"Rumbling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... has bought the book. Tonight he will spread it beneath his candle. Feet may beat a snare of pleasure on the pavement, glad cries may pipe across the darkness, a fiddle may scratch its invitation—all the rumbling notes of midnight traffic will tap in vain their summons upon ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... was striding up and down the office, every now and then discharging a rumbling cannonade of oaths. "Fine business people," remarked he, "to make an appointment and then not to keep it!" He checked himself; for the door of the inner office slowly opened, and Mascarin appeared on the threshold. "Punctuality," said he, "does ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... His voice, like himself, was rough and brusque, rumbling hollow from the depths of his cavernous chest. The figure in the bunk stirred and muttered. Nicodemus ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... tide rushes from her rumbling caves The rough rock roars, tumultuous boil the waves; They toss, they foam, a wild confusion raise, Like waters ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... miss their mark. 'A father's wrath it is!' The other deities All in one voice exclaim'd; 'And, might the thing be named, Some other god would make Bolts better for our sake.' This Vulcan undertook. His rumbling forges shook, And glow'd with fervent heat, While Cyclops blew and beat. Forth, from the plastic flame Two sorts of bolts there came. Of these, one misses not: 'Tis by Olympus shot,— That is, the gods at ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... was speech? The thunderstorm had passed over their heads and was rumbling over France. Henceforward powerless, they must undergo its consequences and hear its distant echoes without being able to influence the formidable elements that had been let loose ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... of Addison's Cato, he says:—'He found and shewed many faults; he shewed them indeed with anger, but he found them with acuteness, such as ought to rescue his criticism from oblivion.' Ib. vii. 457. In a note on 'thunder rumbling from the mustard-bowl' (The Dunciad, ii. 226) it is said:—'Whether Mr. Dennis was the inventor of that improvement, I know not; but is certain that, being once at a tragedy of a new author, he fell into a great passion at hearing some, and cried, "S'death! that ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... his preparations for a voyage that he felt might be one of great moment to him. All the symptoms of convulsions in the earth, however, had ceased; even the rumbling sounds which he had heard, or imagined, in the stillness of the night, being no longer audible. From that source, therefore, he had no great apprehensions of danger; though there was a sort of dread majesty in the exhibition of the power of nature that he had so lately witnessed, ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... thus sat for half a minute, as if involved in thought, she sprang to her feet, and, fating about, stood looking at me for a few seconds, moving her tail slowly from side to side, showing her teeth, and growling fiercely. She next made a short run forward, making a loud, rumbling noise like thunder. This she did to intimidate me; but, finding that I did not flinch an inch, nor seem to heed her hostile demonstrations, she quietly stretched out her massive arms, and lay down on the grass. My Hottentots now coming up, we all three dismounted, and, drawing our rifles from ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... this instant the little vagabond who has arrived at Barlow and his tremendous partnership with Dan Regan by the route leading through Molly's cottage on a stormy night—in this instant with the car rumbling on its way to wreck itself and the Suburban, Tim Cannon understands that the thing will not do at all. The tremendous partnership is not, nor ever ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... through a pile of massy clouds, and the scanty light afforded by the dim stars was insufficient to illumine any distant object. Thus the Christians had no means of warding off the dreadful fate which threatened them. They heard, without the power of resistance, the low rumbling sound of the huge rocks that were loosened from their beds, and the crash that followed their ponderous course, as they tore down every object which came before them, mingling all in ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... with all the rest of the stir and bustle aboard the galeasse, the Basha turned once more to Biskaine. "Up thou to the prow," he commanded, "and marshal the men. Bid them stand to their arms lest it should come to boarding. Go!" Biskaine salaamed and sprang down the companion. Above the rumbling din and scurrying toil of preparation ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... time dark and threatening. There was a rumbling of distant thunder, and a low sighing of wind among the trees, which was very dismal. The potentates of the town kept so uncommonly close to Will that they trod upon his toes, or stumbled against his ankles, or nearly ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... bright for the time of year. The sun fell so flat on the houses and pavement opposite Lucetta's residence that they poured their brightness into her rooms. Suddenly, after a rumbling of wheels, there were added to this steady light a fantastic series of circling irradiations upon the ceiling, and the companions turned to the window. Immediately opposite a vehicle of strange description had come to a standstill, as if it had ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... long to wait, for the queen scarcely remained a quarter of an hour with Mazarin, but this quarter of an hour of expectation appeared a century to him. At last the heavy machine, which was called a chariot in those days, came out, rumbling against the gates, and De Winter, still on horseback, bent again to the door to converse ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... day grew darker, and anon Dim flashes of pent anger lit the sky; With rumbling wheels of wrath came rolling ...
— Afterwhiles • James Whitcomb Riley
... take the other side, which I did and found I was in a current from which I could not extricate myself. Another sharp, turn and the village of Puente del Arzobispo came into sight with the heavy spray from the falls rising high in the air. The roar was like the deep rumbling of thunder when near at hand. I paid no attention to the shouts of the people to stop, for I saw could not possibly get out of the current, so I exerted myself to pass the falls safely. I saw where the water sank on the brink and I knew that was the course ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... A rumbling, pleasant laugh floated on the breeze, issuing from the big youth's throat. The wind was their way, now, and the valley breathed forth an unpleasant odor ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... got beyond Botley. For even as their train ran into the station, a mighty rumbling was heard, there was a shouting overhead, the guard stood astonished on the platform, and Phipps, thrusting his head out of the window, cried, "There he goes!" and sprang out of the carriage. Mrs. Milton, following in alarm, just saw it. From Widgery ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... a rumbling sound in the darkness, a movement as if some heavy body had slid out of the way, and Mark felt a breath of air on his cheeks. Then he ...
— Lost on the Moon - or In Quest Of The Field of Diamonds • Roy Rockwood
... morning she was first downstairs. She heard Miss Pinnegar, and hurried. Hastily she opened the windows and doors to drive away the smell of beer and smoke. She heard the men rumbling in the bath-room. And quickly she prepared breakfast and made a fire. Mrs. Rollings would not appear till later in the day. At a quarter to seven Miss Pinnegar came down, and went into the scullery to ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... observed that the 7.30 train from Washington was five minutes late. Accompanied by Jack he walked up and down the platform until the train, with the usual accompaniment of panting steam and clanging bell and rumbling trucks, pulled into the station, and drew up on the third or fourth track from the iron railing. Mr. Clayton stationed himself at the gate nearest the rear end of the train, reasoning that the Congressman would ride in a parlor car, and would naturally come out ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... beneath the too generous flood and refused to take it in—and still the rain came down in sluicing torrents that never stayed or slackened. The cracked dirt of the ramada roof dissolved and fell away, and the stick frame leaked like a sieve. The rain wind, howling and rumbling through the framework, hurled the water to the very door where Hardy stood, and as it touched his face, a wild, animal exultation overcame him and he dashed out into the midst of it. God, it was good to feel the splash of rain again, to lean against the wind, and to smell the wet and mud! He ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... as if I couldn't go back," she told Betty, when the good-byes had all been said, and the long train was rumbling through the ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... fond of seclusion," thought Tom, as he and Mary took their places. And as he glanced over the bill of fare his ears caught the murmur of the voices of two men coming from behind the screen. One voice was low and rumbling, the other ...
— Tom Swift among the Fire Fighters - or, Battling with Flames from the Air • Victor Appleton
... filled with wild amaze, He fix'd on P——t[32] his quick convulsive gaze. Thus shrunk the trembling thief, when first he saw, Hung high in air, the waving Abershaw.[33] Thus the pale bawd, with agonizing heart, Shrieks when she hears the beadle's rumbling cart. "And oh! what noise," he cries, "what sounds unblest, Presume to break a senior's holy rest?[34] Full well you know, who thus my anger dare, To horse-whips what antipathy I bear. Shall I, in vain, immersed in logic lore, O'er Saunderson ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... chair, and hid from sight the gaudy escutcheon wrought upon the crimson leather. His eyes were closed, his mouth open, and whether from that mouth or from his nose—or, perhaps, conflicting for issue between both—there came a snorting, rumbling sound to proclaim that my Lord the Seneschal was hard at ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... it. The noise ran like wildfire along the hills: before echo could overtake it, a low rumbling followed, and then the brisker crackling again. I caught at the door post and cried, faint with the ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... no effort to wrest it away. He imprinted a long-drawn kiss on it. She shivered and then rapidly glided into the adjoining room, where the jumble of sounds produced by tuning a variety of musical instruments was now heard. The strident notes of violins, the rumbling boom of a cello, and the broken chords of a piano were confusedly mingling, and the male guests were slowly dropping in or taking up a position, a half-smoked Havana or cigarette between the lips, just outside the door, so as to combine two sources of enjoyment. Borgert ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... or innocence of Owen Saxham, M.D., F.R.C.S. who for airless, stifling years of weeks had eaten and drunk and slept and waked in the Valley of the Shadow of Penal Servitude. Who was conveyed from the dock to the cell and from the cell to the dock by warders and policemen, rumbling through back streets and unfrequented ways in a shiny prison-van. Who came at last to look upon the Owen Saxham of this hideous prison nightmare, the man of whom the Counsel for the Crown reared up, day by day, a monstrously-distorted figure, as quite a different person from the other ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... sliding, And falling and brawling and sprawling, And driving and riving and striving, And sprinkling and twinkling and wrinkling, And sounding and bounding and rounding, And bubbling and troubling and doubling, And grumbling and rumbling and tumbling, And clattering and battering and shattering, Retreating and beating and meeting and sheeting, Delaying and straying and playing and spraying, Advancing and prancing and glancing and dancing, Recoiling, turmoiling and toiling ...
— The Nursery, Volume 17, No. 100, April, 1875 • Various
... they had laid till the sun melted the snow in summer, when the coyotes and the vultures would soon clean the bones." He broke off suddenly; there was a dull sound, and at the same moment a distinct vibration of the ground, then a rustling murmur mingled with a rumbling as of a waggon ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... if he were in his own bed at home with Albrecht and Christof on either side of him. The train lumbered on, stopping often and long, as the habit of goods trains is, sweeping the snow away with its cow-switcher, and rumbling through the deep heart of the mountains, with its lamps aglow like the eyes of a dog ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... the address which this adroit bird shows all day long, in ascending and descending with security through so narrow a pass. When hovering over the mouth of the funnel, the vibration of her wings, acting on the confined air, occasions a rumbling like thunder. It is not improbable that the dam submits to this inconvenient situation so low in the shaft, in order to secure her broods from rapacious birds; and particularly from owls, which ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... went by, and then there was such a rumbling of carriage wheels outside the garden, that I climbed up a tree and looked over the high walls. There was a long, slow procession winding up the white mountain road toward a far-away grove of pines. I knew then what ...
— The Story of Dago • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... this fact began to appear, though they were not clearly understood at the time. It was like watching a stage-curtain which rises very slowly a little way and then stops. Through the crack one could see feet moving about and hear rumbling noises. Evidently a drama was in preparation. But what it was to be could hardly be guessed. Then, after a long wait, the curtain rose swiftly. The tragedy was revealed. Flames burst forth from the stage and wrapped the whole house in ...
— Fighting For Peace • Henry Van Dyke
... for the last trace of silver to vanish from a high part of the sky above where the sunset had been—and it would not. I would shut my eyes for an age, and then open them again, and the silver was always in the sky. The cars kept rumbling up the hill and bumping down the hill. And there was still that soft, languid feeling over everything. And all the heat of the day remained. Sometimes a waft of hot air moved the white curtains. Margaret ate something off a plate. ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... what was left of it hereabouts, was, as usual, rumbling with rumor. The Union's General Wilson had assembled a massive hammer of a force, veterans who had clashed over and over with Forrest in the field, who had learned that master's tricks. Seventeen thousand mounted ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... vapor came rolling in at the openings just below the roof, and this first flash was immediately followed by another which seemed to have rent the vault of heaven, for it was accompanied by a deafening and stunning roar and a terrific rumbling and creaking, as though the metal walls of the firmament had burst asunder and fallen in on the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... covered three miles of the very road through which we had retreated. This river of lava in the Atrio del Cavallo was sixty or seventy feet deep, and in some places nearly two miles broad. Besides the explosions, which were frequent, there was a continued subterranean and violent rumbling noise, which lasted five hours in the night,—supposed to arise from contact of the lava with rain-water lodged in cavities within. The whole neighborhood was shaken violently; Portici and Naples were in the extremity of alarm; the churches were filled; the streets were ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... with respectful firmness, "a terrible storm is gathering. Your Majesty can see this as well as I; are you willing to uselessly risk the lives of so many brave men?" In truth, the heaviness of the atmosphere, and the low rumbling which could be heard in the distance, justified only too well the admiral's fears. "Monsieur," replied the Emperor, more and more irritated, "I gave the orders; once again, why have you not executed them? The consequences concern me alone. Obey!"—"Sire, I will not ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... hearing the rumbling of a carriage on the high-road to Ile-Adam, waved his handkerchief and shouted to its occupants for assistance. The carriage was immediately driven up to the old monastery, and the marquis recognized his neighbors, Monsieur and Madame de Granville, who at once gave ...
— Adieu • Honore de Balzac
... renders the footing much more safe; but in order to get to the wood, the road is so dangerous, that it made me almost tremble to think of it,—slippery grey rocks, and many of them unfortunately loose, so that when we took hold, they separated from the mass, and fell with a horrid rumbling noise. Here and there were a few patches of grass, the only thing we could depend upon to assist us in climbing, which must be done with extreme caution, for the least slip or false step would dash one to atoms on the ...
— The Book of Enterprise and Adventure - Being an Excitement to Reading. For Young People. A New and Condensed Edition. • Anonymous
... gets of the General's surroundings and habits during his brief interval of repose create a pleasing impression. Following the winding turnpike westward from Nashville a distance of nine or ten miles and rumbling across the old wooden bridge over Stone River, a visitor would find himself at Hermitage Farm. The estate contained at that time somewhat more than a thousand acres, of which four hundred were under cultivation and the remainder luxuriant forest. Negro cabins stood here and there, and in one ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... him. Bill stared gravely up into his face. There was a silence. From outside came a sudden rumbling ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... woman had heard in her sleep the great, rough, gruff voice of the Great, Huge Bear, but she was so fast asleep that it was no more to her than the moaning of wind or the rumbling of thunder. And she had heard the middle voice of the Middle Bear, but it was only as if she had heard some one speaking in a dream. But when she heard the little, small, wee voice of the Little, Small, Wee Bear, it was so sharp and so shrill that it awakened her at once. Up she started, and ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... outside seemed cleansing as water to her. She could not breathe deeply enough of it. For a long and indeterminate period she stood at the corner, Amsterdam Avenue car after car rumbling past, her luggage on the sidewalk and inclosing her in a ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... strays. Other men, under Benito's personal direction, were isolating the best animals and sending them back to the pasture. It was an animated scene, one fitted to rouse enthusiasm in any plainsman, for the stock was fat and healthy; there were many calves, and the incessant, rumbling complaint of the herd was blood-stirring. The Las Palmas cowboys rode like centaurs, doubling, dodging, yelling, and whirling their ropes like lashes; the air was drumming to swift hoof-beats, and over all was the hoarse, unceasing ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... subsided, rumbling off in half a dozen testy assertions on the general's part that he, Puddock, had distinctly used the word 'wounded,' and now and then renewing faintly, in a muttered explosion, on the troubles and worries of his command, and a great many 'pshaws!' and several fits of coughing, for ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... over-anxious to be up and about, for that would have meant a further dose of war at close quarters. Here, in a huge military hospital at Westminster, one is very anxious to be up and about, for that would mean a long-delayed taste of the joys of London. At Gezaincourt rumbling gunfire punctuated the countryside stillness; aeroplanes hummed past on their way to the lines, and engendered gratitude for a respite from encounters with Archie; from the ward window I could see the star-shells as they streaked ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... her mother called. She drew her feet up under her dress and began pulling up the grass to keep herself awake. Hearing a sound from the distance she jumped up—wheels approaching! but alas, it was not the well-known rumbling of her ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... white, standing on the steps of the Capitol, to the tumultuous vociferation of hundreds of thousands of enraptured multitudes, crying "Huzza! Huzza!" Gleaming muskets, thundering parks of artillery, rumbling pontoon wagons, ambulances from whose wheels seemed to sound out the groans of the crushed and the dying that they had carried. These men came from balmy Minnesota, those from Illinois prairies. These were often hummed to sleep by the pines of Oregon, ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... to them is very difficult, over rattling, rumbling stones, and rocks, and precipices, and it is hard work for the poor women who fetch the water, for the wells are distant nearly three miles ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... mild, the night clear and bright. Cayrol's carriage rolled rapidly along the broad avenue of the park shadowed by tall trees, the lanterns throwing, as they passed, their quivering light on the thickets. The rumbling carriages took the last guests to the railway station. It was past midnight. A nightingale began singing his song of love ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... operations, and instead of giving him the ride upon the rail, cap the blazing goods of his cart with the proper person of the proprietor. The pedler lingered to hear no further; and the quick ear of the lawyer, as he returned into the hall, distinguished the rumbling motion of his cart hurrying down the road. But he had scarcely reseated himself and resumed his glass, before ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... loudly; drays creaked and strained; non-descript delivery wagons tried to outrattle the omnibuses; horsemen picked their way amid the melee. The din was described as something extraordinary—hoofs drumming, wheels rumbling, oaths and shouts, and from the sidewalk the blare and bray of brass bands before the various auction shops. Newsboys and bootblacks darted in all directions. Cigar boys, a peculiar product of the time, added to the hubbub. Bootblacking ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... long-drawn sighs Of the mounting wind in the pines; And the sobs of the mounting waves that rise In the dark of the troubled deep To break on the beach in fiery lines. Echo the far-off roll of thunder, Rumbling loud And ever louder, under The blue-black curtain of cloud, Where the lightning serpents gleam, Echo the moaning Of the forest in its sleep Like a giant groaning In ...
— The Red Flower - Poems Written in War Time • Henry Van Dyke
... standing looking at the mountain opposite, when he heard a kind of rumbling noise in the room behind him. He turned round, and in the corner he beheld a rusty old iron kettle, which could not have seen the light of day for many years. How the kettle got there the old man did not know, but he took ...
— The Crimson Fairy Book • Various
... morning, Chester tried again to remain in bed, but this time without success. He was up in the gray awakening city, walking in the park, listening to the birds near by and the rumbling beginnings of London life. After breakfast, he went again to ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson
... after nine of a black pay-day night. We were hungry. "The Rowdy," familiar with the lay of the land, volunteered to lead the foraging expedition. We stumbled down the hill and away along the railroad. A faint rumbling that grew to a confused roar fell on our ears. We climbed a bank into a wild conglomeration of wood and tin architecture, nationalities, colors, and noises, and across a dark, bottomless gully from the high street we had reached lights flashed amid a very ocean of uproar. "The Rowdy," as if to ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... them, and the next moment there was a rumbling sound as the machinery was started. At the same moment there came the grinding of the anchor chains as they were raised. But the yacht did not move! Even after the anchor was up there was no movement except the throbbing of the whole vessel as the ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the March - Bessie King's Test of Friendship • Jane L. Stewart
... her corner, quietly, but in a heart-broken manner; and continually, while he thought and she wept, and an impenetrable curtain of darkness hid the one from the other, the chaise held on its course up-hill and down-hill, now bumping and rattling behind flying horses, and now rumbling and ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... opened clear and bright, and one hundred thousand men faced each other awaiting the signal of conflict; but, except the pushing of Ewell from his position, the hours passed on relieved only by the rumbling of artillery carriages as they were massed by Lee upon Seminary Ridge, and by Meade upon Cemetery Ridge. At twelve o'clock Lee ascended the cupola of the Pennsylvania College, in quiet surveyed the Union lines, and decided to strike for Hancock's Centre. Meanwhile, Pickett ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... last could make out, from very far to the west, the rhythmic and yet changeful beating of the feet of horses. But it was not till the carriage had actually climbed to the summit and was rumbling down the slope ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... the rumbling sound grew as the great herd galloped on. The snow was now falling thick and fast, and a cold northwest wind was blowing. But in spite of the wind and the snow, the Cave-men pressed on toward the ford. Bighorn still hoped to get a bison as the great ...
— The Later Cave-Men • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp
... with a face of beetroot, while Lord John and I smiled in sympathy and Summerlee, like a dyspeptic goat, wagged his head in sardonic disagreement. Finally Challenger, still rumbling and exploding, began to open his telegrams. The three of us stood in the bow window and occupied ourselves in admiring the ...
— The Poison Belt • Arthur Conan Doyle
... street to Mrs. Sproul's as rapidly as possible to be rid of my own company. As I repeated the words that the parson had used to Mr. Jeffries I noticed one great white cloud with a dark center flash fire into another, to a great crashing and rumbling. "I wonder if it is really going to storm," I speculated gloomily, as I turned into the Sproul gate, but the brilliant sunshine seemed to fling me a dazzling denial from every petal of the white clematis that wreathed itself across ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... class is held in a colonnade with mats as outer screens; cloud upon cloud has come up during the afternoon, and they are now heaped up, covering the sky; and as we look on, the rain comes down in close thick showers, the thunder at intervals rumbling long and loud; some mad woman with nails of lightning seems to be rending the sky from end to end; the mat walls tremble under the blasts of wind as if they would be blown in; we can hardly see to read, for the darkness. ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... no sound. He knelt and laid his ear to the grave, then pressed it more closely and held his breath. A long rumbling moan reached it, then another and another. But there ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... earth and winds were filled with rumbling from the feet of the departing animals, and the Snail People saw that their game was escaping; hence the world was filled with the wars of the Ka[']-ka, the Snail People, and the children ...
— Zuni Fetiches • Frank Hamilton Cushing
... make out their faces and saw nowhere an expression of fear, everywhere black wrath, restless fury. They no longer moved backward, but stood their ground, muttering. In a moment—he knew what would happen. He could read it in their faces, could sense it in their low, rumbling tones. And so he shouted to them again, his voice ringing clear above ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... no horse with wings, to gain The region of the Spheral chime; He does but drag a rumbling wain, Cheered by the coupled bells ...
— Trees and Other Poems • Joyce Kilmer
... 'Leg and Wing', where you swing him from side to side by one ankle and one wrist. There was also climbing Vesuvius. In this game the baby walks up you, and when he is standing on your shoulders, you shout as loud as you can, which is the rumbling of the burning mountain, and then tumble him gently on to the floor, and roll him there, which is the ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... the Councel Hall, where two sate up a-brewing, but now were fallen asleep; those they scared much with the wakening of them, having been much perplext before with the strange noise, which commonly was taken by them abroad for thunder, sometimes for rumbling wind. Here the Captains and their company got fire and candle, and every one carrying something of either, they returned into the Presence-Chamber, where some applied themselves to make the fire, whilst ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... unacquainted, when my miserable companion, with a convulsive shudder, grasped my arm suddenly. I was for a few seconds unaware of the cause of this emotion and movement, when a low indistinct sound caught my ear. It was the rumbling of a cart, mingled with two or three suppressed voices; and the cart appeared to be leaving the gate of the dismal building in which we were. It rolled slowly and heavily as if cumbrously laden, under the paved gateway; and after a few minutes, all was silent. The agonised wretch understood ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... clearly defined, the idea for which he had been searching. He indulged in a series of rumbling chuckles. You will have heard such a sound in the forest when a stream suddenly takes ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... that which did actually occur. On went the schooner, almost brushing the base of the volcano, causing Roswell many a bound of the heart, when he fancied she must strike; but she went clear. All this time, it was crack, crack, crack, from the crater, rumbling sounds and heavy explosions; the last attended by flames, and smoke of a pitchy darkness. A dozen times the Sea Lion had very narrow escapes when nearest to the danger, stones of a weight to pass through her decks and bottom falling even on the ice outside of ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... knew whether he had fallen asleep or not. He may have been only day-dreaming. Anyhow, all at once he noticed a rumbling sound, which grew louder ...
— The Tale of Chirpy Cricket • Arthur Scott Bailey
... joyous youths; it was a rumbling noise, like distant thunder, and at first they could not place it. Then, as It continued, they located the disturbance as coming from the prodigious body of Thor, and at last the wonderful phenomenon dawned ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... sovereigns was named Alladius. This Alladius conceived the idea of making the people believe that he was a god, and in order to accomplish this end he resorted to the contrivance of imitating, by artificial means, the sound of the rumbling of thunder and the flashes of lightning at night from his palace on the banks of the lake at Alba Longa. He employed, probably, for this purpose some means similar to those resorted to for the same end in theatrical ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... of applause and vivas for young Brull, the black avalanche headed rumbling for ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... every orange before going back—that his fruit was good and ripe, and it should be appreciated. I was pained to see Tessa's tears, but what could I do? Already thick smoke was pouring down the mountain's side, and so many were the rumbling sounds that although these children were accustomed to such disturbances, fears began ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... the sky had quite died away by now, and the distant rumbling was fading, too. And, oddly enough, there was not much smoke in the distance. There was a small cloud of gray vapor that rose, streamer-like, from where the glow had been, but even that was dissipated fairly rapidly in the chill ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... scalp you," he said in a rumbling tone, terrible to hear. And with his words out came his ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... along ashore, and apparently groping its way, if one could judge from the many signal whistles heard. This rumbling sound was magnified in the fog until it seemed almost deafening at times. It annoyed Jack, for he was straining his heading to catch anything ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... two leaders were keeping up the most terrific, rumbling roar, like peal upon peal of thunder, thus summoning the herd to unite. However, they did not show any disposition to retreat, but kept gazing at us with ears cocked, as if they fully intended us mischief. We still kept as quiet as possible, hoping to see all the herd unite before they ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... the register with her foot: "I don't hear any strange, hollow, rumbling, mumbling kind of noise. Do you hear ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the night there came from the road to those in the chateau the roar and rumbling of the army in retreat. It moved without panic, disorder, or haste, but unceasingly. Not for an instant was there a breathing-spell. And when the sun rose, the three spies—the two women and the chauffeur—who in the great chateau were ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... recent experience I knew that this must be strongly guarded, but reasoned that if I closely followed a train I should in all probability find the line free for a few seconds. Presently a freight train came rumbling along, and I rushed after it in a whirl of air, in my haste almost being knocked down by the end carriages. As the bridge was rather long and the train going fast, in a very short time I was being ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... juncture, tranquillity had fled the world. The mutterings and moanings of the impending tempest could be heard on all sides. A subterranean rumbling was audible throughout all lands; a dull thundering and outcry, as though the solid earth were about to change into one vast volcano—one measureless crater—that would dash to atoms, and entomb, with its blazing lava-streams and fiery cinder-showers, the happiness and peace ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... sheets of flame went this delightful fabric; sometimes it roared there, as if it had set the chimney on fire, and she had to pause, shielding her scorched face, until the hollow rumbling had died down. But at last the holocaust was over, and she unlocked the door again. No one knew but she, and no one should ever know. The Guru had turned out to be a curry-cook, but no intruding Hermy had been here this time. As long as crystals fascinated and automatic writing flourished, the ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... rumbling voice broke the silence. "I wouldn't struggle, Earthman, if I were you. Even should you get free I still have my ray-tube. And my little friends would ask nothing better than your ...
— The Great Dome on Mercury • Arthur Leo Zagat
... I sat I heard trees whispering on the hills, and a cart rumbling along the hardened ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... were none. Preachers came and offered their wares without money and without price, but there were no churches. For the wares of the preachers flushed no faces and burned no throats, nor were there rattles even in contribution boxes, and there was no whirr of painted wheels. Even the hundred rumbling stamps of the Rainbow mill might as well have pounded empty air or clashed their hard steel shoes on their hard steel dies for all the profit that came to the far-away stockholders of the great Rainbow mine ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... rather wonderful, for there is nothing to tell them four o'clock is near. This is their one meal in the day, so no wonder they look forward to it; and when you see what they get, it doesn't seem much for such a great big animal as a lion. Soon a rumbling sound is heard, and a little truck laden with raw meat runs up through a little passage between the cages, and the keeper pushes it along the front of the cages to the end. Then the animals get frantic; the sight of the raw meat makes them savage; they leap and howl—great ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... Peninsula. At the appointed hour I walked up the cliff's edge whence I clearly heard the roll of fire. The question of whether musketry sounds will carry so far is settled. Evidently the Turks have taken up the challenge for it was quite a long time before the distant rumbling died away. In the cool of the evening took a walk. Commandant Bertier and ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... tracks, or wood from buildings which have been burned down. Unfortunately, this process leads by easy transition to petty thieving. It is easy to go from the coal on the railroad track to the coal and wood which stand before a dealer's shop; from the potatoes which have rolled from a rumbling wagon to the vegetables displayed by the grocer. This is apt to be the record of the boy who responds constantly to the stimulus and temptations of the street, although in the beginning his search for bits of food and fuel was prompted by the ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... Rumbling the Baron mounted and rode away. With a slight smile, Philip watched him thunder-cracking disgustedly along the ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... himself down; but, to his surprise, instead of whoever it was coming right to his door, he seemed to go down some steps, with another following him. The light disappeared, and then the footsteps ceased, and he could hear the rumbling mutter of ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... how highly was I blest, Between two plump old women to be presst! A corp'ral fierce, a nurse, a child that cry'd, And a fat landlord, filled the other side. Scarce dawns the morning ere the cumbrous load Boils roughly rumbling o'er the rugged road: One old wife coughs and wheezes in my ears, Loud scolds the other, and the soldier swears; Sour unconcocted breath escapes 'mine host,' The sick'ning child returns his milk ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... that what the people said was true, and that now he was to behold the living likeness of those wondrous features on the mountainside. While the boy was still gazing up the valley, and fancying, as he always did, that the Great Stone Face returned his gaze and looked kindly at him, the rumbling of wheels was heard, approaching swiftly along ...
— The Great Stone Face - And Other Tales Of The White Mountains • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... to whom it was addressed. A messenger came back to say that Jurgis should wait, and so he came inside of the gate, perhaps not sorry enough that there were others less fortunate watching him with greedy eyes. The great mills were getting under way—one could hear a vast stirring, a rolling and rumbling and hammering. Little by little the scene grew plain: towering, black buildings here and there, long rows of shops and sheds, little railways branching everywhere, bare gray cinders underfoot and ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... obeyed. However, he was in due course joined at the foot of the shaft by Bertie the Badger, groaning profanely; and the pair made their way to the upper regions with all possible speed. After a short interval, a sudden rumbling, followed by a heavy explosion, announced that the fuse had done its work, and that the Piccadilly Tube, the fruit of many toilsome weeks of Boche calculation and labour, had been permanently closed ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... clouds hung low and black, and every moment the forked lightning would flash from them. The black clouds advanced slowly, and threw their dark shadows afar, and behind there was heard the rumbling noise of the coming thunder. As they came near to the precipice, the thunders broke, the lightning flashed, the ground shook, and the solid rocks split, tottered, and fell. And under their ruins where crushed the mortal bodies ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... Bursting and bolting, Smelling and steaming, Shrieking and screaming, Snorting and shaking, Quivering, quaking, Skidding and slipping, Twisting and tripping, Bumping and bounding, Puffing and pounding, Rolling and rumbling, Thumping and tumbling. Such I've ...
— Mr. Punch Awheel - The Humours of Motoring and Cycling • J. A. Hammerton
... the road over which Antonia and I came on that night when we got off the train at Black Hawk and were bedded down in the straw, wondering children, being taken we knew not whither. I had only to close my eyes to hear the rumbling of the wagons in the dark, and to be again overcome by that obliterating strangeness. The feelings of that night were so near that I could reach out and touch them with my hand. I had the sense of coming home ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... again covering his eyes with his hand, he resumed his attitude of meditation. Night came. One by one the stars came out. The moon rose brilliantly in the cloudless sky. The soldiers moved with noiseless footsteps, and spoke in subdued tones. The rumbling of wagons and the occasional boom of a distant gun alone disturbed ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... he! 'tis he! I hear him from afar, Thundering like the God of War; To Rosbach's plains, in dread array, The god-like hero bends his way! Hark! the rattling rumbling noise of drums! He comes, he comes! See, Prussia's awful king's at hand! He speaks, he speaks! attentive stand! His well known voice, the gallant warriours hear, And bend their wide-extended wings both front and rear, ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... could gallop no longer. Fred yelled at them "Yea-a! Yea-a!" at the top of his voice. They began to pay some attention—or else were so winded that they would have halted of their own volition. And as the cart ceased its thumping and rumbling a light suddenly blazed up before them, shining through the dusk, ...
— Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp • Alice Emerson
... made his bid for liberty; but he was no coward to desert his companions. He uttered a choking cry of mingled fear and defiance, and rushed in between his friends to swing a heavy blow with his fist fair upon the giant's unprotected temple. Now Milo gave sign of interest. He laughed: a deep, rumbling, pleasant laugh of appreciation for the courage that prompted the blow; but he never blinked at the impact, nor did he attempt to avoid another blow that came swiftly. Simply putting forth a greater effort of muscle he swung his two captives apart, held them at arm's length while the ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... no time for congratulations. The sea which had before been agitated, now heaved in wild waves, though there was no wind. It was then seen that Big Island was actually crumbling—sinking into the water! The continuous rumbling of the volcano was terrible. Intermittent explosions were frequent. To add to the horrors of the scene the darkness deepened. As the island went down the sea rushed tumultuously in to overwhelm it. Then it was that the stout ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne
... their eager course With car, and elephant, and horse, And youthful captains on their feet With longing sped their lord to meet, As though the new-come prince had been An exile for long years unseen. Earth beaten in their frantic zeal By clattering hoof and rumbling wheel, Sent forth a deafening noise as loud As heaven when black with many a cloud. Then, with their consorts gathered near, Wild elephants in sudden fear Rushed to a distant wood, and shed An odour round them as they fled. And every silvan thing ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... a fierce storm of thunder and lightning by saying that "the young thunder-birds up in the sky are making merry and having a good time." In like manner, the Dakotas account for the rumbling of thunder, "because the old thunder-bird begins the peal and the young ones take it ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... they heard upon the road the rhythmic foot-beats of horses, and the rattle of some farmer's wagon rumbling homeward from the village. Then together they screamed for help. But the hoofs went on beating their tattoo till the sound grew faint, and the rattle of the wagon died in the distance. Again and again the sound which ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... constrictors were wriggling down there soft bodies, lightly covered. When they had found their way up to the Snout they came upon a pile of corpses, a dozen or more, thrown one on top of another like sacks of flour, faintly discernible in the darkness. While the two officers stood there, rumbling, squirting sounds began to come from this heap, first from one body, then from another—gases, swelling in the liquefying entrails of the dead men. They seemed to be complaining to one another; ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... afternoon from in front of his kennel he watched a heavy thunder cloud gather over the hills and come rumbling toward him. The sky grew black; the orchard trees, the creek bottoms, the distant hills took on strange colours, as if autumn had miraculously come. Out of her cabin hurried Aunt Cindy and toward the garage, her white apron like a flag of truce ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux |
