"Thudding" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... from the giant's throat as he disappeared, the crashing and thudding of his body as it dashed from point to point of the jagged rocks, made even those hardened savages sicken and turn pale, but worst of all was the crash with which he came to the bottom, where his body struck a rock with such violence that it was dashed into a thousand pieces, and ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... of nowhere—as is the custom of their priceless tribe—rushed wildly past. Fierce, sinuous, infinitely graceful shapes, leaping high in air, making strange noises, chirrupings and squeakings, thudding of quick little paws, as they chased one another round the antiquated, seaward-trained cannon and ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... reached the crux of the matter," Ihjel said gently. His back was braced against the door, absorbing the thudding blows of some heavy object on the outside. "They're knocking, so I must be going soon. I have no time for details, but I can assure you upon my word of honor as a Winner that there is something you can do. Only you. If you help me we might save seven million human ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison
... strong with an excellent homely aroma of cow and horse; one had only to open a door in the upper hall, a door that looked just like a bedroom entrance, to find oneself in the haymow. There I used to lie for hours reading, and listening to the summer rain thudding on the shingles. Sitting in the little gallery under the eaves, looking happily down the white road where the yellow coach brought the mail twice a day, one could see the long vista of the valley, the women with bright red ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... tenderly. Judith would never be any man's really, to know and to hold. Her fiery charm was a thing ever to pursue, never fully to overtake. "Forever would he love and she be fair!" He waited silently, his heart thudding heavily. At last she turned from the window and came slowly toward him with a look in her eyes he could not pretend to read to its depths. He only knew that there was faith in him there and a passionate affection. What more, he was willing to trust to the future. She came and leaned against ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... expectant; she leaned her head down, smiling, thanking God for her beauty, with all her heart. Was that a step?—hurrying back. Only Coly stamping in the stable. It was eight o'clock. The woman's heart kept time to the slow ticking of the clock, with a sick thudding, growing heavier every moment. He had been in the mountains but once since the war began. It was only George he came to see? She brought out her work and began to sew. He would not come: only George was fit to be his friend. Why should he ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... imagine not seeing her, after what she'd said. I didn't even know her name, except that the old negro had called her 'Miss Lindy.' I said that a lot of times to myself as I rode, with the men's bits jingling at my buck and their horses' hoofs thud-thudding. 'Lindy—Miss Lindy—Linda—my Linda—I said it half aloud. It kept first-rate time ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... tried to reach him with a dash across the slippery deck planks. The mate screamed, the Captain humped his shoulders for the blow. It all happened in a flash of disaster; the boat's weight pulled the pin from the cheeks of the block and down she came, her stern thudding thickly into the deck, while the Captain, limp and senseless, rolled inertly ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... the missiles struck Diggory on the shoulder, and the other struck Mugford fair and square on the side of the head, the fragments flying all over the floor. There was a subdued yell of triumph, the door was slammed to with a bang, and the muffled sound of stockinged feet thudding up the neighbouring staircase showed that the enemy were ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... muskets poised in their right hands—no knapsacks on their backs. They appeared to follow the route of the group of mounted officers, until we could see a puff of white smoke, then another and a third from the field—pieces, followed by thudding reports, there being no high ground nor precipitous bank nor water in the neighborhood to reflect the sound, and make it emulate Jove's thunder. At this, they struck across the fields, and forming behind the guns, lay down flat on their faces, where they ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... meditation by a dull thudding sound which had commenced behind his back; turning his head, he saw that Pere Antoine was already digging a grave. Rising without a word, he began to lend a hand. They had not gone far when they found that the ground was hard as granite, that it had not yet thawed out; ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... His fist shot straight up with all the power of his body behind it. It crashed into the jutting jaw of the Mercutian like a charge of high explosive dynol. For all his height and massive strength, the giant toppled over, thudding heavily ...
— Slaves of Mercury • Nat Schachner
... and heavy, rolling fog-wreaths lay low over the wet grey roofs of the Woolwich houses. Down in the long, brick-lined streets all was sodden and greasy and cheerless. From the high dark buildings of the arsenal came the whirr of many wheels, the thudding of weights, and the buzz and babel of human toil. Beyond, the dwellings of the workingmen, smoke-stained and unlovely, radiated away in a lessening perspective of narrowing road ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the thudding sounds, treading heavily on the kitchen stairs, and Mrs. Bunting's heart began to beat as if in response. She put out the flame of the gas-ring, unheedful of the fact that the cheese would stiffen and ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... his head to one side, and listened. Somewhere behind came a confusion of shouts and the thudding ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... the ropes now, gasping for breath, and Peteiro's right was thudding against his ribs. It could not last. He gathered all his strength and put it into a straight left. It took the Ripton man in the throat, and drove him back a step. He came on ...
— The White Feather • P. G. Wodehouse
... the thudding of many feet came to them just as they reached the arched mouth of the passage. But the cries, and the constant pandemonium of the paralysed animals died behind them as ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... could travel at such a rate. On we swung down the slope, keeping excellent order, the forest of tall spears shining and the little lancer-like pennons fluttering on the breeze in a very gallant way. In silence we went save for the thudding of the hoofs of the camels and an occasional squeal of anger as some rider drove his lance handle into their ribs. Not until we actually joined battle did a single man open his lips. Then, it is true, there went up one ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... laid his hand on the lever. The great locomotive panted, and Grant, staring out through the glasses, saw a blinking light slide back to them. Then, the plates beneath him trembled, the hammering wheels got hold, and the muffled clanging and thudding swelled into a rhythmic din. The light darted past them, the filmy whiteness which had streamed down through the big headlamp's glare now beat in a bewildering rush against the quivering glass, and the fan-shaped blaze of radiance drove ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... developed into a heavy thunderstorm, and the lightning quivered and gleamed through the trees incessantly, followed by huge claps of thunder which clashed down without a second's warning, afterwards rolling away in long thudding detonations echoing for miles and miles. It was difficult to walk at all in such a storm,—the youngest and strongest pedestrian might have given way under the combined onslaught of rain, wind, and the pattering shower of leaves ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... with a swift and awful rush, like that of a swooping bird, the dead woman and the living man plunged headlong into space. One dreadful yell echoed down the pitiless precipices, followed presently by a soft thudding sound, and there, lodged upon a flat rock hundreds of feet beneath, lay what had been Piet Van Vooren, though, indeed, none could have told ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... came thudding up the track and scattered the gravel by the gate; then there was silence for a moment, voices and laughter, and quick footsteps, and Jim and Norah came in together, their ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... nicker in protest, but he found that he could not. He was too weak to utter sound. So he stood there, his eyes upon the little gray and her rider, watching them hurtling toward the grove. Then the thudding of hoofs came to his ears from the rear, and, slowly turning, he saw a group of horsemen riding wearily—one hatless; another with flaying quirt; a third with smoking carbine; a fourth, a large man, smooth and red of face, riding ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... heard the thin splitting vicious noise of torn cloth as Gwyllem clutched at Richard's tunic and tore it many times. Richard did not utter any articulate word, and Gwyllem could not. There was entire silence for a heart-beat, and the thudding fall of ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... each other earnestly and rolled across the room till Mike, contriving to secure his adversary's head, bumped it on the floor with such abandon that, with a muffled yell, the other let go, and for the second time he rose. As he did so he was conscious of a curious thudding sound that made itself heard through the other assorted noises of ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... sky, was behind us, and ahead were the broad level meadows, checkered with little clumps of willow and cedars, as meadows are that lie near the salt marshes. I had feared we might be intercepted at our gate, but I was mistaken. We had swerved to the left and were thudding down the level road, when an exclamation from Mademoiselle made me turn in my saddle. My look must have been a somewhat blank interrogation, ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... the cavalry charge exhilarated Dick. The thought of danger passed away for the moment. He saw all around him the eager faces of men, and horses that seemed just as eager. Dust and dirt flew beneath the thudding hoofs, and the dust and floating smoke together made a grimy cloud through ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler
... on. Three had struck before Mrs. Adams was got to bed; and Alice, returning to her own room, could hear her father's bare feet thudding back and forth after that. "Poor papa!" she whispered in helpless imitation of her mother. "Poor papa! Poor mama! Poor Walter! Poor all ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... down the stairs. When he reached the ballroom he found the frightened guests massed against the wall, as far from the windows as they could crowd. A wild battle of some sort was going on outside in the night, so oaths and cries and the grim thudding of ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... ceased, but silence was by no means re-established. Automobiles were rolling around the lodge midst hoarse shouts of command. It must be the hospital convoy that was evacuating the castle. Then near daybreak the thudding of horses' hoofs and the wheels of chugging machines thundered through the gates, making the ground tremble. Half an hour afterwards sounded the tramp of multitudes moving at a quick pace, dying away in the depths ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... lonely hall, sickened with the hate in her soul and her fear for her boy. Suddenly she heard flying footsteps—a boy's, running in mad haste in the outer hall, and, following them, bare feet, soft, thudding. ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck
... wild yell was drowned out by the tremendous crash of splintering wood and thudding flesh, as the half-breed's body hurtled through the air to smash Jack Hardy down to the ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... and went. From beneath the floor came, at intervals, a regular thudding which he had never heard before, and which he now learned was ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... were thudding on the deck, and he stood before the English captain, cap in hand, his little, quick black eyes roaming in all directions, over the wonders of the beautiful white ship, with innocent curiosity. But before Captain Jack ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... others for fruit juices. I was not too much shocked when the unnerved Babu requested whisky! The Mohammedan gave an order; the obliging Hazrat sent sealed containers sailing down the air and thudding to the floor. Each man found his ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... horse's wild snort; another; a shout; the crack of a rifle cutting the silence as a knife cuts a taut string; another crack; an awful, hoarse growl; the furious thudding of horse's hoofs stampeding and growing fainter and fainter; and an appalling series of receding, short, coughing, terrifying, grunting roars. Then silence and utter stillness only, and the cold, calm moon staring down ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... panorama for him. There were the sounds, too, the piratical shout, hoarse and menacing, the Indian whoop, shriller and with more of the wild beast's whine in it, the fierce, sharp note of the rifle fire, steady, insistent, and full of threat, and over it the heavy thudding of the great guns. ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... as he signaled the car, "I'm coming to see you, just as often as you'll let me, this winter," and he walked off before Lydia could reply. She sank into a car seat, her cheeks burning, her heart thudding. ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... clenched and jaws set—once again came the trampling of feet, the hiss of breath, and the thudding shock of ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... choose him.' So he went, And there was silence in the summer night; Silence and safety; and the veils of sleep. Then, far away, the thudding of the guns. ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 • Various
... small dark objects came dropping, thudding, crashing down. You might have thought some cosmic gardener had shaken his orchard, his orchard where the ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... band played the Funeral March, and the huge assemblage chanted. In the leafless branches of the trees above the grave the wreaths were hung, like strange, multi-coloured blossoms. Two hundred men began to shovel in the dirt. It rained dully down upon the coffins with a thudding sound, ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... second-class carriage, looking out. A few raindrops struck the pane, then the blurred dazzle of a shower came in a burst of wind, and hid the downs and the reeds that shivered in the marshy places. Siegmund sat in a chilly torpor. He counted the stations. Beneath his stupor his heart was thudding heavily with excitement, surprising him, for ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... turned the mustangs loose among those Shefford had noticed, and presently there rose a snorting, whistling, kicking, plunging melee. A cloud of dust hid them, and then a thudding of swift hoofs told of a run through the cedars. Joe Lake began picking over stacks of goat-skins and bags of wool that were ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... finished the beautiful mare and her apparently careless rider, with Captain Jack a hundred yards behind, disappeared over the brink of the bench and in the silence that followed the group on the porch heard only the distant thudding of hoofs beating an ever fainter tattoo ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... the very confusion of the household. It was lucky if the children slept till seven o'clock. Usually, soon after six, a chirp was heard, a voice, an excited chirrup began, announcing the creation of a new day, there was a thudding of quick little feet, and the children were up and about, scampering in their shirts, with pink legs and glistening, flossy hair all clean from the Saturday's night bathing, their souls excited by ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... came the sound of thudding hoofs in the lane, and a clear voice, the echo of Kate's own, calling, "Mother! Where are you? Mother! ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... pirates too, apparently—had been waiting for, for the next moment the guns of our port battery crashed forth, one after the other, while our port Maxim— the only one of the two that could be brought to bear—started its savage thud-thudding tattoo, and in less than half a minute the ship was enveloped in a cloud of acrid smoke which, hanging motionless in the stagnant air, effectually cloaked the approach of the attacking force, and as effectually ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... the roll of the drum. Not the mere thudding that had beaten the step for the mob, but the steady and vigorous tattoo of many ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... ears, the unmistakable thudding of galloping hoofs on turf. The posse was riding for the bridge full tilt. He picked up his rifle and dodged in among the trees along the trail. Forty yards from the mined stringer he met Molly riding ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... folk—if they think there's a good time in sthore for them, the women can suffer all they like, more shame to them." She was so worked up that she did not notice that the little dog had followed us into the house, until he was sitting up in the kitchen, his forepaws paddling the air, his tail thudding on the floor. Then she said, brimming over with admiration, though she tried ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... be seeking sociability by bellowing ferociously, thudding his hard fist on the counter. Mayo was not easily surprised by the temperamental vagaries of queer old 'longcoast crabs like Captain Candage, but this sudden conversion ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... gone, I heard, through the frequent tooting of the taxis in the street, the sound of old-fashioned waltzes being played on the piano, and then a dull thudding noise on the floor below, mingled with laughter, which told me that the old boarders ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... was Sunday night. In the patch of darkness near the wheel-grating sat the Captain, and the end of his cheroot burned like a head-lamp. There was neither breath nor motion upon the waters through which the screw was thudding. They spread, dull silver, under the haze of the moonlight till they joined the low coast of Malacca away to the eastward. The voices of the singers at the harmonium were held down by the awnings, and came to us ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling
... song,—a rumbling, roaring melody, a clattering, rushing, blaring symphony made up of the grind of wheels upon resounding cobble-stones, the thudding beat of horse-hoofs, the tread of countless feet, the shrill note of voices; it was all there, the bass and the treble blending together, harsh, discordant, yet the real ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... There lay Hague Simon gnawing at his wife's foot, only his fat, white face was gone, and in place of it he wore the head of a cat, for she, the watcher, could see its glowing eyes fixed upon her. And Meg—look how her lean limbs gripped him round the body. Listen to the thudding noise as the great knife fell between his shoulders. And now, see—she was growing tall, she had become a giantess, her face shot across the gulf of water and swam upwards through the shadows till it was within a foot of her. ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... yesterday morning there was a strange tremor in the air. A gang of platelayers and navvies were making a new siding by the station, and sounds of hammering also came from the engine shed. But this tremor made itself felt above these and all the other noises of a waking camp, a silent thudding, a vibration which scarcely seemed to constitute what is called sound, yet which left an intense impression on the ear. I went outside the tent to listen. Morning had just broken, and the air was still and clear. What little wind there was came from the northwards, from the direction ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... she heard a rapid-fire thunk-thunk-thunk as the automatic guard system slid inter-compartment doors shut against sections of the ship suddenly airless. The doors were still thudding shut when another explosion came, from toward the bow. Then there was silence; a feeling of utter quiet ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin
... great house on the hill they heard it—the boy in his white nightdress leaning from the open window, and his sleepy sister kneeling beside him, pushing back her thick hair to peer out into the morning mist. On came the battery, thudding and clanking, horses on a long swinging trot, gun, caisson, forge, mounted artillerymen succeeding each other, faster, faster under the windows. A guidon danced by; more guns, more caissons, then a trampling, plunging gallop, a rattle of ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... stick might make in smiting the ground, and I felt that Durnief shuddered. In another instant it came again, and his arms relaxed, but only to tighten about me the more convulsively. Then a short pause, which was followed by the thudding sound of a blow heavier than its predecessors, and instantly following it, the tensioned muscles of Durnief relaxed. His arms fell from their clasp around me. I pushed him aside as though he were dead, and for a moment believed that he was; then springing upright, to my ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... sitting by the campfire. The others of their party, with the exception of Mrs. Shafto and the bear, were listening to the fiddle and the thudding of the hob-nail boots of the lumberjacks as they danced away the early hours of ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods • Jessie Graham Flower
... stuff in hemlock into the embers of the fire that you were raking out, till it hums and crackles under the boiler, it won't be long before you hear the propeller thud thudding at the stern again, and before the long roar of the steam whistle echoes over ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... none too soon. Rifle flashes broke in the dark like fireflies elongated. Bullets were whining past them and thudding into the tree-trunks and plowing up the ground all around them as they dove into the thicket; but it was blind guess work shooting in the dark. They got ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... silence. The only sounds were the thudding of hoofs on turf and the shaking of the horsemen in their clothes. Only one or two used saddles. The rifle-barrels ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... across commons until he caught a street car for the smelters. Here he heard the roar of the riot. He saw the new ax-handles of the policemen beating the air, and occasionally thudding on a man's back or head. The Slavs were crying and throwing clods and stones. Grant ran up and bellowed ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... rows upon rows of men and white-veiled women, . . Theos imagined there must have been more then five thousand people present. On went the huge pulsations of melody, surging through the incense-laden air like waves thudding incessantly on a rocky shore, and presently out of a side archway near the Sanctuary-steps came with slow and gliding noiselessness a band of priests, walking two by two, and carrying branches of ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... of his speed he made no difficult target. A bullet brought his horse down and the boy went flying over its neck. Nothing but the loose loam saved him from injury. As he rose to his feet, breathless and covered with the red dirt, there came a swift thudding of hoofs and Asensio swept past him like a rocket. Esteban caught one glimpse of the negro's face, a fleeting vision of white teeth bared to the gums, of distended yellow eyes, of flat, distorted features; then Asensio was fairly upon Colonel Cobo. The colonel, who had dropped ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... effective as the last; but this time the men charged on, and gave a moderately effective thump on the great gate; but it was not delivered all together and with a will, for, although a little desperate, the attacking party could not help dodging the potatoes which came thudding against them, and they were confused by the shouts, yells, and the shrieking of ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... orb was thrusting up over the glassy lake when, next morning, the big tug with a slow thudding of her propeller, moved from her anchorage. At Clark's orders they passed on down the channel, and just where the lake began to broaden was a cluster of white tents. Two Indians were warming their fingers at a rekindled fire. Clark stared ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... feet pounding along, yet dared not move or look up lest he should see me. My heart was thumping like a steam hammer, and every moment I fully expected to find myself tossed into the air. Nearer and nearer came the heavy thudding and I had quite given myself up for lost, when from my lying position I caught sight, out of the corner of my eye, of the infuriated beast rushing by. He had missed me again! I never felt so relieved in my life, and assuredly did not attempt to annoy him further. He went off ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson
... shrugged his shoulders, sprang to his saddle, and cried a retreat. The Cossacks, unable to turn in the aisle, backed cumbrously with a manifold thudding and rearing and clanking, but ere the congregation had finished rubbing their eyes, the last conical hat and leaded knout had vanished, and only the tarry reek of their boots was left in proof of their actual passage. A deep silence hung for a moment ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... and with all the speed at his command. Judd came forward to meet him. He saw two clock-like legs and a body bent close to the ground. He dove low in order to reach him. Then it seemed as if a dozen knees struck him thudding blows in the face. He felt himself being dragged along the ground. His hold on the one foot loosened. He hit the ground heavily and was dimly conscious of feet pounding the earth. Bob ...
— Over the Line • Harold M. Sherman
... night I waked to the knowledge that a casement window was pounding somewhere in the house. For a while I lay and listened in that helpless, exaggerated resentment one feels at such a time. I'd drop off, get nearly to sleep, only to be jerked broad awake again by the thudding. Listening carefully I decided that the bothersome window was in Worth's room, and finally I got up sense and spunk enough to roll out of bed, stick my feet into slippers, and sneak over with ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... desert seemed filled with the calling of the noble beasts, as the girl sat with thudding heart and eyes fixed on the distant spot where fretted and fidgeted the mare ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... bottom of the first double flight were a couple of maids, screaming and white-faced, leaning and pressing against the door, immediately below the one he had just come through himself. The door was plainly barred as well, for it was now thudding and cracking with blows that were being showered upon it from the other side. The maids, it seemed to him, in a panic had locked the door; but that panic might be his salvation. He dashed down the stairs; the maids screamed louder than ever when they saw this man, whom they did not recognise, ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... gesticulating, began to run out of houses and make down the hill toward the town, he remembered that, just as the rose-leaves fell and just as the glass came out of the window-frame, he had been conscious of a distant thudding boom, and a jarring of the ground under his feet. So he joined in the stream of his neighbors, and ran with them down the hill to see ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... came the sound of the thudding hoofs. The riders had reached the dip of the trail now and the rhythmic pound of the horses' feet changed to a syncopated shuffle as the animals made the steep descent. At the edge of the creek they paused for a moment and then ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... was the gloom of these thoughts that the foreman did not hear the thudding hoofs of a horse which trotted up through the trees. Not until horse and rider appeared in the clearing was Hervey roused and then in the first glance by the size and the tossing head of the approaching pony, he recognized the horse ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... in excited tones to Harry and St. Clair. "Hark to the thudding of the great guns! It's war, ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... to the door and went with his oddly light and cat-footed tread down the hill. Just once more he paused, halfway between the headquarters of the East Coast Company's chief engineer and the thudding pile-drivers at the edge ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... just who made the first move, in precisely what manner the action had been planned, or what led up to it, Wilbur could not afterward satisfactorily explain. There was a rush forward—he remembered that much—a dull thudding of feet over the resounding beach surface, a moment's writhing struggle with a half-naked brown figure that used knife and nail and tooth, and then the muffling silence again, broken only by the sound of their own panting. In that whirl of swift action ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... audience of the first half-hour; stragglers at various prices, but all alike in their manifest subdual by a cold atmosphere, a dull illumination, empty seats, and inferior singers put on for the early "turns." A striking of matches to kindle pipe or cigar, a thudding of heavy boots, clink of glass or pewter, and a waiter's spiritless refrain—"Any orders, gents?" Things would be better presently. In the meantime Mr. Gammon was content to have found a place where he could talk with Polly, sheltered from the January night, at small expense. He sipped thoughtfully ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... quietly; "that was kind of you. Do you see that broken sun-ray yonder? Is it not golden? I find it very pleasant to sit here; and I am quite happy, and almost free from pain. Lately I have been troubled with a dull thudding pain near my heart; but now I feel so strong that I believe I shall finish that Andrea ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... situation? Assuredly not, though great efforts were made! Darkness fell so swiftly that the Officers had scarcely time to "site" the position of their trenches. Then the weary business of entrenching began again. Have you ever heard the tinkering, tapping, thudding sounds made by entrenching implements or spades? None of the men who heard it that night will ever forget it. It will give them a memory of energy, promoted by the desire for safety, ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty" |
