"Rattle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pictures of good Sir Roger de Coverley, Will Honeycomb, and the rest of that happy crew. And over what portrait do we linger more lovingly than that of the Spectator himself, wherein there is many a stroke of the pen that brings Addison in view. When he tells us, for instance: "I threw away my rattle before I was two months old, and would not make use of my coral until they had taken away the bells from it," the writer is indulging in a pretty bit of humour at the expense ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... minutes no sound was heard save the regular rattle of the oars in the rowlocks, the swish of the foam as it flew from the cutwater, and the occasional sob or gasp of the men as they exerted themselves to the utmost limit of their powers in the ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne
... I can assure you. Sometimes they rattle out the maddest of mad waltzes—such as that which the imprudent German young lady, living near the Harz Mountains, found herself dancing one day against her will, when she had given expression to the very improper statement, ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... had been principally maintained by artillery; the rattle of musketry coming occasionally from one or another part of Reno's line. But now, the whole line was pushing against the rebel line, and the continued roll of musketry told of close work for the infantry. Reno's troops on the left and Hooker's on the right, were doing noble fighting. The advancing ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... no reply in words, but looked about him. Within the blackened area of the great shop about two hundred men were at work. The whirl of machinery was constant. The grind of steel on iron was blended with the rattle of chains and the rolling of the metal carriages in their tracks. The Genius of Railroading seemed present in the grim strength and rapidity of several machines which moved almost as if instinct with intelligence, and played with the most unyielding ...
— Robert Hardy's Seven Days - A Dream and Its Consequences • Charles Monroe Sheldon
... Olga, or give her his address. Olga was risking Fanny's address. She stood looking at the letter now. Theodore was coming in for dinner, as he did five nights out of the week. As she stood in the hallway, she heard the rattle of his key in the lock. She flew down the hall and into her bedroom, her letters in her hand. She opened her dressing table drawer and threw them into it, switched on the light and turned to face ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... an entirely different type. Big, husky, happy-go-lucky—a poor student but a right jolly companion; a fellow who could pitch into any kind of sport and play an uncommonly good game at almost anything. More than that, he could rattle off ragtime untiringly and his nimble fingers could catch up on the piano any tune he heard whistled. What wonder he speedily became the idol of Colversham? He was a born leader, tactfully marshaling ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... the bank-notes which I had in my fob, I began to fear they had come to the knowledge of this circumstance; though I could not imagine by what means. Some short time afterward, perhaps a quarter of an hour, the bolts and chains of my door again began to rattle, and one person singly came in. It was dark, and I could not distinguish his features, but I recollected his form: it was the gambler Mac Fane; the sound of his voice presently put it ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... and parlour. He had hung the hammock there a little while before, and he threw himself into it with a sigh of relief. Swinging back and forth in the shelter of the vines, the feeling of comfort began to steal over him that comes with the relaxation of tired muscles. The rattle of dishes and aroma of hot coffee coming out to him were pleasantly suggestive ...
— Flip's "Islands of Providence" • Annie Fellows Johnston
... cases distinguished by bright colours and ornamental appendages. During their amours and duels certain male fishes flash with beautiful and glowing colours. Reptiles exhibit the same form of sexual-passion, and jealous combat of rival males. The rattle of certain snakes is supposed to act as a love-call. Snakes of different sexes appear to feel some affection for each other when confined together in cages. Romanes relates the interesting fact that when a cobra is killed, its mate is often found on the spot a day or two afterwards. ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... not been feeling well, and the proprietor determined to let the captive see the sunshine. So they started out together, the lion walking along as quietly as a spaniel. When the six lions in the cage saw their comrade out for a stroll they gave a chorus of roars which made the windows rattle. It was answered from the roadway, and six guards who stood by thought discretion the better part of valor, and started on a run for the viaduct. Mr. Hagenbeck called them back and told them it was all right, but they still kept a ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... represents the rattlesnake." It certainly represents a snake, but there is no hint in it of the peculiarities of the rattlesnake; which, indeed, it would be difficult to portray in a rude carving like this without showing the rattle. This is done in another ...
— Animal Carvings from Mounds of the Mississippi Valley • Henry W. Henshaw
... of his presence, leaving him alone in the great house with the black page. And this house was shunned as though marked with the cross of the pestilence. The more high-spirited Jew-boys would throw stones at its windows or rattle its doors, but it was even keener sport to run after its tenant himself, on the rare occasions when he appeared in the streets, to spit out like their elders at the sight of him, to pelt him with mud, and to shout after him, ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... of vermilion, Your ravishing shape, The flogging postillion, The village agape, The rattle and thunder Of postchaise a-speed . . . My woman, ...
— Many Voices • E. Nesbit
... abstract myself from the present, when for a moment I can turn my eyes away from all the crimes, from all the blood spilt, from all the victims, from all the proscribed, from those hulks that echo the death rattle, from those deadful penal settlements of Lambessa and Cayenne, where death is swift, from that exile where death is slow, from this vote, from this oath, from this vast stain of shame inflicted upon France, which ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... colonel comes. The adjutant and the sergeant-major leave the orderly-room. A little group of officers stands back in the shadow. They are there to see their comrades off. A sharp order is given. There is a rattle of arms and accoutrements. The waiting men stand to attention. The colonel makes his progress up and down the line of men, taking a last look at their equipment. An orderly carrying a lantern goes before him. He inspects each man minutely. Now and then he speaks a few words in a low tone. Otherwise ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... 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 ...
— Bully and Bawly No-Tail • Howard R. Garis
... Desailles presently 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 ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... corpulent frame of this mighty burgher now gave all the symptoms of a volcanic mountain on the point of an eruption. First, there was a certain heaving of the abdomen, not unlike an earthquake; then was emitted a cloud of tobacco smoke from that crater, his mouth; then there was a kind of rattle in the throat, as if the idea were working its way up through a region of phlegm; then there were several disjointed members of a sentence thrown out, ending in a cough; at length his voice forced its way in the slow, but absolute tone of a man who feels ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... of Torn was filled with the rush and rattle of preparation early the following morning, for by eight o'clock the column was to march. The courtyard was filled with hurrying squires and lackeys. War horses were being groomed and caparisoned; sumpter beasts, snubbed to great posts, were being laden with the tents, bedding, and belongings ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... his eyes around that chamber. His search was not in vain. He almost trampled upon the thing that lay at his feet,—a wooden rattle, the toy older than the Egyptian pyramids. He seized it, shook it as a warrior his sword. He scanned it eagerly. Upon the handle were letters carved, but there was a mist before his eyes which took long to pass away. Then he read the rude inscription: ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... one day dar come a mighty knockin' on Brer B'ar's do'. Brer B'ar, he holla out, he did. 'Who dat come a-knockin' dis time er de year, 'fo' de corn's done planted, er de cotton-crap's pitched?' De one at de do' make a big noise, an' rattle de hinges. Brer B'ar holla out, he did, 'Don't t'ar down my house! Who is you, anyhow, an' what you want?' An' de answer come, 'I'm one an' darfo' not two; ef youer mo' dan one, who is you an' what you doin' ...
— Uncle Remus and Brer Rabbit • Joel Chandler Harris
... 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 thought, with a smile, that if Yates were in his place ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... an old lady's flower-garden, through which they carry it with a surprising head into the fields beyond, when they begin to fall into line, and the sportsmen doing the same—"one at a time and it will last the longer"—"Tummas" tootles his horn, the hunt is up, and away they all rattle at "Parliament pace," ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... an immense parasol in the stern of his state canoe, propelled by a score of naked, black paddlers in white loin-cloths and scarlet cricket-caps, coming to call on us. This was evidently his intention, for the accommodation ladder went down with a rattle, and the canoe with her twenty spear-shaped paddles swung alongside like a naval pinnace, and a fat old chap, dressed in a vast white flannel nightgown with a sort of dress-shirt front pleated on it in blue thread, came slowly up the ladder. Came up ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... to the bookstall and bought some magazines for Audrey to take with her. She did not approve of magazines as a rule. Audrey did, though, and was overjoyed at having them; but while she was trying to get a peep at the contents there came the sound of a shrill whistle, then a rattle and a roar, and the train thundered down on the ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... Banks heard the rattle of the musketry on the left, and saw from the smoke of the Confederate guns that Sherman was engaged, he ordered Augur forward. Augur, as has been said, had been ready and waiting all day. His arrangements were to make the attack with ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... forehead, think you were three years older than you really are. I wish—if I dare wish you anything different—that you were! It makes me uncomfortable to remember that I am—what? Almost half a year your elder as time flies:—not really, for your brain was born long before mine began to rattle in its shell. You say quite old things, and quietly, as if you had had them in your mind ten years already. When you told me about your two old pensioners, the blind man and his wife, whom you brought to so funny a reconciliation, ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... sailor, too, and that's just what he did.... And she was just such a girl, one who couldn't say no, and believed everything a man told her. He was going to come back again—of course. 'When you hear the trap-door of the loft rattle, that'll be me,' he told her. But the trap-door rattled several times, and he didn't come. Then she hanged herself from the trap-door with a rope. Howling Peter came on to the parish. And you know how they all scorned ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... of rivets. The "Dimbula" was very strongly built, and every piece of her had a letter or a number or both to describe it, and every piece had been hammered or forged or rolled or punched by man and had lived in the roar and rattle of the shipyard for months. Therefore, every piece had its own separate voice in exact proportion to the amount of trouble spent upon it. Cast iron, as a rule, says very little; but mild steel plates and ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... was lost the sharp rattle of musketry continued some time, but practically the fight had been already won by Hooker's men, the enemy only holding on with a rear-guard to assure his retreat across Chattanooga Valley to Missionary Ridge. Later we heard very heavy cannonading, ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 3 • P. H. Sheridan
... the room. Baffled and angry, Lynda dared not trust herself to speak and Truedale sank back wearily. Then came a rattle of wheels in the quiet street—a ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... She heard the rattle of a tin cup against the jug. As she moved carefully down the way toward the spring, Blatch's voice followed ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... and is besides a man of such influence that, if once he should approve of your play, his patronage will support it against all the efforts of envy and ignorance; for, I do assure you, that merit alone will not bring success. I have already spoken of your performance to Lord Rattle, and if you will call at my house in a day or two, you shall have a letter of introduction to his lordship." I was sensibly touched with this mark of Mr. Supple's friendship; and looking upon my affair as already done, ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... he began to rattle his pans at a great rate while I waited in silence. He was not accomplishing much; indeed, he really was throwing things into a state of general disorder. But I observed that he was working methodically round the galley toward where I stood, until at last he bumped into me and started ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... dust ruts, the wheels squeaking indignantly at the encounter, and then with a terrifying expression he gave the steering-gear a final wrench and deposited self and car approximately in front of the Happer steps. There was a heaving sound, a death-rattle, followed by a short silence; and then the air was ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... "Pierre Philibert!" exclaimed he, "where is the poor lad? He must be sought for and saved yet. What demons have assailed him now? Was it the serpent of strong drink, that bites men mad, or the legion of fiends that rattle the dice-box in their ears? Or was it the last temptation, which never fails when all else has been tried in ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... ever reviving, and the diffusion of a hundred talents, ingenuities, experiments. The summer clouds made shadows on the roof of the great building; the white images, hard in their crudity, spotted the place with provocations; the rattle of plates at the restaurant sounded sociable in the distance, and our young man congratulated himself more than ever that he had not missed his chance. He felt how it would help him to settle something. At the moment he made this reflexion his eye fell upon a person who appeared—just in the first ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... figure, disfigured with crying—whilst Amy watched her breathlessly. She opened the door and listened. Every one seemed to be asleep, except that in the room next door she heard hushed voices and the tread of careful feet, then the rattle of a cup and Dick's cough. She opened the door as gently as she could and looked in. The blind was up and a fire burning. The tent of blankets had been pulled down, and Dick, with the poultice still on his chest, was sitting up in bed, wrapped in a ...
— Troublesome Comforts - A Story for Children • Geraldine Glasgow
... aunt Deborah," he answered. "You know I had to put in a bag of straw to fill up, when I came on,—I couldn't have things rattle around." ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... drums and fifes up in the Castle are sounding the guard-call through the dark, and there is a great rattle of carriages without. I have had (I must tell you) my bed taken out of this room, so that I am alone in it with my books and two tables, and two chairs, and a coal-skuttle (or SCUTTLE) (?) and a DEBRIS of broken pipes in a corner, and my old school play-box, so full ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... as of one hewing timber; I rode for it, and soon found that the hovel I had passed thrice was the desired homestead; truly, it was fitting that the possible descendant of the king-maker should reveal himself by the rattle ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... fellow. I'm not going to live long anyhow. It's on my chest ... Do you hear it rattle, old boy? Listen! Just listen! Listen to me, not to my dearie. When we're dead, we're out of it! We'll not get another drop! An' then we'll sleep till judgment day in the pitch-dark grave. Then you'll be ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... evening; the click of the pick, the rattle of the cradle, the splashing of the water-buckets—all were still. Outwardly the day had been kept strictly as a day of rest by all. Beneath a tall tree stood, in the dress of a minister of the gospel, ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... satchel, set it upon my lap, and looked out of the window at you all, as well as I could for crying, till the train gave a jerk that made my teeth rattle, and moved on. ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... polled cow used to annoy me in this way when I was a dweller in a certain pastoral city. I more than half suspected she was turned in by some one; so one day I watched. Presently I heard the gate-latch rattle; the gate swung open, and in walked the old buffalo. On seeing me she turned and ran like a horse. I then fastened the gate on the inside and watched again. After long waiting the old cow came quickly round the corner and approached the gate. She lifted the latch with ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... books have been bound in enamel, (richly variegated in color) in Persian silk, in seal-skin, in the skin of the rabbit, white-bear, crocodile, cat, dog, mole, tiger, otter, buffalo, wolf, and even rattle-snake. A favorite modern leather for purses and satchels, alligator-skin, has been also applied to the clothing of books. Many eccentric fancies have been exemplified in book-binding, but the acme of gruesome oddity has been reached by binding books in human skin, of which many examples ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... than it has yet received. Such a hall, if located upstairs in such a building, would have been open to three objections: it would have monopolized, for occasional use only, space which was required for constant use; it would have been intolerably noisy, by reason of the roar and rattle in the streets which surround the building on all sides; and it would have been dangerous, as all such places are, when great audiences must make their exit by going down stairs. Nothing has ever been invented ...
— Peter Cooper - The Riverside Biographical Series, Number 4 • Rossiter W. Raymond
... there finding both door and hatch open, I went in and knocked 3 or 4 times, and nobody came to me, which troubled me mightily; at last came Margaret, who complained of Peter, who by and by came in, and I did rattle him soundly for it. I did afterwards take occasion to talk seriously alone with Margaret, who I find a very discreet, good woman, and tells me, upon my demand, that her master is a very good husband, and minds his business well, but his fault is that he has ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... oh doctor to me. Do as I tell you. That's your business." After which he marched out, and the rattle of his motor car ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... rift leading down to the canyon was soon found, and this time Bart approached cautiously, lest there should be another of the rattle-tailed snakes lurking in a crevice of the rock; but this time they had nothing of the kind to encounter. A magnificent deer, though, sprang from a dense thicket, and Bart's rifle, like that of Joses, was at his ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... centuries. He thought of it as his toes scraped along the granite behind him. Once when he put out his hands near the cave opening, they fell upon what felt like cloth. Something gave before his touch with a dry rattle as of bones. He drew back with the morbid thought that they really were bones. Perhaps some other poor devil had made his ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... great warriors stream before me—the green-jacketed chasseurs, the giant cuirassiers, Poniatowsky's lancers, the white-mantled dragoons, the nodding bearskins of the horse grenadiers. And then there comes the thick, low rattle of the drums, and through wreaths of dust and smoke I see the line of high bonnets, the row of brown faces, the swing and toss of the long, red plumes amid the sloping lines of steel. And there rides Ney with his red head, and Lefebvre ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... on that subject, and we will let it pass" he would say, with a smile, and then he would start some other topic, and rattle on delightfully ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... a scale of grandeur proportioned to his country, which, as he observes in his Travels in England, is "bigger and more like a world" than our boasted land; instead, therefore, of going about in confined, close carriages as people do here, the Americans will rattle through the streets to their routs and parties in their houses. One tenanted brick building will be driven up to the door of another. A further improvement may here be suggested. Jonathan is fond of chairs with rockers, that is, chairs with a cradle-bottom, on which he see-saws ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 269, August 18, 1827 • Various
... flight is powerful. The company of pilgrims, when at rest, afford much amusement to onlookers, and as they have the habit of constantly clacking their bills together, it will be easily believed that the uproar thus caused is a terrible nuisance. Colonel Irby likens the noise to a rattle, and if you will try to imagine the effect of hundreds of rattles, you may, perhaps, be able to form some notion of the disturbance that these storks create at the time when they are enjoying ...
— Little Folks (December 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... 829; laughable &c. (ludicrous) 853; witty &c. 842; fun, festive, festal; jovial, jolly, jocund, roguish, rompish[obs3]; playful, playful as a kitten; sportive, ludibrious|. funny; very funny, hilarious, uproarious, side-splitting. amused &c. v.; "pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw" [Pope]; laughing &c. v.; risible; ready to burst, ready to split, ready to die with laughter; convulsed with laughter, rolling in the aisles. Adv. "on the light fantastic toe" [Milton], at play, in sport. Int. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... conversation was in progress, Lord Seacliff was enjoying a refreshing sleep in his room on the fourth floor. Two hours passed. The noise of the traffic in the street below faded away. Only the rattle of an occasional belated cab broke the silence. In the hotel all was still. Mr. Brewster had gone to bed. Archie, in his room, smoked meditatively. Peace may have ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... not the sort of thing at all," she said, as she glanced at them impatiently. "What I want is something that'll just hit 'em in the jaw and make their front teeth rattle." ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... became flooded, the roads filled with mud, and insects and birds were scarcer than ever. On December Lath, in the afternoon, we had a sharp earthquake shock, which made the house and furniture shale and rattle for five minutes, and the trees and shrubs wave as if a gust of wind had passed over them. About the middle of December I removed to the village, in order more easily to explore the district to the west of it, and to be near the sea when I wished to return to Ternate. ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... the massive anvils ring,— Clang! clang! a hundred hammers swing, Like the thunder-rattle of a tropic sky, The mighty blows still multiply: Clang! clang! Say, brothers of the dusky brow, What are ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... Then there was a metallic clash, for the second rifle shot from the land had scored a fair bull's-eye among the clustered aerial wires. There was a rattle, and some of the ...
— The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless - The Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise • H. Irving Hancock
... good-natured a fellow as ever lived; a little of a rattle; but that will recommend him to your sex, I believe: and how do you like ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... added torment of seeing that box of chocolates doled out to that poor child at the rate of two pieces a day. They aren't gone yet, but I'll warrant they're as hard as bullets—those wretched bonbons. I picked the box up yesterday. You should have heard it rattle! ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... heard in our ranks. Suddenly he drops a hundred yards and more through the air and makes a skillful loop toward the rear. Our warrior of the air swoops after him, tackles him once more and again we hear the wild defiant rattle of the machine guns over our heads. Now they are quite close to our trenches. The French infantry and artillery begin firing in a last desperate hope. Neither of them is touched. Sticking close above and behind him the German drives the Englishman along some six hundred ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... face of Donkin leaning high-shouldered over the after-rail became grave. Something like a weak rattle was heard through the forecastle door. It became a murmur; it ended in a sighing groan. The washerman plunged both his arms into the tub abruptly; the cook became more crestfallen than an exposed backslider; the boatswain moved his shoulders uneasily; the carpenter got ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... is Nadine. She is pale, and appears to be so exhausted that I momentarily expect her to faint and remain suspended by the chains that rattle as she sobs. With a negative motion of her head and a few words, she assures me that the crisis is passed, that her arms pain her very much, and that she is very thirsty. Chained a few steps away, I cannot render her the slightest aid, and the thought of my helplessness is a cruel suffering. ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... years he had planted from eight to twelve acres of corn each year and had not lost twenty hills by crows. He does not use tar, but does not allow himself to go out of a newly-planted cornfield without first stretching a string around it on high poles and also providing a wind-mill with a little rattle box on it to make a noise. With him this ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various
... near, and called out to him, to let him know what I had fallen upon. He took it very lightly, and as he seemed inclined to laugh at me for being afraid, I determined to keep my place. I knew that so long as I could hear the rattle I was safe, for these snakes never make a noise when they are in motion. Accordingly I continued my work, and the noise which I made with cutting and breaking the trees kept him in alarm; so that I had the rattle to show me his ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... gun and fired. His shots rang out like the rattle of a maxim gun, so swiftly did he empty the six chambers. In a few moments they were once more on their way to ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... little part to play, as well as the best of them. Still, such a change is often in reality a serious one to a young woman; and you need not be told that no animal will allow itself to be caught without an effort. When you see her, therefore, pluck up your spirits, rattle away, laugh and jest, so as, if possible, to get her into good humor, and there is no danger of you. Or stay—I am wrong. Had you followed this advice, it would have played the deuce with you. Don't be merry. On the contrary, ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... and progression, and when a stretcher was mentioned grew positively furious, and insisted that, as he had a conveyance of his own, he should be taken to whatever destination they chose to select for him on, or rather in, that vehicle. Accordingly a rattle was sprung, and duly answered by two or three more of those alphabetical gentlemen who emanate from Scotland-yard, by whose united efforts the refractory musician was carried out in triumph, firmly and safely seated in his own ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... nerve-racking tilt to one side, the creaking of wood and the rattle of metal, a careening, and then the machine came to a stop, not exactly on a level keel, but at least right side up, in the ...
— Tom Swift among the Fire Fighters - or, Battling with Flames from the Air • Victor Appleton
... an old secretary which stood in the room, threw back the lid of the writing-desk, and sitting down before it, accompanied herself with a vigor which made the old desk rattle as she sang that ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... with Napoleon. He loved his mother to adoration. Anxiously he sat at the window watching, hour after hour, for her arrival. At midnight on the 19th the rattle of her carriage-wheels was heard, as she entered the court-yard of their dwelling in the Rue Chantereine. Eugene rushed to his mother's arms. Napoleon had ever been the most courteous of husbands. Whenever Josephine returned, even from an ordinary morning ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... cynicism, no meanness; Aimwell refuses to marry Dorinda under any deception. They thoroughly good fellows at bottom, manly, accomplished his spirited, eloquent, generous—the forerunners of Charles Surfor. Marriage retrieves them and turns them into respectable and adoring husbands. Though rattle-brained, much given to gallantry, and somewhat lax in morality, they are not knaves or monsters; they do not inspire disgust. Even the lumpish blockhead, Squire Sullen—according to Macaulay a type of the main ...
— The Beaux-Stratagem • George Farquhar
... silently kill him with a knife. If the plan worked successfully, Jean meant to work round to the next rustler. Laying aside his rifle, he crawled forward on hands and knees, making no more sound than a cat. His approach was slow. He had to pick his way, be careful not to break twigs nor rattle stones. His buckskin garments made no sound against the brush. Jean located the rustler sitting on the top of the ridge in the center of an open space. He was alone. Jean saw the dull-red end of the cigarette he was smoking. The ground on the ridge top was rocky and not ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... by a gooseherd, a boy also no less to be marvelled at than the other. For, as it is rare to hear of a gelded gander, so is it strange to me to see or hear of geese to be led to the field like sheep; yet so it is, and their gooseherd carrieth a rattle of paper or parchment with him when he goeth about in the morning to gather his goslings together, the noise whereof cometh no sooner to their ears than they fall to gaggling, and hasten to go with him. If it happen ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... names have not displaced the native ones, as they did in Wales and elsewhere, and amongst some of our far Eastern Indians. But there were terrifying and repulsive names as well, such as Sese kenapik kaow apeoo, "She sits like a rattle-snake"; and one individual rejoiced in the appalling surname of "Grand Bastard." These instances serve to illustrate the tendency of half-breed nomenclature at the lake towards the mother's side. Here, too, there was no reserve in giving the family name; it was given at once when asked for, and ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair
... as his head sank between his shoulders like a turtle's head. Then once again the wind swooped down on the castle, and whistled down the chimney, and filled the great hall with a thin noise like the death-rattle of men. The cresset wavered ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... supremely want to go right, but rather to gratify inclinations, tastes, or passions. God is speaking to us, but if we make such a riot with the yelpings of our own kennelled desires and lusts, and listen to the rattle and noise of the street and the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... become of him. One day, as he was wasting time at a street-corner in Aldersgate, there came up to him a broad-shouldered, sandy-haired man in a blue reefer suit, who showed all his teeth when he smiled and whose voice had a sharp rattle in it like a bag full of gold coins. This noticeable man hailed Joe as a fine fellow, and asked the fine fellow whether he wouldn't step with him into a convenient tavern and wet his whistle with a glass of the ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... pitching, the atmosphere was fairly pleasant and lively. Everybody seemed to have forgotten his fear. The passengers, cracking jokes and clinging to the nearest stationary thing, reeled and stumbled into the dining-room. The rattle of china near the kitchen was deafening, especially when, as frequently happened, some of the ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... the crash of cymbals, rattle of tambourines and beating of tomtoms, the barbaric Ethiopians of the dancing orchestra began their syncopated outrages against every known law of harmony—swinging weirdly into the bewitching, tickling, tingling rhythm ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... silver-gray, making a grand rattle among the plates and glasses, "some wine! some water! some ink! an omelette! a writing-pad! ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... paint was peeling. A step was heard within, and the little shutter which closed the grated peephole in the panel of the door was drawn back; the eyes and forehead band of a nun appeared for an instant in the opening; and then with a rattle of keys the door was hastily opened and the little porteress, with ruddy cheeks and a shy smile, stood aside to let Evelyn pass in. She kissed the hand of Monsignor as he turned to her with a kindly word of salutation. "The Reverend ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... and the windows to rattle all through that day and the greater part of the next, and it was not till the evening of the third day that Valmai ventured to put on her cloak and pay a visit to Nance's cottage. The tide was low as she crossed the Rock ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... left my lips, when we heard the door-chain rattle. Then the bolts were pulled back, and a moment later the door was carefully drawn open to the ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... and most kinds of pictorial representation—the image of a boy's kite or a girl's battledore not less than the design upon a lacquered casquet or enameled vase,—the figure upon a workman's trowel not less than the pattern of the girdle of a princess,—the shape of the paper doll or wooden rattle bought for a baby, not less than the forms of those colossal Ni-O who guard the gateways of ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... about no hoss!" (My throat begin to rattle!) "I see," he said, "another loss In them ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IX (of X) • Various
... Ventisei seems to be a valet de place of the first century, and yourselves a set of blond barbarians to whom he is showing off the splendors of one of the most brilliant towns of the empire of Titus. Those sad furrows in the pavement become vocal with the joyous rattle of chariot-wheels on a sudden, and you prudently step up on the narrow sidewalks and rub along by the little shops of wine, and grain, and oil, with which the thrifty voluptuaries of Pompeii flanked their ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... soldiers and worshippers then assembled. Most of those who heard these warlike sounds betook themselves to their weapons, as if they considered it useless to wait any longer for the signal of conflict. Hoarse voices, rude exclamations, the rattle of swords against their sheaths, or their clashing against other pieces of armour, gave an awful presage of an onset, which, however, was for a time averted by the exhortations of the bishop. A second flourish of trumpets having taken ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... 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 ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan
... nimble foe. Again Percy, standing motionless until his assailant was almost within arm's-length, avoided his attack; and again Jabe brought up against the other wall with a force that made the boards rattle. ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... place from which Christ Church started. By this means I kept up for quite a long way, but it would be untrue to say I enjoyed myself. We began to gain on Christ Church at once, and were very soon within half-a-length of them, but I had no breath to use for shouting, and not having a rattle I could make no row at all; moreover I am an erratic runner, so whenever I looked at the boats I kicked or ran into somebody, and I could not retort when they said things to me. I pounded along as far as the ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... sky, the steady glare of a burning barn here and there reddened the blackness. The village dead, under the pelted sod, must have shuddered at the din. Even the moments of lull were saturate with terrors. In them rose audible the roar of waters, the clatter of frightened animals, the rattle of gates, the shouts of voices, the click of heels on the flags of the streets, as the villagers hurried to the succor of neighbors fighting fires out on the hills. For long afterward the tempest of that night was remembered. For hours while it lasted, trees were toppled over, and houses rocked ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... would not sit down nor speak above a whisper till he had put the whole breadth of the isle between himself and his monarch, then harmlessly asleep; and even there, even within a stone-cast of the outer sea, our talk covered by the sound of the surf and the rattle of the wind among the palms, continued to speak guardedly, softening his silver voice (which rang loud enough in the chorus) and looking about him like a man in fear of spies. The strange thing is ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... at a rapid pace towards Kolyvan when distant firing struck his ear. He stopped, and clearly distinguished the dull roar of artillery, and above it a crisp rattle ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... ammunition and ration; that their canteens are full, their horses (if mounted) are in good condition, not of a conspicuous color and not given to neighing, and that there is nothing about the equipment to rattle or glisten. The patrol leader should also see that the men have nothing with them (maps, orders, letters, newspapers, etc.) that, if captured, would give the enemy valuable information. This is a more important inspection ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... sound; and they scarcely ever touch each other. I hear the grind of heavy traffic, the struggle of horses on the frost- breathed ground, the decorous jolt of omnibuses, the jangle of cab bells, the sharp warning of bicycles at the corner, the swift rattle of costers' carts as they go south at night with their shouting, goading crew. All these things I hear, and more; but I see no road, only the silent river of my heart with its tale of wonder and years, and the white beat of seagulls' wings ...
— The Roadmender • Michael Fairless
... Harry, without drawing rein, was about to follow. But suddenly, weirdly, the rickety walls of the deserted house gave forth a sound, a rattle and a crash, and from a shuttered window beside the low-silled door bellied ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... assented Jane. "But don't worry, Maud. If there is one line of action I like better than another it is that of laying ghosts. Whizz, whack, bang! I'll make the bones rattle if they ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... union the Indians were produced. (G.M. Dawson, "Report on the Queen Charlotte Islands" (Montreal, 1880), pages 149B sq. ("Geological Survey of Canada"); F. Poole, "Queen Charlotte Islands", page 136.) The Delaware Indians called the rattle-snake their grandfather and would on no account destroy one of these reptiles, believing that were they to do so the whole race of rattle-snakes would rise up and bite them. Under the influence of the white man, however, their respect for their grandfather the rattle-snake gradually ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... ambition, and its rewards. He spoke with such bitter disdain of great names and great deeds. "Children of a larger growth they were," said he, one day, in answer to her defence of the luminaries of their kind, "allured by baubles as poor as the rattle and the doll's house. How many have been made great, as the word is, by their vices! Paltry craft won command to Themistocles; to escape his duns, the profligate Caesar heads an army, and achieves his laurels; Brutus, the aristocrat, stabs his patron, ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the competition last thirty years! The gilt sheaf fades, the cavities in the big loaf are observed; but the ugly little man round the corner comes steadily into favor, and all the town, at length, is noisy in the morning with the rattle of his carts. The particular caterer for our morning repast, now under consideration, has achieved a success of this kind, against every possible obstacle, and under every possible disadvantage. He had no friends at the start, he ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... on his fingers, an invigorating reel, And could imitate a piper on the handles of the wheel; He could play in double octaves, too, all up and down the rail, Or rattle off a rondo on ...
— The Admiral's Caravan • Charles E. Carryl
... betook me with all speed to the Weiss Thor, where I judged the chief struggle would take place. And as I came I heard the rattle of shot and the jarring thunder of the forehammers. The soldiers without shouted, and the men within ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... lists of the slam who slumber On the Danube's battle-plains The unknown hosts outnumber Who die 'neath the "Danube's" strains? Those fall where cannons rattle, 'Mid the rain of shot and shell; But these, in a fiercer battle, Find death in the ...
— Poems of Passion • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... cock. The chief is complete, Warmed in the smokehouse till the dried feathers rattle, With changing colors, like many-colored paddles, like piles of polished Kahili. The feathers rise and fall at the ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... them on all-fours, more than one tear pattered on the dusty floor. Poor fellow! he was Triplet, and could not have died without tingeing the death-rattle with some absurdity; but, after all, he was a father driven to despair; a castle-builder, with his work rudely scattered; an artist, brutally crushed and insulted by ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... finally ready, we brought up the animals in the morning to fit their saddles and packs to them. One very quiet animal was packed with some camp-kettles, coffee-pots, and other cooking traps. As soon as he was let loose and heard the tinware rattle he broke and ran, bringing up in a quagmire up to his sides. The saddle had turned, and his hind feet stepping into the pack well nigh ...
— In the Early Days along the Overland Trail in Nebraska Territory, in 1852 • Gilbert L. Cole
... who knows her very well, and who first had introduced her to me on my settling here, was much amused with her rattle; and General Bud'e is always pleased with anything bordering upon the ridiculous. Our evening therefore ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... building was torn away, exposing the iron construction beneath. The next moment similar sheets of flame and smoke smote the front of the building across the street opposite it. Between the explosions we could hear the rattle of the automatic pistols and rifles. For several minutes this mid-air battle continued, then died out. It was patent that our comrades were in one building, that Mercenaries were in the other, and that they were fighting across the street. But we could ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... with its head turning coquettishly from side to side, singing snatches from 'La Grande Duchcsse', and clad like Sheba's queen! I stake all my pennies on a chance in the raffle, which has a 'consolation prize' hidden away from vulgar gaze. By and by the dice rattle, and over my head, quite out of my reach, is borne the coveted beauty (owned now by a girl I know), bowing and singing to the new owner, who exultantly exhibits her as she departs; and into my outstretched arms falls something hideous enough to play Medusa in a tableau, a rag baby with ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... dogs barking. Father, thinking timber wolves were around, went out with a gun. He saw nothing till he got to the corrals. Then mother, watching from her window, saw the flash of several guns, and heard the rattle of their reports. Father dropped. Then the gang of murderers roused out the stock, and some drove it off, while others wantonly fired the buildings. It was Red Mask, sir, for he came up to the ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... means the same. She took to the mathematical subjects indifferently, absorbing them well enough—once she could be talked into spending the couple of hours that each day demanded—but without interest. Martha could rattle off quotations from literary masters, she could follow the score of most operas (her voice was a bit off-key but she knew what was going on) and she enjoyed all of the available information on keeping a house in order. Her ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... A husky rattle told of the end, and he dropped the woman's body from his steely grip, disengaging the pigtail with a swift movement of his head. Opening and closing his yellow fingers to restore circulation, he stood looking down at her. He spat upon ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... never crosses the path of man if he can help it. The most deadly is that which is too sluggish to get out of his way—therefore bites in self-defense. And the serpent generally gives some warning hiss, or a rattle. Indeed, almost every animal gives warning of its foul intent. The shark turns over before seizing its prey. But the false friend (I am obliged to couple these words) takes you in without changing his side.... In truth, a man, if he has a vice, be it treachery or any other, goes a ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... here the heart of the new-wedded wife, Coming from church with her beloved lord, He startles with the rattle of his drum. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... the traitor rest, He, the deceiver, Who would win maiden's breast, Ruin, and leave her? In the lost battle, Borne down by the flying, Where mingles war's rattle With groans of the dying; Eleu loro There shall he ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... never speak of this again. Are you made of stone, man? Why, the dread and horror of death itself, the thoughts of the man who stands in the keen morning air on the black platform, bound, the bell tolling in his ears, and waits for the harsh rattle of the bolt, are as nothing compared to this. I will not read it; I should ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen
... Ancient Woman of the Elder People, who carried her heart in her rattle and was deathless of wounds in the body, led the enemy, crying out shrilly. So it fell out ill for our fathers. For, moreover, thunder raged and confused their warriors, rain descended and blinded ...
— Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest • Katharine Berry Judson
... been of late a great deal of building, and the crumbling nature of the stone keeps the mason and white-washer perpetually at work. It is lively, though monotonous, for its broad, straight streets are astir with business, and the rattle of hackney-carriages, heavy-laden vans, and tramway-cars is incessant. It boasts many private palaces and has few public edifices, and in its municipal institutions it is, or used to be, taxed with consulting rather more the purposes of luxury and ornament than the real wants of the ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... He could do sums to the admiration of class and teacher, and, Cuvier-like, evolve an entire flock from Colburn's two geese and a half. His memory was prodigious. He could name the Presidents, bound the States and Territories, and rattle off the list of prepositions so fast that you could almost see the spark-shower from his rushing wheels of thought. It was an understood thing among us, when Sam was in his teens, that he should at least enter ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... at first, in a solemn and majestic manner. We cannot expect such big wheels to hurry themselves. Under the bridge, puffing a little more quickly, then we rattle through Westbourne Park and by Wormwood Scrubs. Puff-puffing much more quickly now, but not quite so loudly, as the driver has pulled the lever back and the steam goes up with less force through the chimney: working quietly. ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... land, and prevented them being swept into the turmoil of ice, and wind, and water, from which the rocky ledge protected them. The hawser was a good one—a new ten-inch rope. It sang like the deep tones of an organ, loud above the rattle of the rigging and the shrouds; but that was its death-song. It gave way with the noise of a cannon, and in the smoke that followed its recoil they were dragged out by the wild ice, and driven hither and ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... to quiet again. And that he might leave no argument unurged that might tend to make them secure, he said, and said it often, O Mansoul! consider that notwithstanding the old gentleman's rage, and the rattle of his high and thundering words, you hear nothing of Shaddai himself, when, liar and deceiver that he was, every outcry of Mr. Recorder against the sin of Mansoul was the voice of God in him to them. But he goes on and says, You see that he values not the loss, nor rebellion ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... trick you played on old Mudge," he said with a hearty laugh which almost made the tins rattle. "I don't blame you a bit for running away. I've got a story to tell you about Mrs. Mudge. ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... to be dragging out like words in an anthem; but Syme, who was watching, saw his long fingers rattle quickly on the edge of the crazy table. He read the message, "You must go on. This devil has ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... ever again known of them, except, perhaps, to the fishes of the Baltic. They talk of such like things among themselves: the sleigh-drivers round their charcoal fire, the field-workers going and coming in the grey dawn, the factory workers, their whispers deadened by the rattle of the looms. ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... spirit, allowed himself to be taken prisoner. His hands were tied, and he was made to walk in the midst of the warriors. At night they encamped, and after partaking of their evening meal, commenced their Indian ceremonies of drumming and shaking the rattle, accompanied with war songs. San-ge-man was asked by the chief of the party, if he could che-qwon-dum, at the same time giving him the rattle. He took it and commenced singing in a low, plaintive tone, which made the warriors exclaim, "He is weak-hearted, a coward, an old woman". Feigning great ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland
... dark against the flickering glow of the fire, and only seen against it, came creeping figures; and I suppose that some dull glitter of steel from helms or sword hilts betrayed us to them, for word was muttered among them, and the rattle of stones shifted by bare feet seemed to be all round us. I thought it ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler
... interspace was overgrown with convolvulus, purple, yellow and white, often as deep as to my waist, in which I floundered aimlessly. The very mountain was invisible from here. The rain came and went; now in sunlit April showers, now with the proper tramp and rattle of the tropics. All this while I met no sight or sound of man, except the voice which was now silent, and a damned pig-fence that headed me off at every corner. Do you know barbed wire? Think of a fence of it on rotten posts, and ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... company. Hancock thought he'd take advantage of this. We were all turned out very quietly about four o'clock in the morning. Not a bit of noise was allowed. We even had to take off our canteens and tin cups, that they might not rattle against our bayonets. The ground was so wet that our footsteps couldn't be heard. It was one of those deathly, still movements, when you think your heart is making as much noise as ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy |
