"Thumping" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... street I heard a thumping; and I knew it was the stumping Of the Corporal, our old neighbor, on that wooden leg he wore, With a knot of women round him,—it was lucky I had found him, So I followed with the others, and the Corporal ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... and with loud howling swept over the ocean, which rose and tossed to meet the coming storm. Surely no wind ever had a voice so wildly mournful. How the good ship rolled, and groaned, and creaked, and strained her old timber joints! What rocking, thumping, falling, banging of heads at the low entry of the cabin! Water falling into berths, people rolling out of them. What fierce music at night, as the wind, like a funeral dirge, swept over the ocean, the rain falling in torrents, and the sky covered with one dark, lugubrious pall! And how ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... whistling and thumping went on more vigorously than before, and Rose, recognizing the voices, peeped through the half-open door to behold a sight which made her shake with suppressed laughter. Steve, with a red tablecloth ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... the further side of the wall when thud! thud! thud! other members of the flock came thumping down upon the ledge beside him. He moved aside a little way, because he didn't ...
— The Tale of Snowball Lamb • Arthur Bailey
... bark in distress off the shore. It was in the midst of one of the fiercest northeast storms in the remembrance of any man. No boat could go to the aid of the crew, and all efforts to send a line proved futile, and through the day the vessel was seen beating and thumping, and when night fell it was decided that ere morning she would have gone to pieces. Among those who were on the beach was Jacob Canfield, and at night he walked along the beach, when from the breakers he heard a cry. Jake was a powerful swimmer, and he ran down into the ...
— Two Wonderful Detectives - Jack and Gil's Marvelous Skill • Harlan Page Halsey
... his quarters in the neighbourhood of Bevisham by a recent report of his committee, describing the young Radical's canvass as redoubtable. Cougham he did not fear: he could make a sort of calculation of the votes for the Liberal thumping on the old drum of Reform; but the number for him who appealed to feelings and quickened the romantic sentiments of the common people now huddled within our electoral penfold, was not calculable. Tory and Radical have an eye for one another, which overlooks ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... his henchmen. Two minutes of silent fidgeting along the line of mounted Indians. Like so many blue statues the skirmishers stood or knelt, carbines advanced, every hammer at full cock. Back in the shadows of the agency hearts were thumping hard and all eyes were strained upon the scene at the east. The moon, riding higher every moment, looked coldly down upon the valley. Elk came forward again, and Red Dog's war-bonnet wagged first to right ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... Off goes the citizen's hat. Children, come out here; here is one of the soldiers of Gettysburg! Yes, sir; and this knee—you see I can't bend it much—got stiffened at Chickamauga; and this scratch here in the neck was from a bullet at Gaines Mill; and this here, sir—thumping his chest—you notice I don't dare to cough much —after the explosion of a shell at Petersburg I found myself lying on my-back, and the only one of my squad who was not killed outright. Was it the imagination of the citizen or of the soldier that gave the impression ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... As he drew nearer and discovered its source, he hesitated. The light came through the uncurtained windows of a saloon, three long, yellow shafts illuminating the stunted shrubs and sandy places. Craig kept in the shadow between them and drew a little nearer. From inside he could hear the thumping of a worn piano, the twanging of a guitar, the rattle of glasses, the uproarious shouting of men, the shrill laughter of women. The tired man and the lame horse stole reluctantly a little nearer. Craig listened once more wearily. It was home he longed for so much—and rest. The very thought ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... bound and gagged and beaten till the force was out of my limbs. Also, and above all, I had had little food, and I was dizzy with want of sleep. My feet seemed leaden, my hands had no more grip than putty. I do not know how I escaped falling into the pool, for my head was singing and my heart thumping in my throat. I seemed to feel Laputa's great hand every second ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... back against the wall, and there he cowered until he heard his brother's body threshing about the floor. As a matter of fact, that shot had sent Frank sprawling from his bunk, and he was striving to kick off the hampering folds of his sleeping-bag, nothing more; but the thumping of his knees and elbows bore a dreadful significance to the terrified listener. Evidently the Thing had closed in—had grappled with Frank. Its hands, damp with death sweat, even now were groping for him, Joe. ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... to the door. She did not heed his request; upon which he pulled her gown with his teeth, and she, thinking he must have some extraordinary reason for it, then followed him; the instant she opened the door wide, he squatted himself in the middle of the mat placed there, thumping the floor with his tail; before him lay six dead rats, which he had killed and brought to be seen, they being laid out, rat fashion, in due form, and he displaying his prowess with great pleasure. Jack went to Torquay with his young mistress, ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... of work do you do in my house, Mary Ann!" Then there was silence, save for the thumping of his own heart. ...
— Merely Mary Ann • Israel Zangwill
... being a language older than Hebrew or Sanscrit, and universally intelligible. But, excepting these high days of religious solemnity, when a man is called upon to show that he is not a pagan or a miscreant in the eldest of senses, by thumping, or trying to thump, somebody who is accused or accusable of being heterodox, the great ceremony of breakfast was allowed to sanctify the hour. Some natural growls we uttered, ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... to show the unaccountable workings of Providence, that which often appears to be the greatest evil, proved to be the greatest good! That unmerciful sea lifted and beat us up so high among the rocks, that at last the ship scarcely moved. She was very strong, and did not go to pieces at the first thumping, though her decks tumbled in. We found afterwards that she had beat over a ledge of rocks, almost a quarter of a mile in extent beyond us, where, if she had struck, every soul of us ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... its place at the head of the lodge and a buffalo robe was spread on the ground before it. Wrapping myself in my blanket I lay down, but had I not been extremely fatigued the noise in the next lodge would have prevented my sleeping. There was the monotonous thumping of the Indian drum, mixed with occasional sharp yells, and a chorus chanted by twenty voices. A grand scene of gambling was going forward with all the appropriate formalities. The players were staking on the chance issue of the game their ornaments, their horses, ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... two bottles of wine, which were subsequently replaced by another two, by the order of their hospitable entertainer. On Donald, however, his libations were now beginning to produce, in a very marked manner, their usual effects. He was first getting into a state of high excitation; thumping the table violently with his fist, and sputtering out furious discharges of Gaelic and English, mingled in one strange and unintelligible mess of words, and seemingly oblivious of the fact that not a syllable of what he said could be comprehended by his auditory. This, then, was a circumstance ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... grass. A ravine led down into this long park and the mouth of it held a thicket of small pines. Just as we got half way out I saw bobbing black objects above the high grass. I peered sharply. These objects were turkey heads. I got a shot before Copple saw them. There was a bouncing, a whirring, a thumping—and then turkeys appeared to ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... little arm steal round my great waist (as it needs must, to keep her from falling), my stupid heart began to beat so fast and to thump so hard against my waistcoat I feared the buttons would give way, and was greatly shamed lest mademoiselle should feel it thumping and guess the cause. Yet presently Fatima, not being accustomed to petticoats falling over her flanks, pranced on two feet in such a fashion as to cause mademoiselle to clutch me convulsively with both arms, whereupon I found myself suddenly calm and master of the situation. It was the work of a ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... Far Side must have been consumed. It had no resistance to atmospheric friction at five miles per second, or faster. There were just the heavier metallic details left to fall and burn. Far off, there was a thumping crash that seemed to make the ground ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... thumping as that healthy organ had not thumped for years. "I feel a bit that way," he gasped. "You remember what we were talking of ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... dropped on the three like a choking, blinding fog. The two outside the hangings must have been staring at each other, too bewildered or shocked to speak. The one inside clutched her throat, muttering, "If my heart keeps up this thumping, faith, he'll think it's ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... sat chatting, while bad thoughts Were troubling Edward's rest; But soon they heard his hard quick pants, And the thumping in ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... thumping my fist into the palm of the other hand. "That's certainly it! Look here, Joe. I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll quit hauling rock for this morning, go and get a long rope, climb down into this crack, see how much water there is, and find out if we ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp
... begin to fall in four months, and then you will see it at its best. I am also going to make a garden, and plant no end of vegetables and flowers and things. There is a lovely little spot on one of the creeks; and Jim and I have been going over a thumping big box of seeds which I bought yesterday. You can consider that garden as made, with rock-melons and watermelons, and 'punkens' and other fruit growing in ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... above the gunwale, smashed in the bulwarks, and deposited half a ton of ice on deck. Scarcely had this danger passed when a new enemy appeared in sight ahead. Directly in their way, just beyond the line of floe-ice against which they were alternately thumping and grinding, lay a group of bergs. There was no possibility of avoiding them, and the only question was whether they were to be dashed to pieces on their hard blue sides or, perchance, in some providential nook to find a ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... a tee," said Disco, with emphasis, thumping his left palm as usual with his right fist, by way of sheating his remark ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... back, he saw in the distance the lights of a taxi standing outside the building where he lived, and heard a thumping and hallooing. He ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... (Aside, boxing his own ears, and thumping himself to raise his courage). Ah! I am enraged at my own cowardice! ...
— Sganarelle - or The Self-Deceived Husband • Moliere
... to a British jury the wrongs of her injured husband, to paint the agonies of his bleeding heart (if Mr. Advocate gets plaintiff's brief in time, and before defendant's attorney has retained him), and to show Society injured through him. Let us console that martyr, I say, with thumping damages; and as for the woman—the guilty wretch!—let us lead her out and ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... gave a hitch to his trousers, which Is a trick all seamen larn, And having got rid of a thumping quid, He spun ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... succession of roars and bellowings from its upper end, which would have done honour to the vocal powers of its late possessor. A tune it certainly was, for immense outbreaks of sound came at regular intervals, and the performer kept thumping his foot on the floor as if he were keeping time; but as the intermediate notes were of such a very soft nature as to be altogether inaudible, the company were left to fill up the blanks at their own discretion; and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... of feeling that fortune had played him an elaborately-devised trick. It had lured him out into mid-ocean and smoothed the sea and stilled the winds and given him a singularly sympathetic comrade, and then it had turned and delivered him a thumping blow in mid-chest. "Yes," he said, after an attempt at the usual formal congratulation, "you certainly ought to do better—with Miss Garland ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... upon which they again recovered, and remained free from complaint until the next attack. This practice of swathing was resorted to on account of the tympany which followed these spasmodic ravings, but the bystanders frequently relieved patients in a less artificial manner, by thumping and trampling upon the parts affected. While dancing they neither saw nor heard, being insensible to external impressions through the senses, but were haunted by visions, their fancies conjuring up spirits whose names they shrieked out; and some of them afterward ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... the guns gave a touch of anger and menace which made one realise that one was watching war and not a Brock's Benefit. The roar of the artillery lasted all night, and when I woke early in the morning it was still going on. Just about five o'clock, however, it suddenly stopped, and I realised with a thumping heart that the Australians and Kents and Surreys were going over the ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... wise thought, as it was the best thing that could be done. With axes and knives they set energetically to work to cut the ropes which kept the masts and spars thumping against the vessel's sides ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... her that she heard some giant body threshing around near her; she heard a stifled scream and incoherent mutterings. The thing was so close, the thumping and threshing so real, that she started and sat up ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... he continued, thumping the table with a stout hand and repeating the gesture slowly, while the glasses trembled, "Alaska's crying need is a railroad; a single finished line from the most northern harbor open to navigation the whole year—and that is Prince William Sound— straight through to the Tanana Valley and ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... to quarrel with a hardship which shortly afterwards I should have laughed at, I rolled up my cloak for a pillow, wrapped myself in a buffalo-skin, and slept as soundly as on the most luxurious couch. I was roused early by a general thumping and clattering, and, making the hasty toilette which one is compelled to do when destitute of appliances, I found the stage at the early hour of six ready at the door; and, to my surprise, the coachman was muffled up in furs, and the ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... enterprise in escaping from it, interested Bassett, who lifted his voice above the thumping of the ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... that I was adrift, like a bear in a washing-tub. My first mate was below. I had just relieved the deck, for in this blowing weather we must keep watch in harbour. The men were all at their dinner, when I heard the boat thumping under the main channels. I got into her to ease off a fathom or two of the painter; but as I hauled her ahead to get at the bend, it appears that the monkey of a boy who made her fast, and has been but a few ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... "Had I been Master Franois and black Louis not been by I should have tried to mend my luck with a cudgel. At best and worst she would have had something to curse for after a lusty thumping." ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... tremendous thumping. There was no way of avoiding a meeting, unless he turned tail and fled before her. That was not to be thought of. It was the first time they had come face to face since the unforgettable ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... very slowly, clad in long, thick, frieze coats, bearing lanterns in their left hands, and thumping along the ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... silence, broken only by the sound of the dasher thumping against the bottom of the churn, and ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... The steps came thumping on down the inner stairway, different windows took the light of the candle, and none other shone in the house; it was clear that it was moving with the steps all down that echoing stairway. The sound of the steps ceased to reverberate ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... mare's trot. Fatima had been Shawn's favourite mount in those days, and no one could mistake the sound of her delicate feet in the distance. There, with her ear to the night, Mary O'Gara had listened and listened, her heart thumping so fast sometimes that she could not be sure if she heard the horse's hoofs. Only, as she used to say joyously afterwards, there was really no mistaking Fatima's trot when ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... and a quarter Jan scorched all she knew. The angry blood was thumping in her ears and she exclaimed indignantly at intervals, "How dared he! How ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... whom there were nearly a thousand, were not in the charge, and when retreat began they went in panic. We could hear calls and yells, the clatter of arms, and a thumping of the earth; the strain of men tugging cannon ropes; the swift ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... to stand between his master and the driving blast laid down his lantern too, and strove by thumping his breast vigorously to infuse a little warmth into his numbed limbs and at the same time to ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... a suspicion of snow in the veiled sky, and the wind stabbed like a knife. Twice the tug cut through a field of ice making out on an offshore current, and the thumping the little row-boat received seemed likely to rend her into drift-wood. But that was only one of the chances; and the two men went on into the icy blast with jaws so tightly clenched that their cheek muscles stood ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... appeared ignorant of all housework—even washing, dusting, or sweeping thoroughly. She, however, did everything we did not do for ourselves, and ironed the linen after a fashion. Tonette washed for us in the little river aforesaid, where she used an incredible quantity of soap, thumping our things with a piece of flat wood upon a great stone, most conveniently, as she observed, placed there for the purpose 'by the saints in heaven;' which method, if it hastened its wearing out, made our linen at least sweet and clean while it lasted. My husband shot and cultivated the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 437 - Volume 17, New Series, May 15, 1852 • Various
... had kept faith, he might get safely away. Boileau would surely never fail him. Hampered and constantly tripped up by roots and tangled undergrowth, confused by the blackness of the night, the boy toiled on with thumping heart and shortening breath; and at last, looming above him, was the welcome outlines of the great rock. But on neither side of it could he find sign of the trader or of his canoe. And already by the rustlings in the woods and the occasional snapping of dry sticks, he could tell that the pursuing ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... stood next day, during a leisure hour, close to the whirling wheels and never-ending cable, about 160 miles of which had been laid by that time. "Just look at the Terrible and Sphinx; the sea is now so heavy that they are thumping into the waves, burying their bows in foam, while we are slipping along as steadily as a ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... and Appearance. Watch yourself and see if you are not in the habit of moving your hands, thumping something with your fingers or twirling your mustache. Some have the habit of keeping their feet going, as, for instance, tapping them on the floor. Practice standing before a mirror and see if you are in the habit of frowning or causing wrinkles to appear ...
— The Power of Concentration • Theron Q. Dumont
... back, his heart thumping heavily at sound of the voice, thick though it was and maudlin. Dade drunk and full of coarse foolery was a sight he had never before looked upon; but Dade's presence, drunk or sober, made his own plight seem a shade less hopeless. He did not dare a second glance, with ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... follow Wampus when a revolver shot arrested him. This sound was followed by a quick thumping against the ground of the steel bar, and then Wampus emerged from the tent holding a dark, squirming object on the end of the rod extended ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... bodies added to the natural heat of a summer's evening; there were no other sounds or movements of any consequence. Sally became uncomfortably susceptible to the undercurrent of high nervous tension, conscious of a slight dew on her hands and forehead, and surprisingly conscious of the sonorous thumping of her heart. Unaccountably, nobody else seemed to ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... Right, didn't I, yer bloomin' chuckhead? 'E'll unnerstand that it was all done in mistake, an' not by preference, so to speak. An' unnerstandin', he'll forgive. Lots of them mistakes are made by girls like me"—thumping of washed but still grimy hand above gallant little heart—"through swipes like you. Life's full of 'em down our way. But life's love, and love's life, and you can't get away from that, that yer ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... general aesthetic and social appeal, of which still hangs in its wealth before me. Dr. McElroy, uplifting tight-closed eyes, strange long-drawn accents and gaunt scraggy chin, squirming and swaying and cushion-thumping in his only a shade more chastely adorned temple, is distinct enough too—just as we enjoyed this bleak intensity the more, to my personal vision, through the vague legend (and no legend was too vague for me to cherish) of his being ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... to be awakened, too. He set the echoes ringing with a vigorously played "reveille;" a minute later came an equally earnest "assembly," and when "boots and saddles" followed, we knew that all was not well in Denmark; the thumping and shaking now had a significance. It meant heavy Yankee guns somewhere near. We heard the gunners hitching up; the bugle signal "forward," the wheels roll off, and for a half hour afterwards we caught the receding sound of ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... occasion, when she and Sally had been climbing up to the second floor, and the door of his room was opened, through which his voice had sounded, calling to Sally, she had run hurriedly up the stairs out of sight, her heart thumping with excitement when ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... for a minute and then began again abusing the frost, banging his arms across his chest and thumping with his golosh boots. ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... crouched down obediently, thumping his tail on the floor as an indication that he understood. As if a load had been taken from her mind Enid crept down the stairs. She had hardly reached the hall before Henson followed her. His big face was white with passion; he was trembling from head to ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... "There's ma thumping with the poker on the up-stairs floor. When it's closing-time she begins to get restless. I—I wish Selene would come in. She went out with Lester Goldmark in his little flivver, and I ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... the pair were contending for votes, a government man, an aide-de-camp to the king, arrived with his hands full of tobacco licenses and other electoral small change, and, like the third thief, he slipped between the two who were thumping each other, and carried ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... the indulgences that the Archbishop had allowed on your books, to allure buyers, old Peter, thumping his ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... turn, but the skis were already slipping over the snow. To preserve her balance she was forced to go, and for seconds that seemed like hours she slid down the hillside, her heart thumping in her throat; her nerves straining and twitching to check that maddening progress. For she knew that sound. She had heard it before, had shrunk secretly many a time before its coarse brutality. It was the yell of a man ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... silent moment the two parties remained immovable, eying each other across the hollow. Then David edged closer to the girl. He felt his heart thumping, but his first throttling grip of fear loosened as his mind realized their helplessness. Leff was the only one with arms. They must get in front of Susan and tell her to run and the camp was a mile off! He felt for her hand and heard ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... the River Leeba, we reached the village of Manenko, a female chief, of whose power of tongue we soon had ample proof. She was a woman of fine physique, and insisted on accompanying us some distance with her husband and drummer, the latter thumping most vigorously, until a heavy, drizzling mist set in and compelled him to desist. Her husband used various incantations and vociferations to drive away the rain, but down it poured incessantly, and on our ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... was he who had invented the system whereby the handle of the heating apparatus in railway carriages could be turned either to OFF or ON without any consequent infiltration of steam, thereby saving passengers from the peril of death by suffocation. It was he who, thumping the table with an iron fist, had insisted vehemently that caged parrots travelling in the rack should, if capable of speech, be compelled to pay the full fare. It was he who effected one of the greatest economies that the line had ever known by using rock-cakes which had served their ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 24, 1920 • Various
... Murdoch, the next morning, to an anxious Doggie, after some minutes of thumping and listening, "but that's merely a matter of unused muscles. Physical training will set it right in no time. Otherwise, my dear Trevor, you're in splendid health. There's not a flaw ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... delightful ceremony Otto had stood on the left of his daughter, his heart thumping away, his face growing redder every minute, his eyes intent on each guest elbowing a way through the crowd as Masie handed them their gifts, noting the general happiness and the laughter that followed the reading of the lines, wondering all the time why no one was ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... great forest, the playground of boys and girls during noon-hour and recesses; an enchanted land, peopled, not by fairies, elves, and other shadowy beings of fancy, but with living things, squirrels, and chipmunks, and weasels, chattering ground-hogs, thumping rabbits, and stealthy foxes, not to speak of a host of flying things, from the little gray-bird that twittered its happy nonsense all day, to the big-eyed owl that hooted solemnly when the moon came out. A wonderful place this ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... in her chair, and tried to appear at her ease; but her heart was thumping tumultuously. The man was going to propose, she knew—she knew; and she was not ready for him. She felt that she would break down ignominiously if he pressed ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... Miss Edgeworth's Irish postilion and “Knockecroghery,” could scarcely have afforded us more amusement than our Sarde driver and his horse, whose good qualities he ludicrously vaunted, alternately cursing and glorifying, thumping and coaxing, the vicious beast, while we heaved at the wheels. Our united efforts at length succeeded in extricating the vehicle from the sandy hollow; and after jolting for awhile over the new-formed ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... or marble, but of pure iron." Then he gave one of his meaningless laughs, and putting his fingers on my wrist, said: "Feel here; this is not a man's pulse, but a lion's or a dragon's." At this, I, whose blood was thumping in my veins, probably far beyond anything which that fool of a doctor had learned from his Hippocrates or Galen, knew at once how serious was my situation; yet wishing not to add to my uneasiness and to the harm I had already taken, I made show ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... sir, your father is wrath to a degree; he comes down stairs eight or ten steps at a time—muttering, growling, and thumping the banisters all the way: I and the cook's dog stand bowing at the door—rap! he gives me a stroke on the head with his cane; bids me carry that to my master; then kicking the poor turnspit into the area, damns us all, for a puppy triumvirate!—Upon my credit, sir, were I in your place, and ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... great, big, thumping, obtrusive, uncompromising lie—that's what meets us on the threshold! There is our starting point. The whole story told by Barker is a lie. But Barker's story is corroborated by Mrs. Douglas. Therefore she is lying also. They are both lying, and in a conspiracy. So now we have the clear problem. ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle
... very grave and tranquil manner, produced that instantaneous effect which admonitions from great rogues generally work upon little. Messieurs the ravmpers ceased from their amusements; and the ringleader of the gang, thumping Paul heartily on the back, declared he was a capital fellow, and it was only a bit of a spree like, which he hoped had not ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... find, and set out to save an intelligence. And he presently found a man whose face was hot, who shouted that the time was not far distant when a candidate, whom he named, would be returned at the head of the poll by a thumping majority. And by him the poet stopped and offered him a seat in the motor that was covered with flags. When the man saw the flags that were on the motor, and that it was the largest in the town, he got in. He said that his vote should be given for ...
— A Dreamer's Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... shell and discoursed to a horse that was coming down to drink. The mud-turtle said to the horse: "Just as I get sound asleep you are sure to come past and wake me up. We always used to have a good quiet time down here in the swamp till you got in the habit of thumping along this way. I am conservative and like to keep in my shell. I have been pastor of thirteen other mud-turtles, and we always had peace until you came, and next week at our semi-annual meeting of mud-turtles we shall either have you voted a nuisance or will ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... and calabashes, throwing down their owners, and scattering their property about in all directions. The blacksmiths in particular, welcomed him by clashing their iron tools against each other, and the drummers rejoiced by thumping violently upon one end of their instruments. A few women and children ran from him in a fright, but the majority less timid, approached as near as they could, to catch a glimpse of the first white man they had ever seen. His appearance ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... is shut. She has a night-light in her room—I prefer darkness. I close my eyes and prepare for slumber. As a rule I fall asleep. My sleep is of short duration. I awake with beads of perspiration standing on my forehead, with my heart thumping heavily and with every nerve wide awake, and waiting for the horror which will come. Sometimes I wait half an hour—sometimes longer. Then I know by a faint, ticking sound in the darkness that the Thing, for I can clothe it with no ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... uproar: the merry applause of clinking pewters; the stamping of feet; the rattle of sticks. Rob Saunderson and old Jonas are cheering with the best; Tupper and Ned Hoppin are bellowing in one another's ears; Long Kirby and Jem Burton are thumping each other on the back; even Sam'l Todd and Sexton Ross are roused ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... cold!" cried the youngest, keeping in a far corner, out of way of the warmth from the stove, and thumping his toes alternately as he moved in a circle. "Sloughs are frozen to the bottom. Didn't catch a thing, and had to use the ax to chop out the ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... and is very agreeable, moreover, and with M. Le Baron, an officer in the Swiss Guards, an old bachelor, to St. Sulpice, to hear M. Fressenus. He preached in the Kirwan style, but with intolerable monotony of thumping eloquence, against les Liberaux, Rousseau, etc.; it seemed to me old stuff, ill embroidered, but it was much applauded. Mem.: the audience were not half so attentive or silent at St. Sulpice as they were at the Theatre Francais the ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... to the water, if we cannot make him drink," shouts a newsboy in her ear; and with a great deal of tugging and thumping she feels herself driven closer to her books. But idle hands make an idle brain, and the ...
— Golden Moments - Bright Stories for Young Folks • Anonymous
... and to this day can not endure stamping, nor even tapping of the foot, nor clapping the hands together, nor thumping the table for illustration; having an idea that such noises are not oratory, and that untranslatable sounds are ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... I dared say it, for her eyes were blazing in her white face, and my heart was thumping, but there was Robinson Crusoe crowing in his hooded cradle, and Robin's father was on the front step, with the old oak door shut ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey
... Physico-Theology on Respiration, says—"The story of Anne Green, executed at Oxford, December 14, 1650, is still well remembered among the seniors there. She was hanged by the neck near half an hour, some of her friends in the mean time thumping her on the breast, others hanging with all their weight upon her legs, sometimes lifting her up, and then pulling her down again with a sudden jerk, thereby the sooner to dispatch her out of her pain, as her printed account wordeth it. After she was in her coffin, being observed ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 530, January 21, 1832 • Various
... time in an insufferable nasal monotone. Three o'clock would strike directly; Andrea looked at the titles of the books, keeping an eye on the gates of the palace, while the voice of the bookseller mingled confusedly with the loud thumping of ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... Bobs' welcome, I think, across the cold prairie air, that took the tragedy out of my homecoming. There were gladness and trust in those deep-throated howls of greetings. He even licked the snow off my overshoes and nested his head between my knees, with his bob-tail thumping the floor like a flicker's beak. He sniffed at the Twins rather disgustedly. But he'll learn to love them, I feel sure, as time goes on. He's too intelligent a dog ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... returned with his reindeer within the allotted time, and we took our leave of the encampment. A strong south wind had arisen, but did not dissipate the fog, and for two hours we had a renewal of our past experiences, in thumping over hard ridges and ploughing through seas of snow. Our track was singularly devious, sometimes doubling directly back upon itself without any apparent cause. At last, when a faint presentiment of dawn began to glimmer through the fog, the Lapp halted and announced that he had lost the ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... stared at one another. The Jampot go? Really go?... They could hear their hearts thumping one ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... have me call again; but "once bitten twice shy," and I had not so much enjoyed my call as to wish to repeat it. But I believe that what Mr. Carlyle absolutely needed above all things on earth was somebody to put on the gloves with him metaphorically about once a day, and give and take a few thumping blows; nor do I believe that he would have shrunk from a tussle a la Choctaw, with biting, gouging, tomahawk and scalper, for he had an uncommonly dour look about the eyes, and must have been a magnificent fighter when once roused. But though I had not his vast ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... making a rapid ride about my position, studying its approaches in the gathering twilight and trying to fix in mind the leading features of the topography with their relation to the possible retreat of our army and advance of the enemy. And all the while the rapid though muffled thumping of the distant cannon was in our ears, coming from the field in front of Groveton, where Lee, having now united his whole army against Pope, was sending part of Longstreet's divisions against McDowell's corps ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... first twenty-one miles to Twin Lakes, at the best speed, with good horses, occupied eight hours, three of which, in the middle of the night, were passed under deluging rain accompanied by thunder and lightning of the most appalling grandeur, thumping in the shelterless wagon over stumps and bogholes through the ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... were watching her face. She closed her lips and compelled her eyelids to obey the dictates of a resentful heart: she lowered them until they gave one the impression of indolent curiosity, even indifference. All the while, her incomprehensible heart was thumping with a rapture that knew no allegiance ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... the tail vigorously thumping the floor, but the head appeared only inch by inch. Donaldson held ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... air. It is probable that Hippocrates and many others after him carried the physical examination of the chest still further, for it is difficult to imagine, for example, that so simple a device as that of thumping a partition to make out the situation of a joist by the sound evoked should not early have been applied to the human chest. But, be this as it may, to Laennec belongs the great credit of having laid a substantial foundation ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... lucky in having conquered renown by a single speech, broke out impetuously, "I was years preparing that speech—twenty times I wanted to deliver it, but did not feel that I had it here (touching his head), though it palpitated here (thumping his breast) as if ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... the various particulars that were continually passing before our eyes, and as the Poet says, catching "the manners living as they rise," a thumping step was heard coming along the passage. The door opened, and a wooden-legged weather-beaten seaman, past the meridian, with a pot of beer in one hand and a bag in the other, showed his phiz. He was dressed in the usual sailor's garb, jacket and trousers, with a black ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown
... had been set at the end of the board. The runaways, four or five in number, herded together lower down, with a few travellers of lower degree, all except the youth who had been boasting before their arrival, and who retained his seat at the board, thumping it with the handle of his knife to show his impatience for the commencement of supper; and not far off sat Tibble, the same who had hailed their arrival, a thin, slight, one-sided looking person, with a terrible red withered scar on one cheek, ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... seen something of the world, and finding people here interested in adventure, I talked the matter over before my first audience in a little hall by the country road. A piano having been brought in from a neighbor's, I was helped out by the severe thumping it got, and by a "Tommy Atkins" song from a strolling comedian. People came from a great distance, and the attendance all told netted the house about three pounds sterling. The owner of the hall, a kind lady from Scotland, would take no rent, ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... clock, and, with my heart still thumping noisily in my breast, I began to count the tickings; one, two, three, four, five, and so on to a hundred, and from one hundred ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... for this was plainly meant to annoy. But Anthea would not give herself time to think this. She led the way up the stairs, taking three at a time, and bounded to the level of Jane, who sat on the top step of all, thumping her doll to the tune of the song she was trying ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... acts through the nerves that control the heart's action. Under its baneful influence the motions of the heart are irregular, now feeble and fluttering, now thumping with apparently much force: but both these forms of disturbed action indicate an abnormal condition. Frequently there is severe pain in the heart, often dizziness with gasping breath, ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... name. The next evening after he came on board, Dag Daughtry talked it over with him. Michael sat on his haunches, the length of his lower jaw resting on Daughtry's knee, the while his eyes dilated, contracted and glowed, his ears ever pricking and repricking to listen, his stump tail thumping ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... prodigal younger son. After all, at worst, I am a sort of latter-day Robin Hood; I take from the rich according to their incomes. I don't give to the poor certainly, I don't get enough. But—there are other good works. Many a poor weakling have I comforted with Lies, great thumping, silly Lies, about the grave! Compare me with one of those rascals who disseminate phossy jaw and lead poisons, compare me with a millionaire who runs a music hall with an eye to feminine talent, or an underwriter, or the common stockbroker. Or any ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... and the chariot had suddenly to pull itself back upon its wheels, and the band were able to breathe freely for a minute, to gaze about them and to wipe the sweat from their brows; even in February blowing and thumping "all round the town" was a ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... tenderly strive To raise these sweet prostrates; then, heaving a sigh, And wiping the drops that shall stand in each eye, Like one sorely cross'd, you shall, weeping, exclaim, "Oh! why do you tear me from conquest and fame? But still, if the nation commands me, 'tis fit" (Your breast thumping hard) "that its Chief should submit." Then you see, if the army of England should sail, And the schemes of this cursed armada should fail, In the Moniteur's faithful official page, I can humbug the people, and soften their rage; I will tell them, that, had but the nation permitted ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr
... and was told by him to tell the General that the position was unfortunate owing to a weak salient. We had already heard guns, but on my way back I heard a distant crash, and looked round to find that a shell had burst half a mile away on a slag-heap, between Dour and myself. With my heart thumping against my ribs I opened the throttle, until I was jumping at 40 m.p.h. from cobble to cobble. Then, realising that I was in far greater danger of breaking my neck than of being shot, I pulled myself together and slowed ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson |
