"Rumble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... executed the work was what first made its conception possible; but this conception, finding the work responsive in some measure to its inner demand, attributes that response to its own magic prerogative. Hence the least stir and rumble of formative processes, when it generates a soul, makes itself somehow that soul's interpreter; and dim as the spirit and its expression may both remain, they are none the less in profound concord, a concord which ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... on and the babble of voices about them joined the crunching rumble of the wheels, he wanted to lean close to her and tell her how a few hours had changed the world for him. And then, for a moment, her eyes turned to him again, and he knew that it would be a sacrilege to give voice ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... tubby wooden craft, the winds his carrier, across oceans that were pathless, except to the venturer. He returned by steam, through seas which it had tamed to the churn and rumble of the screw. What thought in the contrasting pictures of the world! The two Englands might have met each other in the ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne
... thought it a great joke. I changed seats with the jockey, which put me beside a young gentleman of a literary turn of mind, with whom I had some conversation about books when the dust, rumble of wheels, and turf talk of my other neighbour permitted. They were all very kind to me—gave me fruit, procured me drinks of water, and took turns in nursing a precious hat, for which, on account of the crush, no safe place could be found ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... surface ships were able to head their quarry into the mine-field. Usually the submarine dived deep in order to throw her pursuers off the track, and all unconscious of the deep-laid mines in thousands she plunged to her doom—a heavy rumble, followed by an upheaval of the surface, and the chase ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... country street when an eider-down quilt hangs out to air across the bar of a balcony; everything was closed and dull and soundless; there was not even the hive-like hum that hangs over inhabited places. But for the distant rumble of a cart, the crack of a whip, the bark of a dog, all was still: it was a town asleep, ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... dusty height of a rumble-tumble affixed to Lady Selina Vipont's barouche, and by the animated side of Sir Gregory Stollhead, Vance caught sight of Lionel and Sophy at a corner of the spacious green near the Palace. He sighed; he envied them. He thought of the boat, the water, ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... it first at the close of a dull day when a storm was brewing. The sky was overcast, and the clouds were mustering fast from the south in black battalions. Every now and then a hoarse echoing rumble of sound went wandering about in the hollows of the hills with a deep cavernous tone, which sounded astonishingly threatening and foreboding. I suppose that everybody knows more or less the feeling which associates itself with the first view of any memorable place, and fixes itself as ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... His eyes were smiling, but unpleasantly, and in his voice when he spoke there was something akin to the distant rumble that ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... into slumber when a long, low rumble aroused her. How dark it had suddenly become! A sheet of pale light ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... a deeper red and a dangerous rumble issued from his throat, as if he were a volcano threatening to erupt. Then quite suddenly, with an obvious effort, he capped his seething anger and subsided somewhat. Through taut lips he said, "I'm not going to stand here and argue with ...
— I Was a Teen-Age Secret Weapon • Richard Sabia
... the expense. Had there been good anchorage at Beach Cove, Eben would have felt more at ease. But he knew that the bottom here was gravelly and would afford but a poor hold for the best of anchors. A louder rumble of ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... Creak, bang! rumble, rattle; off they went, and were fairly under way, at last, for Segni. They passed out of Rome by the Porta San Giovanni, where their passports received a visto; and this being finished, again started, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... able to. But I hear the rumble of wheels. It is her carriage. Now carry out my orders ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... behind the hill there was a sudden faint flash of light; and by and by, as Tom lay still listening to the counting, he heard, after a long interval, a far-away muffled rumble of distant thunder. He waited for a while, and then arose and stepped to the top of the sand hummock behind which he had been lying. He looked all about him, but there was no one else to be seen. Then ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... manoeuvring in this way for a few moments, he would commence flapping his wings in short quick strokes, which grew more rapid as he proceeded, until a 'booming' sound was produced, more like the rumble of distant thunder than anything I ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... we turned into a long canyon with straight rugged red walls, and a sandy floor with quite a perceptible ascent. It appeared endless. Far ahead I could see the black storm-clouds; and by and bye began to hear the rumble of thunder. Darkness had overtaken us by the time we had reached the head of this canyon; and my first sight of Monument Valley came with a dazzling flash of lightning. It revealed a vast valley, a strange world of colossal ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... disappeared, and with a rustle and rumble and roar of activity the world came to life again and jogged along as it always ...
— American Fairy Tales • L. Frank Baum
... gate close after them—he heard the rumble of the cart in the road growing fainter and fainter. He was alone now in the garden, and the darkness was closing around him. He staggered to his feet. His face was back in its old set lines. He was once more at war ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the words, when the glory of its magnificence was wrapt with a shroud of dust; a dreadful peal of thunder came rolling soon after, though not a spark of vapour was seen in all the ether of the blue sky; and the rumble of a dreadful destruction was then heard. My grandfather clapped spurs to his horse, and galloped on towards the town. The clouds rose thicker and filled the whole air. Shouts and cries, as he drew near, were mingled with the crash of falling edifices. The ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... There was a rumble at the door, A draught disturbed the drapery, And but a minute passed before, With gaze that bore My destiny, The ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... horse, and dug the rowels in the beast's flanks till they were bloody and dripping. He had seen Jim Rodney's face above the white cloth as it fluttered in the face of the herd that came pounding behind him with the rumble of nearing thunder. He was too close to them to attempt to fire his revolver in the air in the hope of turning them, but the boys had evidently got into their saddles, to judge by the volley of shots that rang out and were answered. Simpson alone rode ahead ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... and could not get it. Of all boons this is the most difficult to find in France. It can be had in Paris, where it is easy to live shut off from the world, hearing nothing save the monotonous rumble of life in the streets; but let no one talk to me about the blessed quietude of the country in France, unless it be that of the bare moor or mountain or desolate seashore. In villages there is no escape from the clatter of ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... to write.... I will put down the pen.... It's high time; death is already approaching with ever-increasing rumble, like a carriage at night over the pavement; it is here, it is flitting about me, like the light breath which made the prophet's ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... realism was demanded. The Telly reporter on the scene of a police arrest, preferably a murder, a rumble between rival gangs of juvenile delinquents, a longshoreman's fray in which scores of workers were hospitalized. When attempts were made to suppress such broadcasts, the howl of freedom of speech and the press went up, financed by tycoons ...
— Mercenary • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... told the man to proceed along the quays as far as he could, and then through the Champs Elysees to the Bois de Boulogne. The Seine slept by its deserted parapets like a silver snake, and only the low rumble of the steam-car from Versailles disturbed its slumber. The million lights of the gas-lamps, stretching away now and then into the endless vistas of the boulevards, spoke to me of the delicious companionship of humanity, from which I had so nearly been snatched away. And the glorious girl ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... through the half-lighted levels and galleries, there came a sudden and mysterious silence. A few lights dashed swiftly by in the direction of a distant part of the gallery, and then there was a sudden sharp issuing of orders, and a dull, ominous rumble. Some of the visitors ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... while both the bell and the singing ceased, and then there was no sound anywhere except the dull rumble of the traffic in the city outside—the deep murmur of the mighty sea that flows ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... veils the day just a little from its own loveliness, and lies upon the sighing and expectant city like the substance of a dream made visible. It has the magic to transmute you to this substance yourself, so that while you dawdle afoot, or whisk by in your hansom, or rumble earthquakingly aloft on your omnibus-top, you are aware of being a part, very dim, very subtile, of the passer's blissful consciousness. It is flattering, but you feel like warning him not to go in-doors, ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... against it close to my head, so that I could reach it instantly if need were. After a while I slept, for the day had been very long and I was weary, else would sad thoughts have kept me waking. And presently there was a rumble and snapping that woke me up in a dream of falling ruin, and the man who lay next to me cried out ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler
... hard snow of the roadway and then sprinkling a little water on the top, which at once produces a solid surface. No wheeled traffic is now to be seen; everything is on runners, from the carriage of the King to the doll's perambulator. One no longer hears the rumble of the carrioles and stolkjaerres over the rough flags, and the silence is broken only by the jingling ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Norway • A.F. Mockler-Ferryman
... her grayish thatch of hair, was broad and smiling, the eyes keen, the mouth wide, and the nose rather a bit blobby. Although at every point she was far from vogue, she impressed me not unpleasantly. Even her voice, a magnificently hoarse rumble, was primed with a sort of uncouth good-will which one might accept in the States. Of course it would ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... telephone. If there is one place where he exhibits himself in an unfavourable light it is in front of that horrible, muttering, jibbering instrument, when, after the introductory "Who's there?" and information as to who you are repeated ad nauseam, there rumble to your ear the most exasperating sounds, so full of meaning and yet conveying nothing, until it seems as though the person at the other end were mocking you, and the tone of his voice gets so irritating that you long to throw down the tubes and ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... in our sitting-room, where Mousie and my wife had prepared supper; but we all were too oppressed with awe of the coming tempest to sit down quietly, as usual. There was a death-like stillness in the sultry air, broken only at intervals by the heavy rumble of thunder. The strange, dim twilight soon passed into the murkiest gloom, and we had to light the lamp far earlier than our usual hour. I had never seen the children so affected before. Winnie and Bobsey ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... an ominous preliminary rumble, the band struck up the Marseillaise. You should have seen the change in this crowd of corpses. You must remember that these people had been so long accustomed to lies and snares that it would probably take days to persuade them that they ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... liked the look of it, either. It had now rolled up to the zenith—a leaden mass, looming over them most threateningly. And there was a rumble of ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... faithfully in the line of march: they might come upon the savages at any moment. They toiled painfully through a long stretch of white sand, then passed into a grove of banana trees, dark, cold, noiseless, but for the rumble of the ocean. When they reached the edge of the grove, Father Carillo raised his cross and commanded the men to kneel. Rumour had told him what to expect, and he feared the effect on his simple and superstitious companions. He recited a chaplet, then, before giving ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... waistcoat. The limekiln closes down and there is no passenger left but Katy, so Tim breaks into the treasure holes in the wall to buy oats and bread. Once again the Barlow Suburban is devouring its master. And now the rumble of dynamite sinks lower and lower like the death rattle of Regan's destiny and one afternoon dies ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... velvety blackness, the flaring blaze of Thirty-first Street's chop-suey restaurants and moving picture houses at the right; and far, far away, the red and white eye of the lighthouse winking, blinking, winking, blinking, the rumble and clank of a flat-wheeled Indiana avenue car, the sound of high laughter and a snatch of song that came faintly up to her from the speeding car of ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... understand all that, but lance against lance, sword against sword, men against men, a people against a people! I can understand the deadly rage of the victors, the sanguinary reaction of the vanquished, the political volcanoes which rumble in the bowels of the globe, shake the earth, topple over thrones, upset monarchies, and roll heads and crowns on the scaffold. But what I cannot understand is this mutilation of the granite, this placing of monuments beyond the pale of the law, the destruction of inanimate things, ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... of thunder from a clear sky, or the rumble of heavy artillery, came the noise that they had heard before. It was indeed the rushing of many feet ...
— Madge Morton's Secret • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... gathering night. In a few moments she rose and walked straight from the room, erect, but white as a corpse. I followed, passed her, and opened the hall-door. There stood the carriage, waiting, as if nothing unusual had happened, Parker seated in the rumble, with one of the footmen beside him. The other man stood by the carriage-door. He opened it immediately; her ladyship stepped in, and dropped on the seat; the ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald
... land! Loads of hay could pass each other here, and droves of dromedaries, and camels, and not touch each other, and then there would be lots of room for men and wimmen, and for wagons to rumble, and perioguers to float up and down,—if perioguers ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... of war in his eyes, our hero wrote the never dying words that made him famous. How the day comes back with all its pageantry, the caparisoned horses, the handsome men stepping to the music of inspiring melody, the clarion commands of the officers, and the steady rumble of a thousand feet upon the battle ground, going careless whether to death or ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... not so much shouting, now that it was known no one was hurt, and soon the children heard the puffing of engines and the rumble of wheels. ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Great West • Laura Lee Hope
... shot forward, and, as it leaped lightly upon the bridge, there was a rapid rumble of ...
— The Scarlet Car • Richard Harding Davis
... painted poles an' knots o' blue, An' girt silk flags,—I wish my box 'D a-got em all in ceaepes an' frocks,— A-weaeven wide an' flappen loud In playsome winds above the crowd; While fifes did squeak an' drums did rumble, An' deep beaezzoons did grunt an' grumble, An' all the vo'k in gath'ren crowds Kick'd up the doust in smeechy clouds, That slowly rose an' spread abrode In streamen air above the road. An' then at church ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... drenched cloaks in the rain; still farther behind the curtain of rain and the thick fog there rumbled cannons and it was impossible to tell whether they belonged to the enemy or not. At times the shooting seemed to come from afar-off on the right. Then the rumble of the guns was deep and muffled like the sound of heavy iron balls rolling over the ground; at other times, the discharges were quite near and rent the air with a crash, bursting over the men's very ...
— The Shield • Various
... noise terribly ominous of what was to come. I peeped over the edge to try if I could detect the first symptoms of the approaching eruption. Zoega walked quietly away about twenty steps, saying he preferred not to be too close. There was a sudden growl and a rumble, a terrible plunging about and swashing of the sods below, and fierce, whirling clouds of steam flew up, almost blinding ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... felt relieved when the rumble of the waggon wheels fell once more on my ears. I rode back to meet my people, and presently a halt was made ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... those men are crossing fast. Listen how the cannon wheels rumble! And I know that a thousand whips are cracking at once. They'll all be on our ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... there occurred an incident. A coach-and-four, resplendent in liveries, stopped at the door; I knew it well, and so did all Norton Bury. It was empty; but Lady Caroline's own maid—so I heard afterwards—sat in the rumble, and Lady Caroline's own black-eyed Neapolitan page leaped down, bearing a large letter, which I concluded ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... could tell her that if that were her destination, she was a good deal out of her latitude; indeed, even before she concluded what she was saying, over the rumble of the traffic there rose a thin, shrill piping sound, which to ears trained to the call of it ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... was now quite dark, there came a distant sound as if of thunder. There was a rumble and a roar, and the very ...
— Nero, the Circus Lion - His Many Adventures • Richard Barnum
... They scrambled ashore, abandoning one of the lamps in their desperate hurry, and the policeman instantly extinguished the light of the other by pressing the glass closely to his breast when a rumble of curses heralded the coming on deck of two men who had been aroused from sleep on board the vessel by the thunderous onset of ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... its rats—ship-rats And rats of the wharves. All civil charms And priestly spells which late held hearts in awe— Fear-bound, subjected to a better sway Than sway of self; these like a dream dissolve, And man rebounds whole aeons back in nature. Hail to the low dull rumble, dull and dead, And ponderous drag that shakes the wall. Wise Draco comes, deep in the midnight roll Of black artillery; he comes, though late; In code corroborating Calvin's creed And cynic tyrannies of honest kings; He comes, nor parlies; ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... before the rumble of traffic sounded again in the streets and the first grey daylight ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... was, "I can make it, sir," as he saluted his young commander. Less than two hours from the time they unsaddled, therefore, the troopers once more mounted, and, following their leader, filed away down the winding gorge. Presently there came the low rumble of thunder, and a sweep of the rising wind. "Trot," said Dean, and without other word the little column quickened ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... roar and rumble of his abruptly repentant engine the Senior Surgeon swore once more under his breath to think that any female sitting perfectly idle and non-concerned in a seven thousand dollar car should have the nerve to flaunt such a furiously ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... iron-work signs, leaning forward as if to whisper to one another, leaving strips of sky overhead; the strange play of lights and shades after nightfall; the fantastic groups; the incessant roar and rumble of the crowded alleys—all the commonplace life of London was like an enchanted picture to her, opening a glimpse into an existence of which ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... and threw its weird light upon masses of soldiery,—cavalry, infantry, artillery,—moving in endless numbers through the town, shaking the very earth with the tramp of men and horses and the heavy rumble of wheels. The men were silent, and looked jaded and ghastly in the lurid light. Some had bloody rags tied about head and hands, their breasts were bare, the panting breath could be heard plainly, their eyes shone ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... was feeling the approach of another faint, and was hoping for complete annihilation, when a loud noise reached me. It was like the distant rumble of continuous thunder, and I could hear its sounding undulations rolling far away into the remote ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... away into the night on its long trail to the West, the noise of it lessening to a rumble off among the never-ending waste of trees and rock ridges. Gradually the little night birds recovered from their fright and their plaintive chorus resumed among the swamp grasses ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... heavens, now black and threatening. Putting in hurriedly to the West Virginia shore, we pitched tent on a shelving clay beach, shielded by the ever-present willows, and in five minutes had everything under shelter. With a rumble and bang, and a great flurry of wind, the thunder-storm broke upon us in full fury. There had been no time to run a ditch around the tent, so we spread our cargo atop of the cots. The Boy engineered riverward the ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... streams down amain, spreading a grisly spectral light, even more horrible than that palpable night. Already the Earth pants thick and fast! the darkened Cross trembles! the winds are dropt—the air is stagnant—a muttering rumble growls underneath their feet, and some of that miserable crowd begin to fly down the hill. The horses snuff the coming terror, and become unmanageable through fear. The moment rapidly approaches when, nearly torn asunder by His ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... heard from the midst of the forest, like the rumble of a storm or the far-off trembling of a furnace, had quite ceased. Not a bird was hopping on the grass, or visible on bough or in the sky. Not a living creature was in sight—never was stillness more complete, or ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... balls. For every girl, or woman, or child, who passed, there were at least ten soldiers: French soldiers in bleu horizon, Serbians in gray, Britishers and a sprinkling of Americans in khaki. There was an undertone of music—a tune in the making—in the tramp, tramp, of the soldiers' feet, the rumble and whirr of the cars-of-war, the voices of women, ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... enough for both of us to live well, and nobody can keep me out of it. You know what a road is, I suppose—a good road leading to a town? Have you ever seen one? A brown place, with hedges on each side, made hard and smooth for horses to go upon, and wheels that make a rumble. Well, if you will have me, and behave well to me, you shall sit up by yourself in a velvet dress, with a man before you and a man behind, and ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... far away he heard the rumble of the approaching mass of iron and steel. And now, very low but distinct, the ringing of the bell could be distinguished—gang, gang, gang, gang, gang, gang— He threw a hasty glance at the two blackish-brown rings; four steps further ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... vigil. And the night was chilly. Frank began to walk briskly up and down the block. A dozen times he did this without result. Then the sudden rumble of a motor car spun him about. He saw two men hasten down the steps of Heney's office, almost leap into the car. Instantly it drove off. Frank, who followed to the corner, saw it traveling at high speed toward Fillmore street. He looked about ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... the spot at which he had left the gryf. The great beast was just emerging from the river when Tarzan, seeing it, issued the weird cry of the Tor-o-don. The creature looked in the direction of the sound voicing at the same time the low rumble with which it answered the call of its master. Twice Tarzan repeated his cry before the beast moved slowly toward him, and when it had come within a few paces he tossed the carcass of the deer to it, upon which it ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... in which she had to go would take her close by the old manor-house. The air was perfectly still, and between each low rumble of the thunder behind she could hear the roar of the waterfall before her, and the creak of the engine among the bushes hard by it. Hurrying on, with a growing dread of the gloom and of the approaching storm, she drew near the Old House, ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... most remarkable, as it has a rumble on the back, because, as Aunt Maria explained, her maid and Uncle John's valet went in the rumble of the carriage on their wedding journey, and it is the proper place for servants, so she insisted upon the motor being arranged in the same way. Janet and the valet will have a suffocatingly dusty ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... words, but just pleasant, quiet intonations of human voices, borne through the still air, or the low sounds of cattle in the barnyards, quieting down for the night, and often, if near a village, the distant, slumbrous sound of a church bell, or even the rumble of a train—how good all these sounds are! They have all come to me again this week with renewed freshness and impressiveness. I am living ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... crossed to the other side of the passage and was gazing back toward the chasm at the Incas on the other side, when again I felt the ground, absolutely without warning, tremble violently under my feet. At the same moment there was a low, curious rumble as of ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... he very coolly carried off the portmanteau, without waiting further remonstrance, leaving our hero in a state where disappointment and indignation struggled for the mastery. In a few minutes he heard a cart rumble out of the rugged courtyard, and made no doubt that he was now dispossessed, for a space at least, if not for ever, of the only documents which seemed to promise some light upon the dubious events which had of late influenced his destiny. ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... the Jolly Miller he laughed and told his wife, And she laughed fit to kill her, and dropped her carvin'-knife!— "O Mr. Flea!" "Ho-ho!" "Tee-hee!" They both laughed fit to kill, Until the sound did almost drownd The rumble ...
— Riley Child-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley
... of the bucket against the stones, the rumble of the windlass, and then Dilly came in with a brimming bright tin dipper. She offered it first to the parson, and though she refilled it scrupulously for each pair of lips, it seemed a holy loving-cup. They sat ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... luxurious careers as we should expect in public despots. The oppression of the horse-car passenger is not from them, and the passenger himself is finally to blame for it. When the draw closes at last, and we rumble forward into the city street, a certain stir of expectation is felt among us. The long and eventful journey is nearly ended, and now we who are to get out of the cars can philosophically amuse ourselves with ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... the dull rumble of London seemed a sound, continuous, unvarying, as though it were the distant roar of a world turning in ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... piles of timber nearly as light as day. Through the night air he could hear the thumping of the planks on the wharf. Faintly over this sound came the shouting of men and the tramp and shuffle of feet. And at intervals a train would rumble in the distance, slowly coming nearer, until with a roar that swallowed all the other noises it was past. The arc lamps glowed and buzzed over the heads of the sweating, grunting men, as they came along the path, gang after gang, lifting an end of a heavy stick to the level of the steadily ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... now doubly bereft—stricken down by the blow— is still in a state of syncope, the faithful negress doing what she can to restore her, there are sounds outside unheard by either. A dull rumble of wheels, as of some heavy vehicle coming along the main road, with the occasional crack of a whip, and the ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... progenitor—took to the streets. In its life there it has acquired, among much rascality, certain charming vices that are beyond the capacity of its brother in the loft, however much we may admire the deep rumble of ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... into a profound state of mental concentration, from which he was aroused a few minutes later by the swift and almost unheralded shower that rushed up ahead of the thunderstorm. The rumble of the "apple carts" in the vault above had suddenly become ominous, and there were fitful flares ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... heard the sounds of the hammers, but Balcombe Forest, Tilgate Forest, and Worth Forest have still a constant reminder of machinery, for very few minutes pass from morning to night without the rumble of a train on the main line to Brighton, which passes through the very midst of this wild game region, and plunges into the earth under the high ground of Balcombe Forest. I know of no place where the trains emit such a volume of sound as in ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... Berlin; when he appeared in full uniform. Saluting His Majesty and then the two officers whom I recognised as Moltke and Roon, he joined the pedestrian couple, taking post between them and joining in their promenade and conversation. We heard his voice and laugh above the rumble of the waggon wheels on the causeway; the other two spoke little—Moltke, as he moved with bent head and hands clasped ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... clatter of cab wheels; the clack-clack of thousands of iron-shod hoofs; the shrill, high cry of the street venders; the blasts of motor horns that seemed to rend the narrow street; the roar and rumble of the electric trams; the wail of fretful babies; the chatter of gossiping women; and above and through and below it all the cracking of the cabman's whip—that sceptre of the Roman cabby, that wand which is one part whip and nine parts ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... began to whirl about in circles, and to burn in different colors; the faces of the reporters kneeling before him and chafing his hands and feet grew dim and unfamiliar, and the roar and rumble of the great presses in the basement sounded far away, like the murmur ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... domestic element was supplied by two cats, who safely reared their offspring among us. Indeed, the calm of that placid series of days was such that it was difficult to realise that the second Battle of Ypres was raging with unbroken ferocity a few miles to the north, until we listened to the unwearied rumble of the guns and saw by night the great light in the sky where ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell
... coast, between Dublin and the Hill of Howth. A wide strand of boulders is laid bare by the receding tide, with green sea-grass carpeting the stones. At the very verge of the farthest tide are two huge sand-banks, where the waves roar and rumble with a sound like the bellowing of bulls, and this tumultuous roaring is preserved in the name of the place ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... but it is still warm. I sit looking out of the cave, and listening to the bend and whisper of the trees. Then a stone breaks loose on the fjeld opposite; it butts against a rock and brings that down as well; a few faint thuds are heard. Then a rumble: I see what is happening, and the sound echoes within me; the rock loosened other rocks, an avalanche goes thundering down the mountain-side, snow and earth and boulders, leaving a smoky cloud in its wake. The stream of rubble seems in a living rage; it thrusts ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... twenty—the work at Douglas Island would go on triumphantly; and it will go forever—or, rather, until the bottom drops out of the mine, just as it drops out of everything in this life. All night long the terrible rattle and rumble and roar of the explosive agent robbed us of our rest. I could think of nothing but the gnomes of the German fairy tale; the dwarfs of the black mountain, with their glowworm lamps, darting in and out of the tunnels in the earth like moles, and heaping together the riches that are the ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... wears A threatening aspect, ominously dark; Enveloping the heaven's canopy In lowering shadow and portentous gloom; In pall of ambient obscurity. The fork-ed lightnings ramify and play Upon a background of sepulchral black; The growling thunders rumble a reply Of detonation awful and profound, To every corruscation's vivid gleam; In deep crescendo and fortissimo, In quavering tremolo and stately fugue Echoes, ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... her husband had abruptly declared itself on the day after their arrival, just as they were going out together. She knew none of the streets, and was wholly unaware what district she was in. For eight days she had remained at the bedside of the dying man, hearing the rumble of Paris beneath her window, feeling she was alone, deserted, lost, as though plunged in the depths of an abyss. When she stepped out on the pavement for the first time, she was a widow. The mere recalling of that bare room, with its rows of medicine bottles, and with the travelling trunks standing ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... there to disturb them. Below them, out there around the old Plaza, the city drummed through its work with a lazy, soothing rumble. Nearer at hand, Chinatown sent up the vague murmur of the life of the Orient. In the direction of the Mexican quarter, the bell of the cathedral knolled at intervals. The sky was without a cloud and ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... ken—sauf us! what a fearsome night this is! The trees will be all broken. What a noise in the lum! I daresay there's some auld hag of a witch-wife gaun to come rumble doun't. It's no the first time, I'll swear. Hae ye a silver sixpence? Wad ye like that?" he bawled up the chimney. "Ye'll hae heard," said he, "lang ago, that a wee murdered wean was buried—didna ye hear a voice?—was buried ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... tending horizontally. There were a score of cabs about the entrance of his hotel, and his driver had to wait. Boys in livery were running in and out of the awning stretched across the sidewalk, up and down the red velvet carpet laid from the door to the street. Above, about, within it all, was the rumble and roar, the hurry and toss of thousands of human beings as hot for pleasure as himself, and on every side of him towered the glaring affirmation ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... twenty minutes more had gone by.... During the last of these twenty minutes, even through the clatter and rumble of our own carriage, we could hear another ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... white smoke arising from the trees, in the bottom; the quick, dull bursts of the shells—as a spectacle, it was most striking. The noise was prodigious. The steep sides of the mountain echoed each report of the guns into a prolonged roar, like the rumble of thunder. The rattle of the musketry never ceased for an instant, and loud and distinct above the din rose the ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... had come stepping down from the sky to walk with the Man through the sun-spangled shadows of the grassy paths. They had heard the kindly rumble of His voice like distant thunder and the little tones of the Man as he asked his questions. At six o'clock regularly God had shaken hands with the Man and climbed leisurely back up the sky-blue stairs that led to Heaven. ...
— Christmas Outside of Eden • Coningsby Dawson
... traversing a dark lane or passing a churchyard, and when country folks of old-fashioned habits and principles are respectably in bed and for the most part sleeping. But so far as the fashionable "West End" was concerned, it might have been midday. Everybody assuming to be Anybody, was in town. The rumble of carriages passing to and fro was incessant,—the swift whirr and warning hoot of coming and going motor vehicles, the hoarse cries of the newsboys, and the general insect-like drone and murmur of feverish human activity were as loud ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... listened. It sounded at first like the cow's horn, but they concluded that it was the rumble, made by sliding snow, which would be sending avalanches down the slopes all through ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... falling pilot had vanished. Far below, the earth was only faintly visible through the mantling haze that now permeated the lower atmosphere. All directions looked alike. The air was comparatively still, and only the far distant rumble of artillery, seldom absent along that front, was audible. It sounded not unlike intermittent thunder. What to do next? Which way should he go? For the first time since starting he felt for his ...
— Our Pilots in the Air • Captain William B. Perry
... amber; the leaves prattled low in the light breeze that souched through the rushes and the long grass; the hills rose sheer and white to the smooth blue lake of the sky, where only one fleecy cloud floated languidly across from peak to peak. Out of unseen places came the bleating of sheep and the rumble of distant cataracts, and above the dull thud of tumbling waters far away was the thin caroling ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... of battalions, the rumble of battery after battery as they marched through the crooked streets, came faintly from the shore. The slumbers of a hundred years of peace had been rudely broken. Europe was ablaze. The hands of the clock of civilization ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... calamities or changes. But there was once a village at the bottom of the crater of Vesuvius, and great trees, that had grown undisturbed there for a hundred years, and green pastures, and happy homes and flocks. And then, one day, a rumble and a rush, and what became of the village? It went up in smoke-clouds. The quiescence of the volcano is no sign of its extinction. And as surely as we live, so sure is it that there will come a 'to-morrow' to us all which shall not be as this ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the 7th a strange, murmurous clangor arose from the British camp, and was borne on the moist air to the lines of their slumbering foes. The blows of pickaxe and spade as the ground was thrown up into batteries by gangs of workmen, the rumble of the artillery as it was placed in position, the measured tread of the battalions as they shifted their places or marched off under Thornton,—all these and the thousand other sounds of warlike preparation were softened and blended by the distance into one continuous humming murmur, which ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt |
