"Thud" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... feeling proudly stirred when a Cavalry regiment goes by. The clean, alert, upright men, with their sure seat; the massive war-horses champing their bits and shaking their accoutrements: the rhythmic thud of hoofs, the keen glitter of steel, and the general air of power, all combine to form a spectacle that sets the pulses beating faster. Then, again, observe the strange elastic rhythm of the march as a battalion of tall Highlanders moves past. ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... island, some seventy or so all told, gathered round the cocoanut-tree to which the man was lashed, and at every stroke of the heavy yoke-lines they shuddered. One, a woman with a child sitting beside her, lay face to the ground, and as each cruel swish and thud fell on her ear the ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... twilight was rising in the east when she found herself again looking out upon the water, the stone still clutched tightly. She gazed at the river, then at the stone, and again at the river. The stone dropped with a thud at her feet. The savage in her had not abated in the least; only her body was terribly worn and wearied and the robe, muddied and torn, enveloped her like a veil of ice. Above her the lonely yellow sky; below her the sickly river; ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... fell to the floor with a thud of amazement that reverberated indignation. "Well upon my word!" gasped she. Then, recovering her book—and more—"Why what a kindly gentleman he ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... the example, flinging himself upon his face and extending his hands above his head, as a whizzing sound was heard; then a dull thud or two and directly after there was a crash on the rocky side of the couloir a few feet above their heads, followed by a shower of slaty fragments which fell upon them, while a great fragment, which had become detached far above, glanced off, struck ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... through Berlin! I saw some my last afternoon in Berlin, loaded with their kit, marching silently down Unter den Linden to the troop trains, where a few relatives would tearfully bid them good-bye. There was not a sound in their ranks—only the dull thud of their heavy marching boots. They didn't sing nor even speak. The passers-by buttoned their coats more tightly against the chill wind and hurried on their several ways, with never a thought or a look for the men in field-grey, moving, many of them for the ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... effort the man lifted the flask to his lips and gulped down a little of the fiery spirit. A sound of tramping feet came from the outside and then a thud as though a body had been dropped. Carnes ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... narrowly escaped grazing small icebergs, that might have disabled us had we come in collision with them. As it was, many an ice-cake that looked harmless enough, being very low in the water, struck us with a thud that was startling; or passed under our old-fashioned side-wheels, splintering the paddles and causing our hearts to leap within us. A disabled wheel meant a tedious delay in a latitude where the resources are decidedly limited. ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... was a dull thud, and the Spaniard fell heavily in the doorway, while Pen stood breathing hard, shaking his now open hand, which ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn
... me!" shouted Tom, as he struck the creature, knocking it into the corner of the tent with a thud that told it must be completely stunned, if not killed. "But what's it all about, anyhow?" Tom ...
— Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders - or, The Underground Search for the Idol of Gold • Victor Appleton
... lip-reading to get the details. But this was a slight vexation in the exultance of her mood. She was serene in the consciousness that Davidge already knew the facts about her, and that Lady Clifton-Wyatt's gossip would fall with the dreary thud of a story heard before. So Mamise's feet flew, and her heart made a music of its own to ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... downstairs to the kitchen, whence a dreadful thud and a piercing shriek presently sounded. Everybody rushed to the kitchen—the doctor and Miss Oliver, Mrs. Blythe, Rilla, Miranda in her wedding-veil. Susan was sitting flatly in the middle of the kitchen ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... showed pale against the iron bars, and as Angela looked that way, a great grey rat leapt through the grating, and ran along the topmost bin, making the bottles shiver as he scuttled across them. Then came a thud on the sawdust-covered stones, and she knew that the loathsome thing was on the floor upon which she was standing. She lowered her light shudderingly, and, for the first time since she entered that house of dread, the young brave heart sank with the ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... warning came too late. Next moment the boat ran with a thud into a monster cuttlefish. Grummidge seized a boat-hook, shouted, "Stern all!" and hit the creature with all his might, while Stubbs made a wild grasp at a hatchet which lay under one of ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne
... hat, a cut over the right thigh, and the stick in his middlerib, told the spectators of a scientific adversary; and loudly now the gentleman was cheered. An undercurrent of warm feeling ran for the plucky little one at it hot again in spite of the strokes, and when he fetched his master a handsome thud across the shoulder, and the gentleman gave up and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... strength and I scrambled inside with nothing more serious happening than a bruised head. But that man! He pushed in back of me and, not knowing the nice little ways of jerkies, was pitched forward to the floor with an awful thud. But after a second or so he pulled himself up on his seat, which was opposite mine, and there we two sat in silence and in darkness. I noticed the next morning that there was a big bruise on one side of his face, at the sight of which I ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... The animal rolled clear over the fire, scattering the burning brands in all directions. Then it rolled among the horses. One steed after another kicked at it, and a flying hoof sent it against the tree with a thud. Then it lay quiet. ...
— Dave Porter at Star Ranch - Or, The Cowboy's Secret • Edward Stratemeyer
... at all now. The thousands of hoofs had raised a cloud of dust that not only enveloped the onrushing line, but rolled before it. Nor could Pasha hear anything save the thunderous thud of many feet. Even the shrieking of the shells was drowned. But for the restraining bit Pasha would have leaped forward and cleared the line. Never had he been so stirred. The inherited memory of countless desert raids, made by his Arab ancestors, was doing its work. For what seemed a long ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... A thud on the floor was the only reply of the Squire. They quickly turned. He had fallen down like a log behind the table, and lay motionless on the ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... his emotions had yet to come. There was a slight stir behind the canvas, a thud, a hollow groan that echoed and re-echoed throughout the room like the muffled clap of distant thunder, and the eyes suddenly underwent a metamorphosis—they grew glazed and glassy like the eyes of a dead person. A cold shudder ran through the Dean, his hair ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... swiftly had the arrow passed through the eagle's body that, thinking White Plume had missed, a great wail went up from the crowd, but when they saw the eagle stop in his flight, give a few flaps of his wings, and then fall with a heavy thud into the center of the village, there was a greater cheer than before. "The red eagle shall be used to decorate the seat of honor in your tepee," said the chief to White Plume. Last came the white rabbit. "Aim good, aim good, son-in-law," ...
— Myths and Legends of the Sioux • Marie L. McLaughlin
... swept down on us, and past us, and I watched the prophet. His eyes were wide, his whole face expressing anguish. "Oh God, my Father!" he whispered, and seemed to quiver with each thud of the tramping feet on the pavement. After the storm had passed, he stood motionless, the pain still in his face "It is Rome! It is Rome!" ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair
... with his chagrin and annoyance that he stamped heavily upon the pet corn of a retired rear admiral, rudely bumped a Roumanian duchess, kicked the pink poodle of a famous prima donna and brought up with a thud against the heroic brawn and muscle of the house detective, who stood as solidly in the middle of the lobby as if he had taken root somewhere down ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... wintry plunge of ten feet, or may be fifty where the edge of the causeway fell over to the lower furrows of the ravine. It was a matter of policy to go with caution, and a thing of some moment to hear the thud and splintering of little distant icefalls about one in the darkness. Now and again a cold arrow of wind would sing down from the frosty peaks above or jerk with a squiggle of laughter among the fallen slabs in the valley. And these were the only ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... narrow, and plainly at some distance from the deck, for I laid hold upon one of the rough beams above me. By its curvature I knew it to be a knee, and thus I came to the caulked sides of the vessel, and for the first time heard the rattling thud and swish of water on the far side of it. I had no sooner made this discovery, which drew from me an involuntary groan, when a ship's lanthorn was of a sudden thrust over me, and I perceived behind it a head covered with shaggy hair and beard, and beetling brows. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... forth, back and forth, over the net, spun the little white ball, driven by the quick, sure strokes of the players. There was no sound save the bounding of the ball against the racquets, and the thud of rubber soles on the hard ground. Then—a sudden twirl of ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... sprang back, crushing the birchbark case with its red flower into shapeless ruin. There was a muffled word, the flash of a figure, and McElroy the factor had flung himself before her. She caught the thud of a blow upon flesh and in a moment there were two men locked in deadly combat before the post gate. In less time than the telling, a circle of faces drew round, dark faces of Indians and Bois-Brules, light faces of De Courtenay's men, and in all there leaped swift excitement as they saw ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... little, then listened wonderingly. It came again—tap! tap! tap!—then a pause; and then an unmistakably human exclamation of impatience, while a bit of rock went whirling past her, to plunge with a resounding thud ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... unavoidable. Cobden has said that the picture expressed a sounding confusion. It was true. "You could hear that water," says he, tritely. There was the illusion of noise—of the thud and swish of breaking water and of the gallop of the wind. So complete was the illusion, and so did the spirit of the scene transport the beholder, that Cobden once lifted his voice above the pictured tumult. Terry Lute's art ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... turf was torn and mangled, the horses reeked with sweat and foam, but overhead the soaring skylark sang, as it were, to express the joyance of the day. During many minutes the only sound that broke the stillness was the clash of armed men, the thud of hoofs, and the snorting and the wild breathing of the chargers. The lark's notes, however, ringing out over the lists freed the tongue of the Queen's fool, who suddenly ran out into the lists, in his motley and cap and bells, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... sprang forward with the agility of a panther. The imitation Malacca cane descended with a dull thud upon the lad's head, and like a felled ox Vernon fell inertly upon ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... head, and, embedding itself in a stunted oak behind him, shook and quivered with the shock,—a Tonto arrow. Only an instant did he see it, photographed as by electricity upon the retina, when with a sharp stinging pang and whirring "whist" and thud a second arrow, better aimed, tore through the flesh and muscles just at the outer corner of his left eye, and glanced away down the hill. With one spring he gained the edge of the shelf, and shouted to the scouts to come on. Even as he did so, bang! bang! went the reports of two rifles among ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... even when I heard the thud, thud of a man's step behind me I did not turn. A man's step is unlike an animal's, and I had no doubt in my heart that a man was coming. But let him come to me. My immediate and pressing concern was to repair ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... the black horse start into a sharp gallop; saw the great dog sail across the fence first; saw the horse and rider shoot into the air against the stars; heard the click of hoofs against the top rail; heard the thud of hoofs on the near side of the fence, and then the horseman flashed about the corner of the barn and in an instant his hoofs were ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... powerful savage wrenched his arm free; in a last superhuman effort he swung his knife upward as Rod's blade sank to the hilt in his breast, and the blow fell with a sickening thud under Rod's arm. With a sharp cry the young hunter staggered to his feet, and the Indian's knife fell from him, red with blood. Making an effort to control himself he picked up the knife and loosed the captive ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood
... brisk breeze, and, watching carefully, George gave the order to fire at the exact moment when the Spanish ship was square abeam. The Spaniard discharged her broadside at the same instant, and immediately succeeding the thunder of the two broadsides those on board the Nonsuch heard the distant thud of their pounding shot and the crackling crash of splintering spars; and, looking eagerly in the direction of the Spanish ship, they saw that they had shot away her foremast and bowsprit, both of which were in ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... raised his thumb from the table and twiddled it in the air. It fell with a stiff thud. "Ja, ja," he said, half impatient, half laughing. "How is one to do it—such fool tricks! ...
— Unfinished Portraits - Stories of Musicians and Artists • Jennette Lee
... under the light and wound from head to foot in tobacco-smoke, were the farm-hands, playing cards. They sat wrapped up in their game, bending over their little table, very quiet. Now and then came a half-oath and the thud of a fist on the table and then again peaceful shuffling and stacking ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... this place was like that about a ruin, only this seemed older than a ruin. I could not hear my horse's foot-falls, and an apple startled me when it fell with a soft thud, and I watched it roll a foot or two and then stop, as if it knew it never would have anything more to do in the world. I remembered the Enchanted Palace and the Sleeping Beauty in the Wood, and it seemed as if I were on the way to ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... at about 11 A.M., and the hours that followed were truly the most dreadful I have ever spent. Each moment the ship came down with a sickening thud which shook her from stem to stern, and each thud seemed to show more plainly that, strong as was her build, she could not long ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... something in his hand. He hurled it. A distant thud and a small report merged at once into a great explosion, which reverberated about the Bluff. Doe laughed shrilly. He fell. But it could only have been the shock which knocked him over, for he was on his ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... but without his boots. Inch by inch we dragged him out of them. The strain was terrific. Suddenly—much too suddenly—the tension broke. Harrison shot into the air and fell again with a dull thud in the Ooze beside his boots, while the rescue party collapsed head over heels into an ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 28, 1917 • Various
... nail to reach the boats. They that had the right and they that had none were mingled in a fray which strewed the water's edge with corpses. Some flung themselves into the sea after the boats, yelling and cursing till the flash of a sword or the pitiless thud of an oar sent them back into silence. Some, rather than others should go and not they, tore the craft board from board, and fought with the fragments. Some with muskets poured fire on the boats. And some wreaked their ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... in the increasingly thick white fog. All I could hear was the sound of pickaxes on the ground and the thud of falling clods. The enemy had, no doubt, decided not to attack again and were digging new trenches. They no longer uttered their contemptuous guttural cries of "Cavalry! Cavalry!" They had learnt to their cost that these French cavalrymen, at the sight of whom their own are so ready to turn ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... thud it flattened upon the turf near the center of the meadow, and when at last the Englishman could gain the courage to again turn his eyes upon it, he breathed a fervent prayer of thanks, for the shapeless mass that lay upon the blood-stained turf was ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... of Messrs. KRUPP Hissed harmless through his hair; The Bosch might blow his billet up, But he would be elsewhere; And if with soul-destroying thud A monstrous Minnie hit the mud, The thing was sure to be a dud If only ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 29, 1917 • Various
... was laid on her arm and Rhoda knew that Molly and Cesca were guarding her. Almost immediately the soft thud of hoofs was upon them. Kut-le seized Rhoda and tossed her ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... shelter from which the attack could be renewed. Snap went the trigger. With a bullet, the marksman could shoot a greater seabird, by the head, at a range of a hundred yards. This bullet caught the black between the shoulders, and he fell with a thud and a groan. In Sir George, the physical being surrendered itself again to the intellect. The situation was saved, his wounds stung him no more to vindication—he was ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne
... continued growling. Evidently the dark bulk of the palki frightened him. Bose sat inside, huddled in a heap and breathless. The tiger, re-assured by the stillness of the object before him, ceased growling; and presently, the soft thud of his feet and his sniffing round the palki told the trembling man within that 'Stripes' was ...
— Bengal Dacoits and Tigers • Maharanee Sunity Devee
... take the hindermost. There was nothing in the world for Behemoth to do but wildly leap under the hoofs for his life. This he did successfully. But on the other side he met the spectacled citizen full and fair, and down they went together with a thud. ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... looked at her and hesitated. She glanced at the door, which was still ajar; it did not easily shut, being still swollen with the damp weather of the summer. She rose and pushed it together with a sharp thud, which jarred the house. Rebecca started painfully with a half-exclamation. Caroline ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... somewhere in the bows a song spurted and dropped and spurted again and shot up in the stillness, slender and clear, like a rod oft white water. The Belgian boys were singing the Marseillaise. On the deck their feet beat out the thud ...
— The Romantic • May Sinclair
... For there was a thud and a faint crash repeated again and again, and though I could not see, I felt certain that the fire had attracted some deer-like creature, which had gone bounding off, till all was silent again, when I crept back, letting the canvas fall behind me, feeling horribly conceited, and ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn
... bit, and soon she scrambled out of the manger and ran out of the stall. As she did so the little girl heard a bump, or thud, over her head. That bump made her think of Bunny, and how he was swinging ...
— Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue Giving a Show • Laura Lee Hope
... the ladder, and was just emerging from the hatch, when the sudden glare of the sun caused him to blink and then sneeze. He caught his toe on the last step, stumbled, dropped his prize, and fell forward on to the deck. The canister struck the step, jolted twice, plunged to the bottom with a smart thud— ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and slept, when a cry rang out; And in fear he heard from the north-land come ringing that terrible shout: He fell, as he woke from his slumber, with the thud of a weight, to the ground, From his couch on that side of the castle that the rising sun first found. He left his arms in the castle, as the lawns round its walls he sought, But his wife, who followed behind him, apparel and arms to him brought: ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy
... out into the darkness, every nerve quivering as she listened for a second scream. She had chosen the inside bedroom that had a window opening on the corridor. Now in the breathless silence, she heard a swift creak ending in the bang of an up-flung sash. A swish of light garments, a thud shaking the floor outside, and then bare feet flying in frantic haste past her room and ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... nothing but a confounded dogfish, anyway, and you wind up your reel and go home, and you are so mad and hot that the leaves on the trees curl up and turn yellow like late in the fall. Many a girl has acted just that way, and finally chewed off the line, and let the man fall with a dull thud, and after he has got over it he says to those who have watched the angling that she was not much account, anyway, but all the time he knows by the feeling of goneness inside of him that he lies like a Spaniard," and Uncle Ike tied a handkerchief ...
— Peck's Uncle Ike and The Red Headed Boy - 1899 • George W. Peck
... breathing, separated as she was from me by the length of a long floor. There was but one effort I could make with my tied ankles, and that was to raise both legs together and bring the heels down with a thud upon the boards. The cords cut me to the bone—the effect upon ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... The thud, thud of a horse's hoof does not alarm fish. Basking in the sun under the bank, a jack or pike lying close to the surface of the water will remain unmoved, however heavy the sound may be. The vibrations reach the ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... to push up the lower sash. He managed to open it some ten inches, and then, as a protest against this interference with its gradual decay, the sash-cord broke. He heard with a jump of the heart the weight thud down behind the woodwork: then, as he groped hastily behind him for a brick, to prop the sash, it came down with a run, and closed its descent with a jar that shook out two of its bottle panes to drop into the water that rushed below. Prompt ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... when I signal that I'll see them in hell before I bate a knot, why—you watched it yourselves—they struck me in the fo'castle, and there's two of my dead men below now; but they shall swing"—and he brought his fist upon the table with a mighty thud—"they shall swing, if there's only ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... would ever and anon dart out from the circle with whirling club, and bring it down as if on the prisoner's skull, but would turn it aside so deftly that it just grazed his ear and fell with a dull thud on the ground. Other warriors made at him with their spears, which they thrust with lightning speed at his naked breast, but checked them just as ...
— The Madman and the Pirate • R.M. Ballantyne
... sat down with a thud and took off his hat as he gazed at this astonishing woman. She was giving him advice in a most superior manner; and yet she ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... those who come before the Council charged with wrong doing," explained Bori Tulber. His fingers rested upon and pressed certain of a ring of small white buttons in the face of the door, and it opened swiftly and noiselessly. We entered, and the door closed behind us with a soft thud. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... sound, with a sort of muffled snap, spoke of a broken jaw-bone; and with no word or cry, the Chinaman fell. As the trap descended with a bang, I heard the thud of his body ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... grip of the other window. Something fell away below his right foot and almost plunged him into space. With a terrific effort he saved himself from that fate, and his senses, grown of a sudden to miraculous acuteness, heard the crumbled masonry he had released thud upon the patch of grass at the foot of the tower, apprising the enemy of his attempt. A wild commingling of commands and threats came up to him; the night seemed something vast beyond all former estimates, a swinging and giddy ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... shout goes up; now, another; the poor little rope-dancer, anxious to find favor in the eyes of the young noble, over-exerts himself, loses his balance on the dizzy rope, and, toppling over, falls with a cruel thud to the ground, and lies there before the great state box with a broken neck—dead. Marcus hears the shout, he sees the falling boy. Vaulting from his canopied box he leaps down into the arena, and so tender is he of others, Stoic though he be, that he has the poor rope-dancer's head in his lap ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... according to his habit was strolling along the road that ran past his house, he heard something whizz past him and with a thud strike a tree. Something had been thrown at him. He ducked instinctively. With a shout, "Who's that"? he ran towards the place from which the missile had come and he heard the sound of a man escaping ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... rifle cracked from Bill-Man's barricade, and there was a sharp spat and thud on the chest of Ounenk. He swayed backward and came forward again, a look of startled surprise on his face. He gasped, and his lips writhed in a grim smile. There was a shrinking together of the shoulders and a bending of ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... as the teeth, nails, and bits of charred skin of the immolated victim of his own lust. After burning the body the mob tied a rope around the charred trunk and dragged it down Main Street to the courthouse, where it was hanged to a center pole. The rope broke and the corpse dropped with a thud, but it was again hoisted, the charred legs barely touching the ground. The teeth were knocked out and the fingernails cut off as souvenirs. The crowd made so much noise that the police interfered. Undertaker Walsh was telephoned for, who took charge of the body and carried it to ...
— The Red Record - Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... Max, attends!" cried Louis and Geoffrey, as Louis sprang down after his friend. Thud went the boards again, with the spring of ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... the darkness came the sound of a shrill cry, and the thud of a fall in some room down ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... a long silence and state of suspense; the chase had turned another way. There were faint distant yaps. The fire burned low and fell together with a shower of sparks. The smaller boys began to grow chilly and sleepy, when there was a thud and rustle and snapping of twigs close at hand, then the gasp of a breathless dog. Two dim shapes rushed by; a shower of bark fell, and a dog began to sing at the foot of the great twisted pine ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... she could not see what happened. The others saw Barbara, with an easy movement, line her putt. The ball rolled slowly over the clipped turf, dead straight to the hole—closer, closer, hung for one fraction of a second on the rim of the cup and then with a thud that was like music, dropped in! Barbara was the champion of the women players of ...
— Keineth • Jane D. Abbott
... elderly lady, with a thud of feet softly shod, walked through the hall and stood at the library door regarding them benignantly. And then Jeff, with an outspoken sound of pleasure and surprise, got up and drew her in, and Choate smiled upon her as if she were delightfully unlike ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... too much inclined that, way" agreed Anne ruefully. "When I think something nice is going to happen I seem to fly right up on the wings of anticipation; and then the first thing I realize I drop down to earth with a thud. But really, Marilla, the flying part IS glorious as long as it lasts . . . it's like soaring through a sunset. I think it ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... instantly, three shots in succession. The bullets went wild to my left and brought down showers of plaster from the wall. I feared he might have seen me by the pistol-flash. I did not fire back. There was no need. Something moved swiftly like a black ghost through the open door. There was a thud—and the ring of a steel swivel—and ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... occupied by a base runner, when only one man is out, when the third strike is called, in such case the batsman is out on called strikes, whether the ball on the third called strike is held on the fly or not. The batsman is out too,—under the new rule—if, when the thud strike is called, the pitched ball hits him or touches ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1889 • edited by Henry Chadwick
... at me. The car was there and the tank was full of petrol, but neither the electric starter nor the crank that I found under the seat would produce anything but the most depressing and uninspired clanking from the mechanism that should have responded with the warm, encouraging thud of renewed life. ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... quick as thought, Josh had the great snaky fish by the head with his short sharp gaff-hook, drew it over the gunwale, and before Arthur could realise what was done the axe had descended with a dull thud, and Josh dragged the quivering half inert conger over the side and forward, clear of the line ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... the body of the unconscious Mr. Moore, across whom it fell with a resounding thud. Through the opening leaped Tarzan, and a moment later the room was flooded with light from a dozen ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Ike thumped down the bottom of the ladder, and then let the top lean against the tree, a couple of apples were knocked off, to come down, one with a thud on the soft soil, the other to strike in the fork of the tree and ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... implored once more, extending her hands to secure her treasured book, "oh, uncle." In reply all I heard was a dull thud, and I saw Paula fall to the ground. Beside himself, my father had given her a tremendous blow on ...
— Paula the Waldensian • Eva Lecomte
... on and poured and beat against the window-panes with a sudden, angry thud. No chance of further walks abroad. I escaped up-stairs while the butler was speaking to Mr. Carruthers, and began helping Veronique to pack. Chaos and desolation it all seemed in my ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn
... long-armed and big-headed red devils swarming in from every direction. Carr dodged none too quickly to save his skull from a swift-flung stone, which clanged against the Nomad's hull. There was a perfect hail of the missiles now: one struck his left arm a numbing blow, and he heard a sickening thud and Ora's moan as she was hit. And there ...
— Creatures of Vibration • Harl Vincent
... a bad idea," declared Susan Atwell. "I sit near her, so I'll be the first one to hold out the olive branch. But if you hear something drop on the floor with a dull, sickening thud, you'll know that my particular variety of ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... camp. He was on the edge of the cliff, so close that when he dislodged a fragment of rock it rolled over the brink, bounded once from the cliff's face, and after a lapse that grew to seconds struck with a distant thud among the timber at the foot of the precipice. Looking down through the binoculars it was as if he sat on the topmost bough of a tall tree in the immediate neighborhood of the cabin, although he was fully half a mile distant. ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... swung along to the rhythmical thud of the drum, their voices were raised in a fearful chorus that must have made one think of the choirs of hell, and the song they sang was the song of Rouget de l'Isle, which all France had been singing these ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... the nearest mountain. After Joanne had blown out her candle the silence of the night seemed to grow deeper about him. The hobbled horses had wandered several hundred yards away, and only now and then could he hear the thud of a hoof, or the clank of a steel shoe on rock. He believed that it was impossible for any one to approach without ears and eyes giving him warning, and he felt a distinct shock when Donald MacDonald suddenly appeared in the moonlight not twenty paces from him. With an ejaculation ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... the winged ones rise Large and more large upon our straining eyes, Till with a sweep, while every nerve is tense, The chattering covey hurtles o'er the fence; The double crack of every lifted gun, The dinting thud of birds whose course is done— These sounds, delightful to his listening ear, He heeds no longer, for he cannot hear. None stauncher, till the drive was done, defied Temptation, rooted to his master's side; None swifter, when his master gave the word, Leapt on his course ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... still more cyclonic. He had a left arm which seemed to open out in joints like a telescope. Several times when the Kid appeared well out of distance there was a thud as a brown glove ripped in over his guard and jerked his head back. But always he kept boring in, delivering an occasional right to the body with the pleased smile of an infant destroying a Noah's ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... go forward, too, will you?" said Steve. Neil joined Phil and for some minutes the Adventurer stole quietly along through the grey void with little sound save the slow working of the engine below deck and the lazy thud of the propeller. It was so quiet that when Perry suddenly worked the fog-horn Han almost fell over the wet rail on which he was sitting. It was Ossie ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... five minutes of eight. The preparations for an execution had been reduced almost to a formula. One minute in the cell, twenty seconds to the trap, forty seconds for the hangman to complete his arrangements: two minutes, and then the thud of ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... note of that remark, and during the game the Harvard captain had occasion to remember it also, when in one of the plays Camp tackled him, and the two went to the ground with a heavy thud. As the Harvard captain gradually came to, he remarked to one ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... a stormy one; the east wind, which had lain in a dead lull through the early hours of the evening, rose in all its strength at the turn of the tide. It came bounding like the distant thud of a cannon. It roared and rattled against the windows and casements of the Manor House, sounding a deep bass in the long chimneys and howling like souls in torment amid ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... down his neck as he lay there motionless and clouded the eyepiece of his telescope. Then suddenly he saw a little black object shoot up into the air from the junction of two trenches near the German support line—an object which turned over and over in the air, and fell with a soft thud fifty yards to his right. A roar—and some sandbags and lumps of chalk flew in all directions, while fragments pattered down on Reginald out of ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... did not want him to go, indeed she felt that she would rather he stayed. After the loneliness of her despair, she liked the presence of the friendly, wandering dog. It would be comforting to have it sit down beside you and to have it thud its tail when you chanced to look at it. Mr. Kane would not intrude, he ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... the breeze came the faintly echoed thud of many hoofs and the clinking jingle of sabers against the riders' thighs. Virgie turned back ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... air, enjoyed the firmness of the frozen ground, on which his boots made a pleasant thud. To be sure, the interview before him would have its disagreeableness, but Buckland was not one of those over-civilised men who shrink from every scene of painful explanation. The detection of a harmful lie ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... wrist. He had meant to shoot—for that he had saved every stray penny from his sales of hogs and cider, of watermelons and chinkapins; for that he had bought the gun and rammed the powder home. Even when the thud of footsteps beat down the sunny road strewn with brown honeyshucks, he had felt neither fear nor hesitation as he crouched amid the underbrush. Rather there was a rare exhilaration, warm blood in his brain and a sharp taste in his mouth ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... draw a crowd where it went, is no more. The rush and the swing of the long line, the crack of the driver's mighty whip and his warning shouts to "Jack" or "Pete" to pull and keep step, the steady chop-chop thud of the sand-shaker, will be seen and heard no more. In the place of the horse-plough has come the electric sweeper, a less showy but a good ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... break the uniform reverberation proceeding from metal. We have already seen how readily the strings take up vibrations which are only pure when, as secondary vibrations, they arise by reversion from the sound-board. If vibration arises from imperfectly elastic wood, we hear a dull wooden thud; if it comes from metal, partials of the strings are re-enforced that should be left undeveloped, which give a false ring to the tone, and an after ring that blurs legato playing, and nullifies the staccato. I do not pose as the obstinate advocate of parallel stringing, although I ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various
... with the beard replaced his revolver. And even as he did so the flap of the bar was shut down and the bolt clicked, and then with a tremendous thud the catch of the door snapped and the bar-parlour door burst open. They heard Marvel squeal like a caught leveret, and forthwith they were clambering over the bar to his rescue. The bearded man's revolver cracked and the looking-glass ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... almost gained a part of the street where an electric light flooded the pavement, when they heard a cry behind them, and then a thud as of some one falling. They stopped and looked back, but all was shrouded in darkness. On the opposite side of the street they could hear sounds of struggling, while an occasional gasping cry fell ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... then illuminated by the flash of a bomb, shell, or gun. The simile could be pursued no further, for to those who had not yet been in action the noise going on seemed to indicate that some fierce fighting must be in progress. The dull but powerful thud of exploding hand bombs, the sharper crashing explosion of shell, the report of a discharging gun and the roar of its projectile, echoed and re-echoed, in its flight along one of the numerous ravines, induced belief that very little time ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... had the animals well in hand. The boy, however, was so anxious to see what went on below, that he strained forward too far. With a scream, and the snap of broken boughs, he plunged forward, shot through the leafy-canopy, and landed with a sickening thud ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson
... catching a swerve in the oncoming horse, whose rider bore down on the centre post of the double gate, the deviation of course being calculated to entangle the rope's victim. The horse flashed through the gate, something snapped, the rope stood in air, and a dull thud was heard in the bewilderment of the moment. The blur passed in an instant, and a monster dog wolf lay at the gatepost, relaxing in a spasm ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams
... in the very shadow of the great arch, and waited, smoothing his mare's neck. But for the invitation in his eyes, which were solemn, yet without a trace of fear, I had never dared that last hundred yards. For above the rush of waters I heard now a confused sound within the building—the thud and clanking of heavy machinery, and at intervals a human groan; and looking up I saw that the long friezes in bas-relief represented men and women tortured and torturing with all conceivable variety of method and circumstance—flayed, ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... protected the flank on the right. And, still farther to the right, a cloud of yellowish smoke rose skyward across the yellower sunshine. Then, of a sudden, out from the heart of the wall of smoke came a muffled thud and roar, confused at first, growing strident and more detached until, sweeping from the haze of smoke, five score Boer horsemen rode in a bolt-like rush, fierce and uncheckable. Without swerving to right or left, they charged straight ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... stifle not only the fear of arrest, but even the torments of conscience. For a moment, oh, only for a moment! I can picture the state of mind of the criminal hopelessly enslaved by these influences—first, the influence of drink, of noise and excitement, of the thud of the dance and the scream of the song, and of her, flushed with wine, singing and dancing and laughing to him! Secondly, the hope in the background that the fatal end might still be far off, that not till next morning, at least, they would come and take him. So he had ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... hold it back is relentlessly thrown, and the bow of the sledge crashes on to the heel of the hindermost of those hauling ahead with a thud that means "pain." But the victim utters no sound, just smiles in answer to the anxious ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... himself against the farther wall. Just as he was about to pass out he had heard something click above his head and he but barely had the time to leap back and escape being struck by an iron curtain which fell in front of him with a terrible thud. ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... hideous terror seized and gripped me so hard, that the machine, slipping from my palsied hands, fell to the ground with a crash. The next instant something—for the life of me I knew not what, its outline was so blurred and indefinite—alighted on the open space in front of me with a soft thud, and remained standing as bolt upright as a cylindrical pillar. From afar off, there then came the low rumble of wheels, which momentarily grew in intensity, until there thundered into view a waggon, weighed down beneath ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... a chance caller rush unannounced into your private rooms. Even among relatives and the most intimate friends, there is nothing to justify the unexpected arrival. Nothing so strikes terror to a woman's soul as the thud of trunks on the piazza and the crunch of wheels on the gravel, meaning ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... the niggers all get free; got one for a saw-mill owner already;" all of which fell, to be sure, at John's feet with an ignorant thud. Still, when we looked at him and realized his noble nature, it seemed too bad to think there could be ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... fragile piece of potter's work, the magic ranks broke apart, and each gun fell to the ground with a heavy "thud," like an ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... back to the horses, and then the swift thud of Nan's hoofs grew fainter and fainter as he spurred her madly over the rough ground, galloping off for help. The darkness seemed all at once to be more complete, and the scrub to come closer, like a curtain round them—round her and Dad, who ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... Methodist revival meeting. They have, too, dances and music peculiar to themselves—jigs and country dances which seem to have no method, yet which are perfectly adapted to and rhythmic with the inspiring abrupt thud of the banjo and the bones. As they dance, they shout and sing, slap their hands and knees, and lose themselves in the enthusiasm of the moment. The negroes look forward to Christmas not less as the season for present-giving than that of frolicking and jollity. Early in the morning they hasten ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... the coneys are scared by the thud of hoofs, And their white scuts flash at their vanishing heels, ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... and I was led out, a tall grim-faced guard on each side, with a firm grip on my arms. I wondered what was happening to the lovely Zoorph, but I did not get a chance to look. I was thrown into a cell, and the heavy wooden door shut. The thud of a bar dropped in place punctuated the evening's experience with a ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... securely, but she helped him bravely, scrambled somehow to the awkward seat, and stooped to drag him up behind. She had succeeded, by main force. The excited beast was plunging forward again to get away from the affrighting turmoil close to its heels, when a heavy thud shook the huge frame, the camel fell to its knees, lurched over on its side, and threw ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... was the water ration, it enabled both the girl and Lennon to suck at lumps of raw bacon. They lay silently mouthing and chewing the greasy fat, their rifles ready and their ears alert for the slightest thud of approaching hoofs. But no sound broke the deathlike stillness of ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... commenced. The boys dropped from the trees and scattered in every direction. Some of them were caught in the pea vines of Mr. Howe's garden, but most of them, with great labor, climbed over the high fence around the ground and dropped on the outside "with a thud," safe from powder! The dogs in the neighborhood lent their aid to the outcry, and everybody was convinced that ruffians had ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... Balcom's body out of the way. It was too late. With a thud Balcom crashed full upon ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... grassy slope with a small, red-brown object travelling very fast some distance in front. Blake, who let his chestnut go, swept down the hill at a furious gallop, and felt the horse rise and heard a thud of hoofs on sloppy ground as a fence was cleared. Then he toiled across a strip of ploughing, with firm grip on the bridle, for, exhilarating as the chase was, he could not enjoy it long. In his younger days he had hunted ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... came a hollow and stridulous voice, so unexpected and startling to Pym that he withdrew his hand, allowing the vase to drop back to the floor with a resounding thud. ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... polished wire cutters was enough to convince the man that a pistol was being pointed at him, but instead of obeying the order to hoist his hands, he made a spring for an open window, jumped over the sill, and a bare second later, Phil heard a dull thud. ...
— The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers • Claude A. Labelle
... aloft with clusters of the great green nuts. Fallen palm fronds made a carpet for my feet—very pleasant after the rough and tangled way I had travelled, and now and again one of the cocoa nuts would fall down with a thud amid the green silence. One of these, which narrowly missed my head, suggested that here I had the opportunity of quenching very agreeably the thirst of which I had become suddenly aware. My claspknife soon made an opening through the ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... again into security. The Captain's cries for help became weaker and weaker. And now Joco took his iron stake, which he always kept by him, opened the door, and at one bound was at the side of the wild beast. His voice sounded again like thunder, and the iron stick fell with a thud on the bear's back. Ibrahim had smelt blood. Beneath his paws a man's mangled body was writhing. The beast could hardly be made to let go his prey. In the light that came through the small window, Joco soon found the chain from which not long before he had freed Ibrahim, and with a swift turn ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... the line which was to conclude each verse: 'O Zinaida, Zinaida!' but could get no further with it. Meanwhile it was getting on towards dinner-time. I went down into the valley; a narrow sandy path winding through it led to the town. I walked along this path.... The dull thud of horses' hoofs resounded behind me. I looked round instinctively, stood still and took off my cap. I saw my father and Zinaida. They were riding side by side. My father was saying something to her, bending right over to her, his hand propped on the horses' neck, he was ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... on the clear air in front of them, mingled with the thud of horses' hoofs, the jingle of spurs, and now and again the whinny of a colt; and at the intersection of the trail with a narrow winding path there rode into view old "Persimmon" Sneed,—as he was sometimes disrespectfully nicknamed, owing to a juvenile and voracious fondness ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... them up before the child, who was laughing and trying to grasp them. Then she forgot them, and dropped them in the bottom of the boat, for something had struck the keel with a thud, and the water ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... opened at their approach. The two men in red stopped on either side of this door. Howard and Graham passed in, and Graham, glancing back, saw the white-robed Council still standing in a close group and looking at him. Then the door closed behind him with a heavy thud, and for the first time since his awakening he was in silence. The floor, even, ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... worked upon the redoubt which had been located under counsel of Gridley, Prescott, Knowlton, and other officers, the dull thud of the pickaxe and the grating of shovels were the only sounds that disturbed the pervading silence, except as the sentries' "All's well!" from Copp's Hill and from the warships, relieved anxiety and stimulated work. Prescott and Putnam alike, and more than once, visited the beach, to ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... placing the ear close to one end of the log, while another person delivers a succession of smart blows with a hammer or mallet upon the opposite end, when a continuance of the vibrations will indicate to an experienced ear even the degree of soundness. If only a dull thud meets the ear, the listener may be certain ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... behind Sam, and Eustace Hignett, lying on his back, gave himself up to melancholy meditation. He was deeply disturbed by his cousin's sad story. He knew what it meant being engaged to Wilhelmina Bennett. It was like being taken aloft in a balloon and dropped with a thud on ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse |
