"Patter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to all on duty at twelve o'clock, and we're on duty, aren't we? They're about ready to serve now; we eat in the tent," he added, holding out his hand as he heard the patter of raindrops. "Rain again! No matter, we shall be dry ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... patter of two spent balls against the woodwork. The wind is against our hearing the report. The cards are shuffled. It is my cut and your deal. The ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... change, that wet scent which visits even the hearts of towns and inspires the watcher of their myriad activities with thought of the restless Force that forever cries: "On, on!" But gradually the steady patter of the horse's hoofs, the rattling of the windows, the slow thudding of the wheels, pressed on us so drowsily that when, at last, we reached home we were more than half asleep. The fare was two shillings, and, standing in the lamplight to make sure the coin was a half-crown ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Crow heard the gentle flap of wings, and looking over the edge of the nest, she saw Old Parson Owl in the dim moonlight. The next moment the sight of little Jimmy Crow hopping after him made her heart go pitter-patter. ...
— Little Jack Rabbit's Adventures • David Cory
... walked away. He had only gone a few steps, when there was a patter of feet behind him. ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... whistling, and paused for a moment to take breath. Deering, throwing himself back from the path, grasped a bush. The twigs rattled noisily, and with a frightened "Oh!" the clown darted away, nimbly and fleetly. They followed a white blur in the starlight for an instant and heard the patter of ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson
... round the empty hall and at the windows, black against the night. Under the patter of the rain he heard footsteps—distinctly. He went hastily clumping down the hall, and along the passage to ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson
... rain fell on his hand. A moment later there was a continuous patter, as the storm, which had been gathering all day, broke in earnest. Mike turned up his coat-collar, and ran back to Outwood's. "At this rate," he said to himself, "there won't be a match ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... Tommy were sound asleep on their cots as soon as supper was over, and Will and George were getting ready to retire when the soft patter of a light footstep sounded in the vicinity of ...
— The Call of the Beaver Patrol - or, A Break in the Glacier • V. T. Sherman
... the swift wings of excitement, flew upstairs. There was the quick patter of eager little feet, and in a very few moments the door was pushed open and a boy and girl entered. Charlotte recognized them at a glance. They were the very handsome little pair whose acquaintance she had made yesterday in Regent's Park. The girl hung back a trifle shyly, but the boy, just saying ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... puffing of the slender tin stack, the three gay and joyous little noises, each sounding like a note of discreet laughter interrupted by a cough, became clear and distinct. Inside the room there was no sound except the persistent patter of something four-footed going up and down. At length even this sound ceased abruptly. Worn out, Vandover had just fallen, dropping forward upon his face with a long breath. He lay still, sleeping at last. The remnant of the great band of ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... overboard. The course steered is so suddenly altered, that as she rounds to the effect of the sails is doubled; the creaking of the tiller-ropes and rudder next strike the ear; then follows the pitter-patter of several hundred feet in rapid motion, producing a singular tremor, fore and aft. In the midst of these ominous noises may be heard, over all, the shrill startling voice of the officer of the watch, generally betraying in its tone more ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... from them in horror while her poor, white face turned to me for rescue in desperate pleading—oh! I must find her at all costs; and leaping from bed I snatched up those trousers without which the best of heroes is nothing, and had hardly got into them when there came the patter of light feet without and a Martian, in a hurry for once, with half a dozen others behind him, swept aside the curtains of ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... There was a patter of feet from the sitting-room and Barbara came running, Petunia in her arms. At the sight of their visitor's lanky ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... clouds now rolled in volumes over the mountain tops; their summits still bright and snowy, but the lower parts of an inky blackness. The rain began to patter down in broad and scattered drops; the wind freshened, and curled up the waves; at length, it seemed as if the bellying clouds were torn open by the mountain tops, and complete torrents of rain came rattling down. The lightning leaped from cloud to cloud, and streamed ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... gentlemen," he said to the mockers in a wavering voice, "I will now present to you the concluding item of my entertainment. I will cause this lady to disappear under your very eyes, without the aid of any mechanical contrivance or artificial device." This was the merest showman's patter, for, as a matter of fact, it was not a very wonderful illusion. But as he led his wife forward to present her to the audience the conjurer was wondering whether the mishaps that had ruined his chance would meet him even here. If something should ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... the friend who is now speaking was a boy at his sports—playing around the old Federal Street Theatre, and beneath the walls of the Franklin Street Cathedral, and hearing upon the broad causeways of Pearl Street the rustle and patter of the autumn leaves as they fell from the chestnuts around the Perkins Institution and the elms that darkened the sombre, deserted castle of Harris's Folly. With this sense of strangeness though, comes a sense still more striking and impressive ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... The patter of the raindrops on the deck of the houseboat could still be heard, and the wind still blew hard. But the thunder and lightning were not so bad, and ...
— The Bobbsey Twins on a Houseboat • Laura Lee Hope
... attention. I did not hear the dripping on the roof, nor the patter-patter of the drops from the ceiling, nor the beating of the storm against the glass. My candles blew in the draught, and shadows crossed and recrossed the page. Do you remember ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... night began to pass. The outline of the window-frame became visible against a faint grey glimmer. The window was open, and a breath of the coming dawn wandered in with the fragrance of drenched roses. A soft rain was falling. The patter of it could ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... Douglas threw himself on his horse and was off after the dim figure that raced down the west trail which led to the Pass. He did not heed Judith's call nor the quick patter of hoofs behind him. On and on through the frosty April night, Prince barking joyfully before, the Moose galloping at top speed, the stars sliding overhead. On past the Browns' noisy corral, past Falkner's ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... and in the silence that followed, only the dull patter of the rain, and the persistent purring of a kitten curled up on the cot were audible. Mrs. Singleton finished the buttonhole in Dick's apron, ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... bog-asphodel, sundew, and the like. The tale is a charming combination of humour and pathos, and the last clause, where "the shoes go home," is enough to bring tears to the eyes of every one who loves the patter ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... in a woman's smile, of rapture in a woman's kiss. It meant the giving up of every joy in seeing her pass before him, of hearing the swish of her skirts on the pavement of the city; it meant the giving up of all hope ever to win her, of all thought of a future home, the patter of children's feet, the rocking of a tiny cradle. It meant the sacrifice of every thought of happiness and of every desire of body ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... can't sleep with that fly in my ear! I'll take a walk!" Down the steps he went. Skippety, skippety, skippety, skippety. He reached the sidewalk. On the sidewalk went his feet. You could hear them as they beat. Pitter patter, pitter patter, pitter patter down ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell
... the rain went patter-patter on the windowpanes, Ezra saw a strange sight in the fireplace—yes, right among the embers and the crackling flames Ezra saw a strange, beautiful picture unfold and spread itself out like ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... Star herself. They, too, talked but little, and as we rode on in the deepening gloom amid the solemn silence and the gaunt grandeur of the mountains, their words became fewer and fewer, till at length thought took the place of speech, and the silence was broken by no sound save the patter of the mules' feet and the rattle of stones under ...
— The Romance of Golden Star ... • George Chetwynd Griffith
... incidents which Joan listened to with a breaking heart. Stella could not sleep at all after her return. She lived in a little house with a big garden on the northern edge of London, and all night she lay awake, listening to the patter of rain on melancholy trees, and thinking and thinking. Harry Luttrell kept her from the drugs in her dressing-case. She had no ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... boomed a voice, as a patter of water descended upon her head; and Dolly stepped out into the vigorous embrace of a turkish towel. It was passing over her body with a firm, rotary motion as of machinery; she swayed within it like a palm in a tempest. It slid ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... The patter of feet down the street told only too well where her protector had gone; but he was valiantly calling lustily for help as ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... when she woke the next morning, Lydia half hoped that the soft patter against her window was of rain drops. But it was the wind-tossed maple leaves, whose scarlet and gold were drifting deep on the lawn and garden. There never was a more brilliant October day than this, and at ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... almost beyond the circle of light, paused while my lips moved in a vague smile of response, then moved on into the shadow. The low, deep quiet of the corridor resumed its hold on me. The patter of reflection in my ...
— A Diary Without Dates • Enid Bagnold
... June felt neither troubled nor afraid. She lay there with her face upturned to the pelting rain, watching it patter from leaf to leaf, listening to the chirp of the birds in the nests, listening to the crying of the wind. She liked the sound. She had a dim notion that it was like an old camp-meeting hymn that she had heard Creline sing sometimes. She never ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... the day-light, When the night is beginning lo lower, Comes a pause in the day's occupation Which is known as the children's hour. 'Tis then appears tiny Irving With the patter of little feet, To tell us that worms become dizzy At a slight application of heat. And Norma, the baby savant, Comes toddling up with the news That a valvular catch in the larynx Is the reason why Kitty mews. "Oh Grandpa," cries lovable Lester, "Jack Frost has surprised us again, By condensing ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... and listened to the patter of her little feet descending the stairs to the street. Then he went back into the studio and drew the curtains. Thank God, her heart ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... fill up far more than an hour in speaking of those voices which come to us as nature is at work. Think of the patter of the rain, how each drop as it hits the pavement sends circles of sound-waves out on all sides; or the loud report which falls on the ear of the Alpine traveller as the glacier cracks on its way down the valley; or the mighty boom of the avalanche as the snow slides in huge masses ...
— The Fairy-Land of Science • Arabella B. Buckley
... The lips of Patter ne'er are dumb, The Futile Mills shall grind their grist Of sand from now till Kingdom Come; The Winds of Bunk are never whist. You scowl and shake an honest fist — You threaten her with Night and Sorrow? Go slay one Pseudo-Scientist, More Little ...
— Hermione and Her Little Group of Serious Thinkers • Don Marquis
... Go patter to lubbers and swabs, do you see, 'Bout danger, and fear, and the like; A tight-water boat and good sea-room give me, And it ain't to a little I'll strike. Though the tempest topgallant-mast smack smooth should smite And shiver ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... came to pass that coffee history repeated itself in England. Many good people became convinced that coffee was a dangerous drink. The tirades against the beverage in that far-off time sound not unlike the advertising patter employed by some of our present-day coffee-substitute manufacturers. It was even ridiculed by being referred to as "ninny broth" ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... the creaking of the blind man's chair and the decreasing patter of the rain. Soon it stopped and Harry Baggs went outside; stars glimmered at the edges of shifting clouds, a sweet odor rose from the earth, a trailing ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... you did!" shouted Mr. Blake. Both he and Mr. Porter had to shout to be heard above the noise of the storm; for the thunder was very loud, and the patter of the rain drops, and the rattle of the hail made a very great ...
— Daddy Takes Us to the Garden - The Daddy Series for Little Folks • Howard R. Garis
... of Memories her fancy sped, as though borne on wings. Childish voices rang through the empty corridors and the fairy patter of tiny feet sounded on the stairs. One by one, out of the shadows, old joys and old loves came toward her; forgotten hopes and lost dreams. Hands long since mingled with the dust clasped hers once more with perfect understanding—warm ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... patter of raindrops struck the group, beating gently on Katherine's white, upturned face. Marjorie had now lifted her head to an easy position ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... stood in the glare of light, the baggy scarlet breeches and gray shirt making a flaring mark that no eye, called suddenly to see, could miss, that no rifle brought sliding through the loophole and searching for a target could fail to mark. The bullets began to patter about 'Enery Irving's feet, to whine and whimper and buzz about his ears. And 'Enery—this was where the trench, despite themselves, laughed—'Enery placed his hand on his heart, swept off his cap in a magnificent arm's length gesture, ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... is at night. The custodians know me and let me moon about in the dark. When all that is ignoble and mean has faded away with the daylight, it seems to me the ghosts of the old time come back upon the sands. I can fancy the patter of light hoofs, the glancing of spectral horns. I can imagine the agile tread of Romero, the deadly thrust of Montes, the whisper of long-vanished applause, and the clapping of ghostly hands. I am growing too old for such skylarking, and I sometimes come away with a cold in my head. But ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... labors were over for that night, and soon went to bed, tired with her first attempts. But toward morning she was wakened by the hoarse breathing of the boy, and was forced to patter away to Miss Bat's room, humbly asking for the squills, and confessing that the prophecy had come ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... to his own room. Along this he goes some twenty paces or more, when there comes quickly into view from a side gallery the figure of a tall, slight, and graceful girl. She has descended some little flight of stairs, for he could hear the patter of her slippered feet, and the swish of her skirts before she appeared. Now, with rapid step she is coming straight towards him, carrying some little glass phials in her hand. The glare of the afternoon sun is blazing in the street, and at the window behind ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King
... noting with housewifely approval that it had recently been polished. I have seldom passed a more uncomfortable time of waiting, than that between the resounding clatter of grandmother's knocking reverberating through the empty house, and the patter of feet, the whispering, and at last the ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... they come!" was the shout passed along from cabin to cabin, announcing the patter of a pack of dogs, howling, ravenous, their bodies covered with mud, running about without finding rest, driven on day and night, with the madness of persecution in their eyes. The huerta seemed to shudder, closing the doors of all the houses and suddenly bristling with guns. Shots rang out ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... life had Dame Desley and her four children led in their rural home. The sound of their cheerful voices, the patter of their little feet, the laugh, the shout, and the song, had been heard from morning till night. I will not stop to tell of all the daisy-chains and cowslip-balls made by the children under the big elm-tree that grew on their mother's lawn; or how they gathered ripe blackberries in autumn; ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker
... gone but a few paces before the other discovered that I was in flight. I heard the rapid patter of his shoes behind me. In another twenty feet I heard his voice. It was not loud and it was cautious, but it reached my ears with a suggestion of ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... pitch stone-bed immediately above it seem perilously hanging in mid air; and along their sides there trickles, in even the driest summer weather,—for the Scuir is a condenser on an immense scale—minute runnels of water, that patter ceaselessly in front of the long deep hollow, like rain from the eaves of a cottage during a thunder shower. Inside, however, all is dry, and the floor is covered to the depth of several inches with the dung of sheep and cattle, ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... place of shelter for my instruments; and as I was careful always to put this part against the wind, I could lie here with a sensation of satisfied enjoyment, and hear the wind blow, and the rain patter close to my head, and know that I should be at least half dry. Certainly I never slept more soundly. The barometer at sunset was 26.010, thermometer at 81 deg., and cloudy; but a gale from the west sprang up with the setting sun, and in a few minutes swept away every cloud from ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... him; every vein throbbed; every nerve quivered. In a minute he would wipe out, once and for all, the score of years; for the moment, however, there was urgent business on hand. For outside he could hear the quick patter of feet hard-galloping, and the scurry of a huge creature racing madly ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... me patter for that!' Dymes exclaimed, when he saw that she smiled with pleasure. 'You don't know Dicky Wellington? A cousin of Ada's. By-the-bye, her concert will be at the end of May—Prince's Hall, most likely. You ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... hill! Walk along, Lord Carnarvon! you ain't sitting in a cab'net council here, you know. Don't leave Sir Garnet do all the work, you know. Forward, my lucky lads! creep up it!" and by the time he had shrieked out this and a lot more patter, behold! we were at the top of the hill, and a fresh, lovely landscape was lying smiling in the sunshine below us. It was a beautiful country we passed through, but, except for a scattered homestead here and there by the roadside, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... heard the swift patter of feet over the crisp surface, and the grey beast came and halted suddenly not three yards from us, and on his haunches he sat up and howled, and I heard the answering yells in no long space of time coming whence we had come. His eyes glowed green with a strange light of their own as he ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... birds lack the brilliance of the speculums of puddle ducks. Since many of them have short tails, their huge, paddle feet may be used as rudders in flight, and are often visible on flying birds. When launching into flight, most of this group patter along the water ...
— Ducks at a Distance - A Waterfowl Identification Guide • Robert W. Hines
... room. She still did not believe that either of the boys had been up at that unearthly hour using the grindstone, but she wished to prove to Elsie that it was all imagination. As she passed the head of the stairs she suddenly stopped. Somewhere, down below, she distinctly heard a soft noise like the patter of slippered feet. Ida ...
— Under Padlock and Seal • Charles Harold Avery
... hanging there like a gigantic black bat. There was not a soul anywhere near him, but by the occasional flashes of light Thomson could see soldiers and hurrying people in the Admiralty Square, and along the Strand he could hear the patter of footsteps upon the pavement. But he himself remained alone, a silent, spellbound, fascinated witness of this epic of ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... thousand other parts of the earth for all this? For my part, considering the license and impunity that always attend such commotions, I admire they are so moderate, and that there is not more mischief done. To him who feels the hailstones patter about his ears, the whole hemisphere appears to be in storm and tempest." And raising his thoughts higher and higher, reducing his own suffering to what it was in the immensity of nature, seeing there not only himself but whole ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... to dress. It was remarkable that the answering noise on board my ship together with the patter of feet above my head ceased suddenly. But I heard more remote guttural cries which seemed to express surprise and annoyance. Then the voice of my mate reached me howling expostulations to somebody at a distance. Other voices joined, apparently indignant; ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... with his patter. . . Oh, dear Mr. Cloete, you are a calm, reasonable man. Make him behave sensibly. He's a bit obstinate, you know, and he's so fond of the ship, too. Tell him I am here—looking on. . . Trust me, Mrs. Dunbar. Only shut that window, that's a good girl. You will be sure to catch cold if you ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... at last, a yellow eye peering at him through a slit in an inky wall. A moment later the darker shadow of the cabin rose up in his face, and a flash of lightning showed him the door. In a moment of silence he could hear the patter of huge raindrops on the roof as he dropped his bags and began hammering with his fist to arouse the Swede. Then he flung open the unlocked door and entered, tossing his dunnage to the floor, and shouted the old ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... so silent—though there were more than twenty people in it—that nothing could be heard but the patter of the rain against the window-shutters, accompanied by the occasional hiss of a stray drop that fell down the chimney into the fire, and the steady puffing of the man in the corner, who had now resumed ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... any pigs run as these pigs ran! They raced and squealed and pelted down the long white hill towards the bridge. Little fat Pig- wig's petticoats fluttered, and her feet went pitter, patter, pitter, as ...
— The Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter • Beatrix Potter
... the quaint dragons' mouths, ranged along the parapet of the Abbey roof; it dripped from every stone coping and abutment; from window-ledge and porch, from gable-end and sheltering ivy. The rain was everywhere, and the incessant pitter-patter of the drops beating against the windows of the Abbey made a dismal sound, scarcely less unpleasant to hear than the perpetual lamentation of the winds, which to-day had the sound of human voices; now moaning drearily, with a long, low, wailing ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... the latter! Probably through a mere fluke, for I hadn't the remotest idea which of the trees offered the best facilities to a poor climber. My mind once made up, there was no time to alter. The wer-tiger was already terribly close behind. I could gauge its distance by the patter of its feet—apparently the metamorphosis had only been in part—and by the steadily intensifying purr, purr; so unmistakably interpretative of the brute's utter satisfaction in its power to overtake me, as well as at the prospect of so good a meal. I was just thirteen ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... open, and refused to be herded into a corner. Sometimes the Master succeeded in rushing him to the side-ropes, but the younger man slipped away, or closed and then disengaged. The monotonous "Break away! Break away!" of the referee broke in upon the quick, low patter of rubber-soled shoes, the dull thud of the blows, and the sharp, hissing breath ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... they no longer made a sound. Scarcely had the caribou disappeared when Philip saw the first of them—gray, swiftly moving shapes, spread out fan-like as they closed in on two sides for attack, so close that he could hear the patter of their feet and the blood-curdling whines that came from between their gaping jaws. There were at least twenty of them, perhaps thirty, and they were gone with the swiftness of shadows driven ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... gasp. There was a quick patter of light feet down the stairs, the last two cleared with a jump, a swish of silken skirts, a little gush of perfume, and then, bright as a flash of light, blue-eyed Mollie stood before him. She held his card in her fingers, ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... in the courtyard, followed by the patter of feet. Desmond heard Strangwise speak to the dog and reenter the house. Then silence fell again. With a tremendous effort Desmond swung his legs athwart the pipe, gripped it with his right hand, then his left, and very gently commenced to let himself down. The pipe quivered beneath ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... straight up the steps. The young men all jumped from their seats and Jeff came forward with outstretched hand, but the girl pretended not to see the gesture. With a businesslike "Good-morning," she proceeded to open up her sample case and begin her salesman's patter: "I have here—" She was determined that the call should be purely a commercial one and that the Bucknors could none of them think for a moment that she sought or even desired any ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... O'Keeffe might not do except pay off his mortgages. "He looked like an elephant when he put his trousers on wrong—you know elephants have their knees the wrong way," Eileen once told the public in a patter-song. She did not tell the public it was her father, but like a true artist she learned in suffering what she taught in song. One of her childish memories was to be stood in a row of brothers and sisters against a background of antlers, fishing-rods, ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... into the magic scene in Der Freischuetz, and who mixes up the moanings of her passion with descriptions of the sights, and sounds she there finds around her. It was of quite another stamp. It dealt with a phraseology of sentiment peculiar to itself—a "patter," as it were, which came to be universally recognized in drawing-rooms. It spoke of maidens plighting their troth, of Phyllis enchanting her lover with her varied moods, of marble halls in which true love still remained the same. It apostrophized the shells of ocean; it tenderly ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... with it. It was as if the fearful instability of Mr. Ransome's nervous system communicated itself to everybody around him. At the cry or the sudden patter of Ranny's children overhead, Mr. Ransome would be set quivering and shaking, and this disturbance of his reverberated. Ranny set his teeth and sat tight and "stuck it"; but he felt the shattering effect ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... When measons all were frozzen oot, I went to see a country friend, An hospitable hoor to spend. For gains, I cut across o' t' moor, Whoor t' snaw sea furiously did stoor.(1) The hoose I gain'd an' enter'd in, An' were as welcome as a king. The storm agean t' windey patter'd, An' hail-steans doon t' chimley clatter'd. All hands were in, an' seem'd content, An' nean did frost or snaw lament. T' lasses all were at their sewing, Their cheeks wiv health an' beauty glowing. Aroond the hearth, in cheerful chat, Twea ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... wild strains subsided, as the summer tempest dies away till nothing is heard but the patter of the rain-drops, and, after a few bars from a love-song, a favorite of Kate's, the music glided into the simple strains of "Home, Sweet Home." And as the oppressed and overheated atmosphere is cleared by the brief storm, so the overwrought feelings of those present ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... opened for the auto, amid the crowd. The faker stopped in the midst of the "patter" concerning his wonderful powder, which "would make the teeth like unto the milky pearls ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... sighed mentally. "Your love would have made me a better man if I had not cast it from me. Dear Lily, the mother of my child," and a tear half trembled in his eyelashes, as he tried to fancy that child; tried to hear the patter of the little feet running to welcome him home, as they might have done had he been true to Lily; tried to hear the baby voice calling him "papa;" to feel the baby hands upon his face—his bearded face where the great tears were standing now. "I did love Lily," he murmured; ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... garden, How I rake it over, Then I sow the little brown seeds, And with soft earth cover. Now the raindrops patter On the earth so gayly; See the big round sun smile On my garden daily. The little plant is waking; Down the roots grow creeping; Up now come the leaflets Through the brown earth peeping. Soon the buds will laugh ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... of inactivity was a real menace to the success of their plans, no one can wonder that they chafed over this most exasperating delay. Under ordinary circumstances it would have been melancholy enough to watch the mottled, wet, green walls of their tents and to hear the everlasting patter of the falling snow and the ceaseless rattle of the fluttering canvas, but when the prospect of failure of their cherished plan was added to the acute discomforts of the situation, it is scarcely possible to imagine how totally miserable they must ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... coming holiday or attracted by the light and bustle. Heavy looking Russians, olive-skinned Italians, placid Germans, wild-eyed and pallid Czechs, lounged along the thoroughfare, chatting with compatriots, or gathering in amused groups to hear the strange patter of some voluble merchant retailing goods from a barrow. From the interiors of tiny shops and cellars came eldritch voices crying the nature and remarkable qualities of the wares within. Every hand-cart carried a flaring naphtha-lamp, and the glare of these ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... the chamber above me The patter of little feet, The sound of a door that is opened, And voices ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... that the sudden quick patter of feet sounded in the hall, and Harriet ran in—danced in—her eyes were shining; she was a picture of youth ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... who stood in the store listening to the eager patter of words that fell from the lips of the traveling man, was tall and lean and looked unwashed. On his scrawny neck was a large wen partially covered by a grey beard. He wore a long Prince Albert ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... lanterns warned the traveler of danger, but it seemed as if they spoke not of the dangers of the present but of those graver dangers that once had been. We spent the night at the Eagle Hotel. The rain continued to fall and by its soothing patter on the leaves and roof above us we were ushered into the ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... he came out. The only time when Grumps was thoroughly nonplussed was when Dick Varley's whistle sounded faintly in the far distance. Then Crusoe would prick up his ears and stretch out at full gallop, clearing ditch, and fence, and brake with his strong elastic bound, and leaving Grumps to patter after him as fast as his four-inch legs would carry him. Poor Grumps usually arrived at the village to find both dog and master gone, and would betake himself to his own dwelling, there to lie down and sleep, and dream, perchance, of rambles and gambols ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... twenty months, just, since Wilford died; and George Washington asked Martha Custis for her hand within less time than that after her husband's death," he said to himself one wet October afternoon, when he sat listening dreamily to the patter of the rain falling upon the windows, and looking occasionally across the fields to the farmhouse, in the vain hope of spying in the distance the little airy form, which, in its waterproof and cloud, had braved worse storms than this at the time ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle Can patter out their hasty orisons. No mockeries for them; no prayers nor bells, Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,— The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells; And bugles calling for them ...
— Poems • Wilfred Owen
... down the sky," the cold wind softened and grew still; the stars swelled out larger; the rats came, and then came puss, and the rats went with a scuffle and patter; the pagan grey came in like a sleep-walker, and made the barn dreary as a dull dream; then the horses began to fidget with their big feet, the cattle to low with their great trombone throats, and the cocks to crow as if to give warning for the last ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... set his feet so firmly and with such precision that not even the rustle of a leaf or the crackling of a twig would have warned the sharpest ear of his approach. The wind was in his favor, too, blowing from the creek toward him. The doe, which he could not yet see but the patter of whose light hoofs he had heard as she trotted with her fawn to the drinking place, could not possibly have discovered his presence; yet she continued to raise her muzzle at intervals and snuff ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... the King's daughter was sitting at table with the King and all the court, and eating from her golden plate, there came something pitter patter up the marble stairs, and then there came a knocking at the door, and a voice crying "Youngest King's daughter, ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... by the altar-railing, give us a start, like crackers, whenever they laugh. And this reminds me of my own village church where, during sermon-time on bright Sundays when the birds are very musical indeed, farmers' boys patter out over the stone pavement, and the clerk steps out from his desk after them, and is distinctly heard in the summer repose to pursue and punch them in the churchyard, and is seen to return with a meditative countenance, making believe that nothing of the sort has happened. The aunt and ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... pondering and thinking,—for I didn't wait for the tea and cake that are supposed to be essential to all these gatherings,—I heard the patter of a light foot behind me, and in a minute ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... patter of slugs behind stanchions and bulwarks, the Legionaries waited. The sea wind struck them with hot intensity; the sun, now almost down, flung its river of blood from ship to horizon, all dancing in a shimmer ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... birds, some to swine, some to parrots, and some to loathsome reptiles curled round the half-decayed bodies of sheep. The intermittent sounds—now a cough, now a horrible wheezing or throat-clearing, now a little patter of conversation—were just, he declared, what you hear if you stand in the lion-house when the bones are being mauled. But these comparisons did not rouse Hewet, who, after a careless glance round the room, fixed his eyes upon a thicket of native spears ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... a knock came at the door, and here we made the one serious mistake for which I blame myself. Instead of opening the door ourselves, we allowed the girl to do so. We heard her say, 'Mother, there are two men in the house waiting to see you,' and an instant afterwards we heard the patter of feet rushing down the passage. Forbes flung open the door, and we both ran into the back room or kitchen, but the woman had got there before us. She stared at us with defiant eyes, and then, suddenly ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... in her chamber, listening to the sound of merry voices in the hall without, or the patter of feet, as the fast arriving guests tripped up and down the stairs. She had heard the voice of J.C. De Vere as he passed her door, but it awoke within her bosom no lingering regret, and when an hour later Nellie stood before her, arrayed in her bridal robes, she passed her hand caressingly over ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... set up the heirs of a new Roman Empire.... Words, words, all second-hand. The refuse of the libraries scattered to the winds.—Like all his comrades, young Jeannin went from one showman to another, listened to their patter, was sometimes taken in by it, and entered the booth, only to come out disappointed and rather ashamed of having spent his time and his money in watching old clowns buffooning in shabby rags. And yet, such is youth's power of illusion, such was his certainty of ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... like to hear upon the roof The patter of each tiny hoof Of Santa's reindeer overhead, When I am ...
— Christmas Entertainments • Alice Maude Kellogg
... at El-Muwaylah, described in my last volume,[EN18] on the auspicious Wednesday, December 19, 1877, under a salute from the gunboat Mukhbir, which the fort answered with a rattle and a patter of musketry. All the notables received us, in line drawn up on the shore, close to our camp. To the left stood the civilians in tulip-coloured garb; next were the garrison, a dozen Bash-Buzuks en bourgeois, and mostly armed with matchlocks; then came out quarrymen in uniform, but without weapons; ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... moonlight night four swains with their guitars stationed themselves under the windows of the handsome old house and sang plaintive love songs for an hour or more. Finally a shutter was pushed open very gently, and the four hearts went pitter-patter, anticipating the sight of a lovely young girl's face. Instead, appeared an old, black one, capped by a snowy turban, and these words floated down: "I'se sorrie, gen'le-men, but de young ladies is all gone out—but I sure is pleased wid you-all's music!" The quartet was composed ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... it up, is largely fictitious in value—or comes inevitably to be thought so—I would like to have you step forward and name it. I have been all through that phase of it, and I know; and I also know by heart the patter of the persons who recommend it. Further, I know the person round the forties doesn't live who enjoys this sort of thing—no matter what he says about it; and without enjoyment exercise is of no use or worse than useless. It can be done, of course; and lumps of ...
— The Fun of Getting Thin • Samuel G. Blythe
... thing one expects in India than in Europe. Although our soldier-servant had never been on parade in his life (I had taught him to salute when at Petrograd by making him salute himself in front of the big glass in my room, a plan worth any amount of raucous patter from the drill-sergeant), the very fact of his being in khaki seemed to turn him into a Russian scholar by that mysterious process adopted by British soldiers in foreign lands. Wigram had a grammar, and I had known a little Russian in the past; but in the absence of Meyendorff and the courier ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... almost distinguish those little Arabs from the by-streets and slums of Leeds. They were running about in tatters, shouting themselves hoarse with delight, and turning unlimited catharine-wheels in their happy delirium. I could hear them distinctly clapping their hands; I could not hear the patter of their feet, though—the poor little fellows were bootless. Then they ceased their play for a moment. Somebody was beckoning to them to follow him. He quietly led them beneath the branches of the very biggest tree in the garden. He pointed his finger upwards. ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... expectations a crowd slowly gathered. The beauty of the girl and the dark, handsome face of the musician, his picturesque bare head, were sufficient for these cynical passers-by. They understood. Operatic celebrities, having a little fun on their own. So quarters and dimes and nickels began to patter into Cutty's ancient derby hat. Broadway will always contribute generously toward a novelty of this order. Famous names were tossed about ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... shingle and hold the boat; I have just got the antigrav turned off, otherwise I think it would have been carried away. There are two or three more big waves and a patter of spray; ...
— The Lost Kafoozalum • Pauline Ashwell
... we had passed well beyond the equatorial belt that Johnny grew visibly worse. In a week he had to lie still on his couch beneath the awning, and the patter of his feet ceased on the deck. The captain, who was a bit of a doctor, said to ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... window-panes and play at hide-and-seek all over me and my little mate; they would kiss and caress us, and we learned to love them very much—they were so warm and gentle and merrisome. Sometimes the raindrops would patter against the window-panes, singing wild songs to us, and clamoring to break through and destroy us with their eagerness. When night came, we could see stars away up in the dark sky winking at us, and very often the old mother moon stole out from ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... the smile back to your living face. These great rooms will be empty and lonely. I wish to hear the patter of your children's feet in them, and the echo of your soft footsteps behind them. You are just thirty-five, in the full glory of perfect womanhood, far more beautiful than this girl of seventeen. Promise me that at the end of a year you will be mine, ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... We may illustrate by an example. Suppose I am believing, by means of images, not words, that it will rain. We have here two interrelated elements, namely the content and the expectation. The content consists of images of (say) the visual appearance of rain, the feeling of wetness, the patter of drops, interrelated, roughly, as the sensations would be if it were raining. Thus the content is a complex fact composed of images. Exactly the same content may enter into the memory "it was raining" or the assent "rain occurs." ...
— The Analysis of Mind • Bertrand Russell
... it rains; and we can't go fairy-hunting at all," said Daisy next morning, as the patter on the window-pane woke her up, and Aunt Wee came in ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... my life long have I been pining to meet with a patter-cove from Seven Dials! Embrace me, at a distance. [A patter-cove from Seven Dials!] Go, fill yourself as drunk as you dare, at my expense. Anything he likes, Mrs. Clarke. He's a patter-cove from Seven ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... the row connected with their rush, the cowardly assailants were themselves unable to hear the patter of swiftly-approaching footsteps, coming from the rear. They evidently shouted, in order to keep their courage up, and prevent Ralph from ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... with a patter of soft feet, the converts, the doubtful, and the open scoffers, troop up to the veranda. You must be infinitely kind and patient, and, above all, clear-sighted, for you deal with the simplicity of childhood, the experience of man, and the ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling
... there is a stir in the room near you. You hear the patter of little feet on the stairs, and the sound of childish voices in the drawing-room. What transports of admiration, what peals of joyous clamor, fall on your sleepy ears! The patter on the stairs sounds louder and louder, the ringing voices come nearer and nearer; ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... me for, my friend? What Hungarian Jew patter are you jabbering at us? I don't know Hebrew. One isn't a Jew because one is a bandit. I don't even steal any longer. I'm above that; I kill. ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... time supper had been eaten, the storm voices had dwindled from boisterous violence to exhausted quiet, and even the soft patter of warm rain died away until through the door, which now stood ajar, the visitor could see the moonlight and the soft stars that seemed to hang just ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... the screened front porch, where Daddy Morrison was reading beside the electric lamp, and had just picked up his magazine, when there was a patter of little feet and Sister threw her arms ...
— Brother and Sister • Josephine Lawrence
... as the rain begins, the wind drops. The only sound is the patter of rain dropping like fine shot on the young rye and the ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... rose; As bends the barque's mast in the gale, When rent are rigging, shrouds, and sail, It wavered 'mid the foes. No longer Blount the view could bear: "By heaven and all its saints! I swear, I will not see it lost; Fitz-Eustace, you with Lady Clare May bid your beads, and patter prayer - I gallop to the host." And to the fray he rode amain, Followed by all the archer train. The fiery youth, with desperate charge, Made, for a space, an opening large - The rescued banner rose - But darkly closed the ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... great "HISTORICUS" part, I years ago appeared. The Thunderers stage then knew my art, But now that pitch is queered! They swear that I apostatised To follow W.G., And patter about "Parnellite juice," And holloa ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 14, 1892 • Various
... was, when that Mother stooped to learn The language written in your infant face. For years she walked your pace, And none but she interpreted your chatter. Who else felt interest in such pitter-patter? Or, weary, joined in all your games with zest, And managed with a minimum of rest? Now, is it not your turn To bridge the gulf, to span the gap be- tween you? To-day, before Death's angel over-lean you, Before your chance is gone? This is ...
— The Verse-Book Of A Homely Woman • Elizabeth Rebecca Ward, AKA Fay Inchfawn
... ordinary motives which make for good conduct—prudence, self-respect, loyalty, etc., etc.—are of no avail, and that they must inevitably be bad men if they had not "found religion"? If such talk does no positive harm, it is only because men have learnt to discount the patter of theology. Yet here we find Mr. Wells, after vigorously disclaiming any participation in the Bishop's beliefs, falling into the common form of episcopal patter, and telling me, for example—a benighted ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... on thee," swirls through her brain, and she is cold—very cold, and sits aloof and will not talk, cannot talk. Ever the patter of the horse's feet in the valley is borne upward by the wind, and she feels in her soul the faltering of a little heart. She dares not hope that it will start up again; she cannot bear the fear that ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... towards him with a graceful movement of greeting, yet her face showed no consciousness of the interval that had elapsed since they met; he almost fancied himself transported back to the sitting-room at Sidon with the monotonous patter of the leaves outside, and the cool moist breath of the bay and alder coming in at ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... patter advertised to his confederates exactly whereabouts upon your person the treasure was carried. Really the business gave splendid returns. It was Marr, though, who had seized upon it when it merely was a catchpenny carnival device and made of it a real money earner. Moreover, the pickpockets ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... Tar luck's to be a Warrant Officer; We ain't like to get no further, if we even get as fur. 'Tain't encouraging, my hearty. As for me, I'm old and grey, 'Tis too late now for promotion if it chanced to come my way; And my knowledge, and my patter, and my manners—well I guess They mayn't be percisely fitted for a dandy ward-room mess. But the Navy of the Future, TOMMY ATKINS, is our care, We have gone through many changes, and for others must ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 31, 1891 • Various
... the miserable days that followed when the very sun in heaven seemed dark to poor Eric's wounded and crushed spirit. He hardly knew how they went by. And when they buried Vernon in the little green churchyard by Russell's side, and the patter of the earth upon the coffin—that most terrible of all sounds—struck his ear, the iron entered into his soul, and he had but one wish as he turned away from the open grave, and that was, soon to lie beside his beloved little brother, ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... the Commandant followed him indoors to the kitchen, where they found Ruth stooping over the great hearth, already busy with the morning fire. Across the planching overhead sounded the patter ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... it, and that was along the bank where he had entered, and where obviously all night long his pursuers had kept fires burning. Further conjecture on this point, however, was interrupted by a crashing in the willows and the rapid patter ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... This was the moment, if ever, to make her wish known—to assert her will. With a running patter of slippers, she ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... dry and hot for the last few days; at noon the thermometer rose to 100 deg. under the tent. Suddenly it became cloudy, and a few drops of rain began to patter down. There was every appearance of a storm, and our people began to collect towards the tents. At this time another courier arrived from the new Sultan, Abd-el-Kader, of Aghadez, respecting us. His highness says:—"No one shall ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... her pardon; also he remained where he was, and heard the drops from the tree patter hollow on ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... she was hemming. The bird was hopping about, pecking at a banana which they had thrown to him; a light breeze made the shadow of the artu leaves dance upon the grass, and the serrated leaves of the breadfruit to patter one on the other with the sound of rain-drops falling ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... forward slowly, so that the flapping of the oilskins against the stair-rail would not be heard. The steady patter of rain on the deck planks drowned what little noise we made, and as we emerged into the hood a gust of wind drove the moisture into our faces. I could feel my heart thump, yet it was more because of her proximity than any excitement of adventure. So far as I could perceive, peering out into ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... terrible. He was hurrying now, although he had not formerly been conscious of it, hurrying into the lights and comforts and noise of the town. There might only be for him now a night and day of freedom, but, during that time, he must not, he must not be alone. The patter of Bunker's feet beside him pleased him. Bunker was now a fact of great ...
— The Prelude to Adventure • Hugh Walpole
... feel Narcone staring at him now, as he sat nodding to the senseless patter of the Chief in a sort of breathless, terrifying suspense. Would his own face recall to the fellow's mind that night in the forest of Terranova and set his fears aflame? Blake's reason told him that such a thing was beyond the faintest probability, yet the flesh upon his back was crawling ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... can never be known. He was so entirely taken aback that he paused, clearing his throat with but one amazed exclamation of her name; but before his astonishment and indignation had shaped itself into words, their interview was interrupted. An irregular patter of hasty little steps, and outcries of a childish voice behind, had not caught the attention of either in that moment of excitement; but just as Nettie delivered this cruel outbreak of feminine pride and self-assertion, the little pursuing figure made up to them, and ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... Paullinus said that he would pass again that way to see his friend, "for we are friends, I know." And so he went into the wood. It was a wood of very ancient trees, and the dark leaves roofed over the grassy track making a tunnel. The heavens too grew dark above, and Paullinus heard the drops patter upon the leaves. Generally he loved well enough to walk in the woodways, but here it seemed different. He would have liked a companion. Something sinister and terrible seemed to him to hide within those gloomy avenues, and the feeling grew stronger every moment. ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... memory and hope and desire Till, rousing, I looked afresh on your face as you gazed— Behind you an old gnarled fruit-tree in one still fire Of innumerable flame in the sun of October blazed, Scarlet and gold that the first white frost would spill With eddying flicker and patter of dead leaves falling— looked on your face, as an outcast from Eden recalling A vision of Eve as she dallied ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... was no more patter of little feet; no children's merry voices shouted about the house. The three little graves in the churchyard bore the names Griselda, Irene and Launcelot; and on each we put the text, spelt out by the initials ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham
... adventurous journey—maids thrilling with fear and curiosity on the threshold of entrance—women who had borne and perhaps buried children, who could remember the clinging of the small dead hands and the patter of the little feet now silent—he marvelled that among all those faces there should be no face of expectation, none that was mobile, none into which the rhythm and poetry of life had entered. "O for a live face," ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... deck. When the bow of the great vessel plunged down into the big Atlantic waves, the smother of foam that shot upwards would be borne along with the wind, and spatter like rain against the purser's window. Something about this intermittent patter on the pane reminded the purser of the story, and so he told ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... thinking the cabin grew suddenly dark and from above came a shouting and patter of feet. Down upon us swept one of the abrupt, violent squalls that are met with in those latitudes. I lashed Huldricksson fast in the berth ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... seasons—not only the civilised rooks, with their libraries of knowledge in their old nests of reference, but the stray things of the hedge and the chiffchaff from over sea in the ash wood. They go on without me. Orchis flower and cowslip—I cannot number them all—I hear, as it were, the patter of their feet—flower and bud and the beautiful clouds that go over, with the sweet rush of rain and burst of sun glory among the leafy trees. They go on, and I am no more than the least of the empty shells that strewed the sward of the hill. Nature sets no value upon life, neither ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies |
