm—and good-natured—ay, and modest, too—for all thy beauty and learning. Many a man, with half thou hast, would wear grand Court airs to a rattle-pated rascal like Tom Tantillion. Wilford does it—and he is but a Viscount, and for all his straight nose and fine eyes but five feet ten. Good Lord! he looks down on us who did not pass well at the University, like a cock ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... acting on Old Tom's report, put Beth into one of her lower classes, and left her to practise with the beginners. When she had gone, Beth glanced at the exercises, and then began to rattle them off at such a rate that no one in the class could keep up with her. Miss ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... the teacher's town in two days and a night; that therefore courtship, and this sweet white hand resting in his, were not impossible. Milt himself did not know what it was that made him lay down the hand and say, so softly that he was but half audible through the rattle of ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... do!" cried the actor above the rattle occasioned by their rapid progress over the cobblestones. "Ring the bell, or we'll ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... I am quite alarmed. Do not talk thus gravely. It is in vain that you speak to me in so sweet a voice. I am frightened even at the rattle of the beads about my neck: take them off, and let us talk on other things. What was it that dropped on the floor as you were speaking? It seemed to shake the room, though it sounded like a pin ...
— English Satires • Various
... I do," said Enid. "I learn the beginning of the history portion almost by heart. Then I look very intelligent and attentive, and when Miss Harper asks me a question, I rattle off a long answer nearly word for word from the book, at such a tremendous rate that she can scarcely follow me, and says, 'That will do, Enid'. It makes her think I know the whole lesson, and she keeps questioning the other girls who've ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... breast As well in darkness as in light, Love shut our eyes, and all seemed right. True, the world's eyes are open now: —Less need for me to disallow Some few that keep Love's zone unbuckled, Peevish as ever to be suckled, Lulled by the same old baby-prattle With intermixture of the rattle, When she would have them creep, stand steady Upon their feet, or walk already, Not to speak of trying to climb. I will be wise another time, And not desire a wall between us, When next I see a church-roof cover So many species of one genus, All with foreheads ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... have it at last—I mean the stranglehold round the enemy's neck. I seem to hear the death rattle in his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 31, 1917 • Various
... uses a piece of grass rope twisted about the pony's lower jaw. His legs droop laxly by the horse's sides. In his right hand he grasps his rifle, resting the butt on the knee. The only sound to break the stillness of the day is the rattle of stones, slipping and sliding down the pathway when loosened by hoofs ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... good night and went to his room. A fire was burning in the grate. At the window there was a rattle of sleet. He lighted his old briar-root pipe and sat down. He had, as usual, ceased to argue with himself; he simply mused. He acknowledged his weakness, and sought a counteracting strength, but found none. But why should he fight against good ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... the honour to eat with her. The pretty Creature her Neice does all she can to be as disagreeable as her Aunt; and if she is not as offensive to the Eye, she is quite as much to the Ear, and makes up all she wants in a confident Air, by a nauseous Rattle of the Nose, when the Snuff is delivered, and the Fingers make the Stops and Closes on the Nostrils. This, perhaps, is not a very courtly Image in speaking of Ladies; that is very true: but where arises the Offence? Is it in those who commit, or those who ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... shattered by the response. For at his first subdued rap, a dog with a penetratingly strident bark set up a perfectly detestable clamour within the house. It was just as if Jervaise's touch on the door had liberated the spring of some awful rattle. Every lovely impulse of the night must have fled dismayed, back into the peace and beauty of the wood; and I was more than half inclined ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... spaniel-like affection are, on this ground, consistently recommended as the cardinal virtues of the sex; and, disregarding the arbitrary economy of nature, one writer has declared that it is masculine for a woman to be melancholy. She was created to be the toy of man, his rattle, and it must jingle in his ears, whenever, dismissing reason, he ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... when the orator was dreaming that he had been chosen Grand Master of the Brotherhood, his wife stole out of the room and put the things in Bennie's sock, and then, just to please Bennie, she put a rubber rattle in the baby's little stocking. Her husband, being a great thinker, would not consent to having his hosiery hung up, so she would wait till breakfast time and hide the gloves under his plate. Then she went over to tuck the cover ...
— Snow on the Headlight - A Story of the Great Burlington Strike • Cy Warman
... head, he looked at the sea, and beheld there Dimly the shadowy form of the Mayflower riding at anchor, Rocked on the rising tide, and ready to sail on the morrow; Heard the voices of men through the mist, the rattle of cordage 370 Thrown on the deck, the shouts of the mate, and the sailors' "Ay, ay, Sir!" Clear and distinct, but not loud, in the dripping air of the twilight. Still for a moment he stood, and listened, ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson
... live in the new life within her. She first felt it, going into her old nursery, where everything was the same as it had been when she first saw it, a child of eight; there was her old red doll's house, the whole side of which opened to display the various floors; the worn Venetian blinds, the rattle of whose fall had sounded in her ears so many hundred times; the high fender, near which she had lain so often on the floor, her chin on her hands, reading Grimm, or "Alice in Wonderland," or histories of England. Here, too, perhaps this new ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... him rattle out of the yard and pass over the crest of the hill. Then with a strange sense of comfort and companionship she went back to her aunt's room. She sat there until dusk, watching the sleeping woman ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... a curse, the clink of coin, the rattle of dice, the scuffle of slippered feet, the low swish of the loose-garbed Chinese attendants went on interminably. Jimmie Dale began to toss uneasily from side to side of his bunk, and began to ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... then some Fate, Or, some men say, Athene the gray-eyed, Ever his friend, never far from his side, Prompted him look about him. Then he heeds A stork set motionless in the dry reeds That lift their withered arms, a skeleton host, Long after winter and her aching frost Are gone, and rattle in the spring's soft breeze Dry bones, as if to daunt the budding trees And warn them of the summer's wrath to come. Still sat the bird, as fast asleep or numb With cold, her head half-buried in her breast, With close-shut eyes: a dead bird on the nest, ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... draggin' me in for dinner with 'em. She's some dream too, the way she's got herself up, and lighted up by the pink candleshades, with them big pansy eyes sparkling and the color comin' and goin' in her cheeks—say, it most made me dizzy to look. Then to hear her rattle on in her cute, kittenish way was better'n a cabaret show. Mostly, though, it's aimed at me; while Nick Talbot is left to play a thinkin' part. He sits watchin' her with sort of a dumb, hungry look, like a ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... as if it were just getting ready to leap over and take possession. But the hilarious Koli balances himself on the sloping thwarts and jumps and sings and claps his hands, while the pipes screech and the drums rattle. Twice, or three times, does the whole fleet go out over the bar and wheel and return, each boat racing to be first, with no more sense of danger ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... gruff responses of her sire, an eager whisper ran through the group;—the King and Queen had entered the royal box! This was quite unexpected, and Zelma was aghast. Involuntarily, she stretched out her hand and grasped that of her husband;—as she did so, the rattle of the chains on her wrist betrayed her. The attendants looked round and smiled;—Lawrence frowned and turned away, with a boy's pettishness. He had been more than usually moody that day; but Zelma had believed him troubled for ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... my new acquaintances was a careless, rattle-brained youth known as Toby Robinson, who in spite of some histrionic ability was constantly losing his job and always in debt. He was a smooth-faced, rather stout, good-natured-looking person, of the sort who is never ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... impact of a man falling on his shoulder with a bullet through his back and the death-rattle in his throat. At this shot, perhaps directed against himself, he felt himself stirred up to rage; and he was plunging forward when a National ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... crying out that the wine boiled like the bowl of Pluto. He was writhing in one of those paroxysms of rage, which justified posterity in regarding him as a madman. The howling of Tiberius resounded among the verdure, as the rattle of a snake might do when it raises its deadly crest from its lair among the flowers. Quick as thought at the first sound of those inexorable accents, the grove was thronged with the revellers. They jostled each other in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... Mr. Antwerp at least to put the young man on the second trick, so that in a measure I could have him under my eye. But no, nothing but the third trick would satisfy him, so on the third trick the rattle-brained chap went the ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... thunder; but night or day the sound of the staccato of that little arch devil of killing, the machine gun, coming from the Ridge seemed as true an expression of what was always going on there as a rattlesnake's rattle is of its character. Delville and High Woods and Guillemont and Longueval and the Switch Trench—these are symbolic names of that attrition, of the heroism of British persistence which would not ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... kindled there, startled her: the room looked unnatural, uncanny, because it was cheerful. She stood for a moment on the hearth, and in sad, dreamy mood listened to the howling swoops of the wind, making the house quiver and shake. Now and then would come a greater gust, and rattle the window as if in fierce anger at its exclusion, then go shrieking and wailing through the dark heaven. Mechanically she took her New Testament, and, seating herself in a low chair by the fire, tried to read; but she could ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... Now it has ceased, but still the gnat keeps up its sharp whirr; across the pleasant, persistent, fretful buzz of the flies sounds the hum of a big bee, constantly knocking its head against the ceiling; a cock crows in the street, hoarsely prolonging the last note; there is the rattle of a cart; in the village a gate is creaking. Then the jarring voice of a peasant woman, "What?" "Hey, you are my little sweetheart," cries Anton to the little two-year-old girl he is dandling in his arms. "Fetch the kvas," repeats the same woman's ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... very happy afterwards. They were, no doubt, well enough suited to each other. But neither of them was suited to a life on Salissa. Monotony preyed on them. They both suffered from a kind of homesickness, an aching hunger for streets, theatres, shops, the rattle of traffic, the glitter of city life at night. They would have been good friends if they had been able to live their proper lives. Even on Salissa King Konrad Karl remained a lover. But they bickered a great deal and sometimes openly quarrelled. Then ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... for us. We could stand it a little while, maybe. The grass is fine and smooth for dancing, but these lights, like suns, that they have all around on the tops of the poles, are terrible. Do they want no night at all here? And then what a noise there is! It's nothing but rattle and roar all day, and then the boats do be screeching ...
— Fairies and Folk of Ireland • William Henry Frost
... of hoofbeats on the dusty road, and the rattle of some many-jointed vehicle, with ...
— Tom Swift and his Wireless Message • Victor Appleton
... splashed home with a rattle of cable that vibrated through the ship, when a small white boat shot out from behind the smart Kittiwake, impelled by the short and regular beat of ten oars. There was a man seated in the stern enveloped in a large black boat cloak—for Gibraltar harbour is choppy when the westerly breezes ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... on a cross-country flight the other day, heard something rattle and absent-mindedly climbed out to look ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... on the sand the keel of a boat, and someone stepped ashore. From the woods there emerged the shadowy forms of three men. Nothing was said, but they got silently into the boat, which might have been Charon's craft for all he could see of it. The rattle of the rowlocks and the plash of oars followed, while a voice cautioned the rowers to make less noise. It was evident that some belated fugitives were eluding the authorities of both countries. Renmark ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... house—by what I could not say—I felt they were all waiting, and that I should delay no longer. Leaving my report unfinished I rose, put on my sola hat, and startling the dark, shady, desolate path with the rattle of my carriage, I reached the vast silent palace standing on the gloomy skirts ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... troops without some pecuniary assistance, offered him at length a small sum, which was gladly accepted, though much below the original demand. The troops were engaged in the service of France; and the duke of Hanover thought himself happy in being able to amuse himself at his leisure with the rattle ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... about it," broke in Novodvoroff. "The masses always worship power only. The government is in power, and they worship it and hate us. To-morrow we shall have the power, and they will worship us," he said with his grating voice. At that moment a volley of abuse and the rattle of chains sounded from behind the wall, something was heard thumping against it and screaming and shrieking, some one was being beaten, and some one was calling out, ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... necessity of showing that Paris could set the Joyeuse household, sunny in its poverty, over against the stately elegance of the Mora palace, the walls of which listened at one and the same moment to the music of a ball and the death-rattle of its haughty owner. But when all is said, it remains clear that The Nabob is open to the charge that applies to all the greater novels save Sapho—the charge that it exhibits a somewhat inharmonious mixture ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... if a man knows how to do so properly, he may on a quiet evening hear the rabbits answering him all around. These animals, as well as some others, also stamp on the ground when made angry. Porcupines rattle their quills and vibrate their tails when angered; and one behaved in this manner when a live snake was placed in its compartment. The tail of the quills on the tail are very different from those on the body: they are short, hollow, thin like a goose-quill, with their ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... have taken a love for military appearance during the visit of Sargon, for the Assyrians will have a better opinion touching Egypt. Our most worthy viceroy, enlightened by the gods, as is evident, has divined that just now it is necessary to rattle our swords when we have with us the ambassadors of such a military people. I am certain that this valiant bearing of our youth will give Sargon something to think of, and will make him more ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... fire; and when we have arrived at the foot of the wide white Scalinata of the Trinita di Monti, the whole expanse from top to bottom shines with unmitigated and unsupportable splendour. No importunate beggar can stand and rattle his tin box on the summit, and if he could, there is no passenger to heed or hear him; the Sabine model belle is not there to offer herself to the first artist who wants a madonna or a saint, nor amateur bandits, nor faun-like children playing on the steps; even ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... Bethune, too, was in flames, so we were not sorry to be leaving the sector. Most thankful of all were the transport drivers, for there are not many worse places than the Loos road, and few more desolate spots than Philosophe coal mine on a dark wet night, when the wind is making the loose sheets of iron rattle, and the horses have ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... up softly towards where a huge tree rose like a pillar to a tremendous height before sending out a branch, and there, just dimly seen in the soft twilight beneath the canopy of leaves, were several huge birds, which took flight with a great rattle of wings ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... grey of dawn. From the distant field roads came the rumble of a peasant's cart. Wilhelmine dressed herself hurriedly and tiptoed down the dark stair to the house door. The broad street, the Graben, was deserted and silent, save for an occasional rattle in the direction of the market-place, where the peasants were arriving from the country with their carts heaped up with fresh fruit and vegetables. She walked up the street, delighting in the coolness and the scent of the morning air after ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... his window, saw the carriage rattle past, and saw his friend leaning back in it, with alert eyes, to scan every woman passing by. He stood on the balcony for a moment till the noise of the wheels on the stone pavement died away. When he returned to his writing-table the mood for work was gone. He sat down in his chair. He took ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... and, with some sort of press, press the head down, so that the apples shall remain firm and full under all kinds of handling. Apples may be pressed too much as well as too little. If pressed so that many are broken, and badly broken, they will soon get loose and rattle in the barrels, and nothing spoils them sooner than this. What we want is to have them just so they shall be sure to remain firm, and carefully shaking so as to have them well settled together, has as ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... done my best, but it is too late. In three hours, or perhaps four, all will be over." He quitted the room, and Olive heard the rattle of his carriage wheels. They died away down the gravel road, and all was silent Silent, except the twitter of a few birds, heard through the stillness of a July evening. Olive stood at the window and mechanically looked out. It was so beautiful, so calm. ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... moving up the pass. The rattle of the wheels has ceased, the sun has made his appearance, and the awakened passengers are disposed to listen to tales of wild adventures. The loquacious are ready with an abundant supply. The best of these is the tale of "The Artist among ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... went to his berth in the men's quarters. The anchor had been cast loose, and the cable put in condition to run out. Christy had hardly reached his berth before he heard the rattle of the chain, and ...
— Stand By The Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... other plays, he used to make his entrance in the skin of the part. No need for him to rattle a ladder at the side to get up excitement and illusion, as another actor is said to have done. He walked on and was the simple-minded old clergyman, just as he had walked on a prince in "Hamlet" and a king in ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... back to him, let himself stiffly down into a chair and dropped his crutches with a rattle of hard wood. Being a cripple was growing painful, besides being very inconvenient. The male half of Lund had practically suspended business that day to hover around him and exchange comments upon ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... said George Whitefield, "is fond of fishing in muddy waters" — hence it is, I suppose, that that grand demagogue has always been so fond of war — that sunshine and basking time of rogues, which calls them out, thick as May-day sun calls out the rattle-snakes from ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... inconvenience in the end. Be sure, before you begin, that your trunk is in good order, and that you have the key. And when you shut it for the last time, do not leave the straps sticking out upon the outside. Put your heavy things at the bottom, packing them tightly, so that they will not rattle about when the trunk is reversed. Put the small articles in the tray. Anything which will be likely to be scratched or defaced by rubbing, should be wrapped in a handkerchief and laid among soft ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... birch or hemlock. Every man was afoot, none caring to risk a fall upon the rocks or into the black, cold water of the pools. The hoofs of the horses and the spurs of the men clanked against the stones; now and then one of the heavily laden packhorses stumbled and was sworn at, and once a warning rattle, issuing from a rank growth of fern on the hillside, caused a momentary commotion. There was no more laughter, or whistling, or calling from the van to the rear guard. The way was arduous, and every man must watch his footsteps; moreover, the last rays of the sun were ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... with the wise old reptiles that inhabit it: above all see if the lights which illumine it be the eyes of those snakes, or dazzling meteors shining by their own light, or precious stones lit up by the beams of the sun. And thou must bring me a tooth from the jaw of a living king, and a rattle from his tail, and an eye from his skull. When thou shalt bring us an account of these things, the hand of my daughter shall accompany her heart, and the one shall become, as the other hath been, ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... glass on the dressing-table, and he uttered a cry, but felt confused and puzzled directly after; for his common sense told him that, if the lieutenant had tried to poison himself, whatever he had taken would not have gone off with a tremendous bang inside and made the windows rattle. ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... driving sweep changed to a rattle and a crackle. The rain had turned to hail, and it was like the patter of rifle fire on ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... Jack, mutely questioning. "I wonder if—" He gave Surry a hasty, farewell slap on the shoulder and went out into the sunshine and the clamor of voices and laughter, with the creaking of carts threaded through it all. The faint, unmistakable rattle of a wagon driven rapidly, came towards them. While they stood listening, came also a confused jumble of voices emitting sounds which the two guessed were intended for a song. A little later, above the high-pitched ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... reckless hour, it occurred to poor Corvick to take his young bride a drive. He had no command of that business: this had been brought home to me of old in a little tour we had once made together in a dogcart. In a dogcart he perched his companion for a rattle over Devonshire hills, on one of the likeliest of which he brought his horse, who, it was true, had bolted, down with such violence that the occupants of the cart were hurled forward and that he fell horribly on his head. He was killed on ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James
... he waited patiently, and then came the rattle of wheels, and loud voices and laughter, as a vehicle drew up at the ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... as it neared the town station in Calais, and Gaultier's voice could be momentarily heard above the diminishing rattle. ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... 1874." But it was his own name that he sought wearily and confusedly. When he at last found it his hand grew firmer, and he finished his note, in upright and bold characters: "Died of heart disease, November 7, 1873." This was the supreme effort, the rattle in his throat increased, everything was fading into nothingness, when he perceived the blank leaf above Clotilde's name. His vision grew dark, his fingers could no longer hold the pencil, but he was still able to add, in unsteady letters, into which passed the tortured ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... Koku spun the propeller blades, Tom grasped the steering wheel, and, tilting the elevating rudder, he was soon soaring into the air, he and his craft becoming smaller and smaller as they were lost to sight in the distance, while the rattle and roar of the powerful ...
— Tom Swift and his Photo Telephone • Victor Appleton
... assailant; he held Staunton so firmly in his gripe, that the poor youth could scarcely breathe out a faint and feeble d—ye of defiance, and with his disengaged hand he made such an admirable use of his rattle, that we were surrounded in ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... saying might be fulfilled. Soon—ha, yes, in a few short hours the feud should be ended once and for all and the house of Conisby avenged to the uttermost. Thinking thus, I heeded no more the raving tempest around me until, roused by the plunge and rattle of the gibbet-chains, I raised my head and shaking my staff up at that black and shrivelled thing, I laughed loud and fierce, and, even as I did so, there leapt a great blaze of crackling flame and thereafter a thunder-clap that seemed to shake the very earth and ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... stern vertically upwards, and as she did, the lights in the cabins and saloons, which until then had not flickered for a moment, died out, came on again for a single flash, and finally went altogether. At the same time the machinery roared down through the vessel with a rattle and a groaning that could be heard for miles, the weirdest sound surely that could be heard in the middle of the ocean, a thousand miles away from land. But this was not yet ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... again so soon, only to laugh at my last letter. What a dupe was I! at my years to be dazzled with glory! to be charmed with the rattle of drums and trumpets, till I fancied myself at Cressy or Poictiers! In the middle of all this dream of conquest, just when I had settled in what room of my castle I would lodge the Duke of Alen'con or Montpensier, or whatever illustrious ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... rascal, I admit that. But you didn't prove anything. You showed me the baby clothes you said John Massey wore when he was stolen. The name might easily enough have been stamped on the linen later. You showed me a silver rattle marked 'John Massey.' The inscription might also easily enough have been added later at a crook's convenience. You showed me some letters purporting to have been written by the woman who stole the child and was too much frightened ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... clapper. Simplicity itself. The feathers in the hat next me are bright and pleasing as a child's rattle. The leaf on the plane-tree flashes green through the chink in the ...
— Monday or Tuesday • Virginia Woolf
... younkers! You "guy" "the old gang" as "played out," As fogies, and fussers, and funkers, You've over-much reason, no doubt. But, great Scott! as your rowing-rhymes rattle And lilt lyric praise of the Crews, We too sniff the air of the battle! We too have a Fit ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, March 18, 1893 • Various
... performed outside our grounds. The domestics were enjoined to conduct their operations with the utmost quietude. Carriages never came to the threshold, but stopped at the lodge; the drives were strewn with bark to drown the rattle of wheels; familiar fowls and beasts were excluded; the pines were cut down, though they had moaned for half a century; the angles of the house were rounded, that the wind might not scream and sigh of midnight, and the flapping of a shutter would have warranted the dismissal ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... chattered—and he did so rattle along that it was quite impossible for anyone to get in a word—there was a movement outside which was ominous had Allen but ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan
... vacillating one, as fortune and knowledge of the game favour; the result is uninfluenced by any thing of his doing; with the last turned card of the croupier is he rich or ruined; and thus in the very abstraction of the anxiety is this the most painfully exciting of all gambling whatever; the very rattle of the dice-box to the hazard player is a relief; and the thought that he is in some way instrumental in his good or bad fortune gives a turn to his thoughts. There is something so like the inevitable character ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... The day and night rattle and bang of the city may go unnoticed for years but eventually it takes its toll. Then comes a great longing to get away from it all. If family income is independent of salary earned by a city job, there is nothing to the problem. Free from a desk in some skyscraper that father must tend from ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... before, but the shrill wail of the curlew is never sounded from knoll to knoll now. The horn lantern is not seen by the roadsides, nor the quick flashlight that signalled the coast was clear; and the rattle of the horses' hoofs on the stones during the mystic night is never now heard. There is nothing to indicate, in fact, that this lonely, superb piece of England was once (not so long ago) a great centre of illicit trading. The smuggler and Revenue man have disappeared, ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... tried to enfeeble his firm spirit with her lures of love, contending and constantly averring that he ought to offer the first dues of the marriage bed in wedlock with her, who had proffered to his childhood most zealous and careful fostering, and had furnished him with his first rattle. ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... had quick parts and high spirits, though her mind was uncultivated, and she was totally void of judgment or discretion: she was careless of giving offence, and indifferent to all that was thought of her; the delight of her life was to create wonder by her rattle, and whether that wonder was to her advantage or discredit, she did not for a moment ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... him, Abdul's anxious ears heard the ominous rattle in the dying man's throat, he turned his face Mecca-wards and reverently closed his eyes. At the same moment the faithful who had gathered round him—among whom were some of the inhabitants of the Bedouin village, for the presence ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... continuous rattle now from the edges of the wood, and the air was full of bullets. The assailants were all trained shots, men who lived by their guns, and to whom a shaking hand or a dim eye meant poverty and hunger. Every slit and crack and loop-hole ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the pot; and when she got home she shut all the doors and windows, and took away the cloth, and turned the pot upside down upon her hearthstone. What was her surprise to find that, instead of the deadly snake which she expected to see fall out of it, there fell out with a rattle and a clang a most magnificent necklace of ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... had referred me to the botanist Hartman, in case of need, but I determined to commence by helping myself. I had a little difficulty at first: the people are unused to speaking with foreigners, and if you ask them to talk slowly, they invariably rattle away twice as fast as before. I went into a variety shop on the public square, and asked where I could engage horses for Sundsvall. After making myself understood, as I supposed, the clerk handed me some new bridles. By dint of blundering, I gradually circumscribed the range of ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... courage, and with all their might bent to their work. With a vigorous push and a great rattle of stones the cart went up ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy
... joined Leigh. As the time went on they began to fear that, for some reason or other, the Vendeans had determined to delay their attack until the next day. At half past two Charette's cannonade redoubled in vigour, and the rattle of musketry showed that his troops were advancing. The batteries of the defenders opened with equal violence, and their musketry answered that of the assailants on ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... the rattle of the omnibuses, the street cries, the cascades in the gutters; and even in the workroom, when she was sorting the false pearls even at night, in her own home, when she went, after dinner, to breathe ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... and his limbs already cold, the Chaamba breathed a death rattle in Morhange's arms. I had seized one of his hands. Eg-Anteouen took the other. Each, in his own way, was trying to ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... get married, then, if marriage be so very desirable?" said Miss Henly, smiling at the customary rattle of her companion: "he can easily get a ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper
... blur on the limitless white, rarely a town, a few wooden houses clustering around a green dome and gilt crosses, but it is all very mournful and depressing, especially to one fresh from Europe. This train has one advantage, there is no rattle or roar about it, as it steals like a silent ghost across the desolate steppes. As a cure for insomnia it would be invaluable, and we therefore sleep a good deal, but most of the day is passed in the restaurant. Here the military element is generally ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... over among some seats, heard a shouting and the whirring rattle of weapons, struggled up and was knocked back again, perceived that a number of black-badged men were all about him firing at the rebels below, leaping from seat to seat, crouching among the seats to reload. Instinctively ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... tramping, and shook with their tread, until Taffy thought the cave roof would fall in and bury them all. The air resounded with the rattle of arms, as the men, when in ranks, marked time, ready for motion forward and out ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis
... my finish, then," wailed poor, fat Nick, shaking his head sorrowfully. "The vibration always was just fierce, and now it'll just rattle me, so I'll be only skin and bones. You'll be calling me the Living Skeleton before we ever get to ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel
... clapped more steam on, a short distance behind him. Our Helen M'Gregor still kept the lead; who the devil could have helped racing? No one, of a certainty, except such a mackerel-blooded Yankee as old Lambton. All was heat and steam, rattle and clatter; the engines thumping, the water splashing, the fire blazing and roaring out of the chimneys, which sent out clouds of smoke and showers of sparks. The enemy was close upon us, Father George's honest face almost in a line with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... the bar and keeping Louis Meyer and his father busy with drink orders, and the other two-thirds was huddled round a roulette layout across the room. They was wedged in so tight I couldn't see the table, but I could hear the little ball click when it slowed up, and the rattle of chips, and squeals from them that won, and hoarse mutters from ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... joyously. Never had he welcomed a storm as he would have welcomed it tonight. But the skies remained clear. Not only that, but the stars as they began to appear seemed to him more brilliant than he had ever seen them before. And it was very still. The rattle of a scow-chain came up to him from the river as though it were only a hundred yards away. He knew that it was one of Mooie's dogs he heard howling over near the sawmill. The owls, flitting past his window, seemed to click their beaks more loudly than last night. A dozen ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood
... sorcerer's canoe were formed of living rattlesnakes, whose heads pointed outward to guard him from his enemies. Being invited, he had no sooner stepped into the canoe, than they began to hiss and rattle furiously, which put him in a great fright; but the magician spoke to them, when they became pacified and quiet. Shortly after they were at the landing upon the island. The marriage took place immediately; and ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... Pettingill with a load of brooms. Wall, we all took a long breath, and got ready to see some as tall bargainin' as wuz ever done in Punkin Centre. 'Cause Si, he could see a bargain through a six-inch plank on a dark night, and Ezra could hear a dollar bill rattle in a bag of feathers a mile off, and we all felt mighty sartin suthin' wuz a goin' to happen. Wall, Si, he sort er stood 'round, didn't say much, and Ezra got most uncommonly busy—he had more business than a ...
— Uncles Josh's Punkin Centre Stories • Cal Stewart
... would offer two rupees, and, after a few minutes' bargaining, they took it quite cheerfully, the thing probably not being worth eight annas. I bought a prayer-wheel. It is a round silver thing with a handle rather like a child's rattle, and inside are slips of paper covered with writing. These are the prayers, and at intervals you twirl the wheel round, and the oftener you turn it the more ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... when yon usher, vinegar-faced rogue that he is, began to inquire what Popish trangam you were wearing.—By the mass, the metal would have been confiscated for conscience-sake, like your other rattle-trap yonder at Avenel, which Mistress Lilias bears about on her shoes in the guise of a pair of shoe-buckles—This comes of carrying Popish nicknackets ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... went forth as a disciple of the temperance cause. Remembering his experiences on the way to London he furnished himself with a watchman's rattle, with which he used to call together the people of the villages ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross
... enter into an argument with her; and in the midst of my speech some wretched turnkey who has found Gryphus with the death-rattle in his throat, or perhaps actually dead, will come along and put his hand on my shoulder. Then I shall see the Buytenhof again, and the gleam of that infernal sword,—which will not stop half-way a second time, but will make acquaintance with the nape ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... Serpent, the Sacred Snake— Wolf, bear and fox By the silent shores of river and lake Tread softly, listening lest they wake My voice that mocks The rattle that falling bones will make ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... their vitality, he declared, see their leaves stir and open as though their roots were yet firmly and warmly embedded in well-manured soil. And here, in the markets, he added, he heard the death-rattle of all the kitchen gardens ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... inhabitants of this. You ask me why I believe in his conviction—well, my answer would be so mundane that you might perhaps laugh at my logic. But one at least I can give, and it is this; that, in my experience of mediums and professional spiritualists, one always, as it were, hears the rattle of the collection-box behind the "messages" from another sphere—either that, or the person is so eccentric that "mediumship" in his case has become merely another form of mental affliction. Well, the artist who sent ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... six miles an hour, the long train winding like a snake around the edges of precipices and feeling its way gingerly over the trestles that spanned the deep valleys. All trains made a great roar and rattle then, and the long ravines gave it back in a rumbling and menacing echo. Gusts of rain were swept now and then into the faces of the engineer, the firemen ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... guests from the beginning of a meal. Another paid us an early morning call. Then for nearly three weeks we enjoyed undisturbed rest at night. Not once did the "alerte" send us shivering to damp cellars; not once did we hear the deep "boom" followed by a savage jar and rattle which differentiates the falling bomb or torpedo from the cannon. We said, fatuously, that we believed all the airplanes were engaged up on the English front, and that at last our mastery of the air must ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... well the morning of the great discovery. It was one of those damp, rainy, grey days when happy people can afford to realise contentment indoors, and we were a very comfortable group indeed: Margarita sorting music, Roger drawing plans for a new chimney, Miss Jencks shaking a coral rattle for the delectation of the tiny Mary, who lay in her shallow basket under the lee of the great spinning-wheel, and I hugging the fire and watching them. I considered Roger's reforms in the matter of chimneys too thorough-going for the slender ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... start with," he interrupted; "but there are other things," he added, turning a little toward me and looking me in the face. "Suppose she didn't turn out just as you thought! She's a wild, high-spirited sort of creature—is Eve. She loves the music and the rattle of life. I can't fancy her in one of those out-of-the-way, God-forsaken little mudholes you call an English village, sitting in an early-Victorian drawing-room all the afternoon, waiting for the vicar's wife to come to tea, and taking a walk before dinner for entertainment, ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... only brought uproarious merriment from Challenger. He laughed until everything in the room seemed to rattle and quiver. ...
— The Poison Belt • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a month, and they'd turned out a month like that, not even their best friends would have kicked. And here we'd been makin' hay, and makin' hay, the ranch people thanking Providence that prairie grass cures on the stem, while we cussed, for we were sick of the sight of hay. I got so the rattle of a mower give me hysterics. We were picked because we were steady and reliable, but one day we bunched the job. Says I, 'Here; we've cut grass for four solid months, includin' Sundays and legal holidays, although the ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... martial music floated through the open windows—at first low and gentle, then bursting loud and clear, with the rattle of drums, the screaming of reeds and the clash of cymbals, as a band came nearer along the avenue and approached the corner of the street. The invalid's face lit up—he made a motion to rise hastily from the sofa—a sudden spasm of pain crossed his countenance, and he fell ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... mentioned entered the room, in the order named; the usual salutations followed, and all took their seats at table. Captain Willoughby was silent and thoughtful at first, leaving his son to rattle on, in a way that betokened care, in his view of the matter, quite as much as it betokened light-heartedness in those of his mother and sisters. The chaplain was rather more communicative than his friend; but he, too, seemed restless, ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... impossible to procure a seat. But the dining-room is the Grand Turk's greatest attraction, for as soon as the dessert is over the head waiter makes a sign, and dishes and tablecloths are cleared away in a moment. The dining-room becomes a cafe, and the click of dominoes gives way to the rattle of forks, while beer flows freely. This, however, is nothing, for, at a second signal, huge folding doors are thrown open, and the strains of an orchestra ring out as an invitation to the ball, to which all diners are allowed free entrance. ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... Rattle-snakes, bears, rock-slides, avalanches, steep descents, and many other hazards, to say nothing of numerous attacks by unfriendly tribes of Red Indians, fill the pages of this book with terrifying and perilous situations. Not a long book, but very ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... hurrying the men along to the great drawbridge, over which the horses' hoofs began to rattle loudly. But they had not gone half-way across the moat before there was the rustle of a dress in front, and, looking ghastly pale and her eyes wild with excitement, Lady Royland came hurrying ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... was grim and stirring. The men's voices vibrated with war-like wrath. They were impatient for battles, charges, the kind of fighting that is done between great armies on the open field, when there is the roar and smoke of cannon, the rattle of small firearms, the clash of steel, the cries of captains, the shrieks and groans of wounded, the plenteous spilling of blood. They were hungry ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... keeping up smiles with Lord Mountclere, the rattle and shaking, and the general excitements of the chase across the water and along the rail, a face in which she saw a dim reflex of her mother's was soothing in the extreme, and Ethelberta went up to the ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy |
