"Patter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... only have been for a few seconds, during which nothing seemed to happen save that there was the patter and scramble of many feet as with one accord all seemed to have made for safety, while, as that haven was reached, all turned their eyes towards the dam, to look in wonder, seeking as they did in vain for the cause of that ...
— Will of the Mill • George Manville Fenn
... 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, ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... might not have said was checked by the patter of footsteps, and a little girl tripped into view, with a small, fluffy kitten cuddled in ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... glanced at his watch and found that it was close upon two o'clock, came the first real intimation that something was likely to happen. Moving across the park towards him he heard the sound of a faint patter, curious and irregular in rhythm, which came from behind a range of low hillocks. He raised himself on his hands and knees to watch. His eyes were fastened upon a certain spot,—a stretch of the open park between ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Bushytail threw some more acorns at the door. "Pitter-patter-patter-pit!" they went, like hailstones in ...
— Uncle Wiggily's Adventures • Howard R. Garis
... time for conjecture. A patter of footsteps interrupted me from the next room, and a frightened, feminine voice broke the stillness of the outer study. Even before the owner of that voice stepped in to my presence, I ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... penetrated by an unimagined tenderness and joy, that he will declare himself incapable of ever loving again, and may actually be so. Having no rivals and a deeper soil, love can ripen better in such a constant spirit; it will not waste itself in a continual patter of little pleasures and illusions. But unless the passion of it is to die down, it must somehow assert its universality: what it loses in diversity it must gain in applicability. It must become a principle of action and an influence colouring everything that is dreamt of; otherwise ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... front of the Nordenfeldt when a sentry's keener ears caught a peculiar whispering rustle. As Schultz turned his head to listen, the whisper grew in volume to the sound of a hail-storm—the patter of bare feet on sand. Faint light on spears rippled round the base of the hills. Schultz sprang inside the barrier barking at his men to open fire. He deflected the muzzle of his gun and began pumping nickel into the advancing mass of ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... wrists, and she shrinking 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 ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... reverberation &c. 408. [sound of railroad train rolling on rails] clickety-clack. hum, purr. [animals that hum] hummingbird. [animals that purr] cat, kitten (animal sounds) 412. V. roll, drum, rumble, rattle, clatter, patter, clack; bombinate[obs3]. hum, trill, shake; chime, peal, toll; tick, beat. drum in the ear, din in the ear. Adj. rolling &c. v.; monotonous &c. (repeated) 104; like ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... against; impinge; boost [U.S.]; bunt, carom, clip y; fan, fan out; jab, plug [Slang]. strike, knock, hit, tap, rap, slap, flap, dab, pat, thump, beat, blow, bang, slam, dash; punch, thwack, whack; hit hard, strike hard; swap, batter, dowse^, baste; pelt, patter, buffet, belabor; fetch one a blow; poke at, pink, lunge, yerk^; kick, calcitrate^; butt, strike at &c (attack) 716; whip &c (punish) 972. come into a collision, enter into collision; collide; sideswipe; foul; fall foul of, run foul of; telescope. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... legs. He was hunted to his grave, he told us, by these wooden legs; and he recognized in them Divine retribution, for the sin of his life was committed in timber. No sooner did any of those legs appear—and the poor fellow said they were always coming—than his heart began to patter, and his own legs failed him, and he tried to stop his ears, but his conscience ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... 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 bewildered ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... his confidences about his wife—French, Catholic, servant. Molly could not help trying to piece these strange facts together by imaginations of her own, and found it very hard work to attend to kind Miss Phoebe's unceasing patter. She came up to the point, however, when the voice ceased; and could recall, in a mechanical manner, the echo of the last words, which from both Miss Phoebe's look, and the dying accent that lingered in Molly's ear, she perceived to be a question. Miss Phoebe ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... sound of the patter of Peter's feet the song stopped abruptly and he was greeted with a whistled "Wheeu! wheeu!" Then, seeing that it was no one of whom he need be afraid, Veery came out from under some ferns to greet Peter. He was smaller than Melody ...
— The Burgess Bird Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... another Victoriar Cross to get top o' this 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 ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... equal a mite, that's a moral, and patter won't level 'em up. Wy yer might as well talk of a popgun a holding its own with a Krupp. 'Ow the brains and the ochre got fust ladled hout is a bit beyond me, But to fancy as them as has got 'em will part is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 22nd, 1890 • Various
... the grounds was an ancient summer-house standing amidst a maze of flower-beds intersected by gravel-walks. This was the nearest shelter, and, as the rain began to patter smartly, Putnam pocketed his knife, turned up his coat-collar and ran for it. Arrived at the garden-house, he found there a group of three persons, driven to harbor from different parts of the cemetery. The ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... 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
... Hickory, droppin' in behind Vee and roarin' out the Sagawa patter like a steam siren. "Yuh-huh! Yuh-huh! Come, Captain. ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... wild geese in his hand!" Or stately Ogier the Dane, recalled from Faery, asking his way to the land that once had need of him! Or even, on some white night, the Snow-Queen herself, with a chime of sleigh-bells and the patter of reindeers' feet, with sudden halt at the door flung wide, while aloft the Northern Lights went shaking attendant spears among the ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... 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 up Toward the springtime ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... duty more than once,—while all these preparations were soberly fulfilling, the agitation of the hundred-and-three was desperate indeed. The air grew thick, it quivered with the lashing of tails; hoarse mews echoed along the stone walls, paws were raised and let fall with the rhythmical patter of raindrops. A furtive beast played the thief: he was one of the one-eyed fraternity, red with mange. Somehow he slipped in between us; we discovered him crouched by the newspaper raking over the ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... little ridiculous 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 anodyne for ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... could do was to lean up against his Desk and make marks and Piffle his Time away. Between Scribbles he wrote a few Verses about, "When Willie Came to say Good Night." It was a Sad Effort. He made it almost as Salty as a Mother Song and filled it with Papa and Mamma and the Patter of Baby Feet. He used Love-Light and the Evening Prayer and the Heart-Strings and other venerable Paraphernalia. He had to commit Infanticide to make it Weepy enough for the last Stanza. The Author wrote this Stuff merely to Get Back at himself and see how Sloppy he could be. He did not intend to ...
— More Fables • George Ade
... see music dividing into two classes, one purely emotional, the other sensuous; the one arising from the language of heroes, the other from the swaying of the body and the patter of feet. To both of these elements, if we may call them so, metre and melody brought their power; to declamation, metre brought its potent vitality; to the dance, melody added its soft charm and lulling ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... was rather a disappointment. Not that he was any way slack, and failed to sell his goods—'twas he, indeed, sold most—but he did not get enough for them. "You don't put in enough patter with it," ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... strained face, stood looking out into the darkness. Outside, the wind and sea imposed their thunder upon the land. Within, there was no sound but the softer patter of the cards, the languid voices of the four who played bridge. A curious little company, on the whole. The Princess of Strurm, whose birth was as sure as her social standing was doubtful, the heroine of countless scandals, ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... be starved out of it for want of employment. At his desk, Dr. Horace Wilkinson could see the never-ending double current of people which ebbed and flowed in front of his window. It was a busy street, and the air was forever filled with the dull roar of life, the grinding of the wheels, and the patter of countless feet. Men, women, and children, thousands and thousands of them passed in the day, and yet each was hurrying on upon his own business, scarce glancing at the small brass plate, or wasting a thought upon the man who waited in the front room. ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... 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 ...
— Daddy Takes Us to the Garden - The Daddy Series for Little Folks • Howard R. Garis
... the signs of the contest, which was now rolling rapidly up the ascent, a certain evidence that the Delawares triumphed; nor did he actually quit the place until admonished of the proximity of his friends, as well as enemies, by the bullets of the former, which began to patter among the dried leaves on the ground, like the bits of falling hail which precede the bursting of the tempest. Hawkeye and his three companions withdrew a few paces to a shelter, and awaited the issue with calmness that nothing but great practise could impart ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... 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 recognizing ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... 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 recognizing me, an expression of absolute ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... 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 prepare. It ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 31, 1891 • Various
... Will ye have me now a fool? Nay, yet had I liever be captain of Calais; For, and I should do after your school, To learn to patter to make me peevish, Yet had I liever look with a face full thievish: And therefore, prate no lenger here, Lest my knave's fist hit you under the ear. What, ye daws, would ye reed me For to lese my pleasure in youth and jollity, To bass and kiss my sweet trully mully, As Jane, Kate, Bess, and ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... went home, 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
... cloud poised between earth and sky, not touching either, but drawn horizontally over the fields like a pall with ragged edges through which the trees showed in blurred outline, their leaves dripping miserably with an intermittent patter of uncertain drops as the moisture collected upon them and fell, and ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... from the parlor, Gregory remained in his room. He was in no mood to talk with any one else. Even Miss Eulie's gentle patter of words would fall with a sting ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... Patter, patter, came all the little white feet, over the mossy stones, and over the green turf, and I could not tell whether they looked prettier in the water or out of it. There was a rush for the baskets, and their contents were tumbled out pell-mell on the grass. Forks, ...
— Five Mice in a Mouse-trap - by the Man in the Moon. • Laura E. Richards
... 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 Bsh-Buzuks en bourgeois, ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... nook in the basket old By the hearth there's a vacant seat; And I miss the shadows from off the wall, And the patter of many feet; 'Tis for this that a tear gathered over my sight, At the one pair of stockings to ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... by ranting parents to their offspring—the Bible travestied into a nursery talc—heaven transformed into a pretty pleasure-house—and hell and its horrors brought as bugbears to frighten children in the dark. Do you think I would have my child turned into a baby saint, to patter glibly over parrot prayers, exchange pet sweetmeats for missionary pennies, and so learn to keep up a debtor and creditor account with Heaven? No, Miss Rothesay, I would rather see her ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... his wife seated themselves at table one Tuesday evening, a few weeks after their return from Grand Isle. They were alone together. The boys were being put to bed; the patter of their bare, escaping feet could be heard occasionally, as well as the pursuing voice of the quadroon, lifted in mild protest and entreaty. Mrs. Pontellier did not wear her usual Tuesday reception ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... well with me, and having a good start I began to hope that I should outrun these beasts, as I had the shepherd's dog and the retriever. But I did not know Jack and Jill. Just as I reached the borders of the moor I heard the patter of their feet behind me, and looking back saw them coming up, about as far away as I was from ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... he put it. The garden was truly growing dark; dusk had come on with clouds, and drops of rain began to patter through the trees. I hoped he would feel this, but, for the moment, he seemed too much absorbed to be sensible ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... "What must I wear, Laura? Do people wear evening dress? Where shall we sit? What time shall we get back? How are you going? What time must I be ready? Will you have dinner before you go or take sandwiches with you?"—how long the patter of questions would have run on it is hard to say, if the extreme naivete of the last one had not drowned them in universal laughter, and ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... you go!" suddenly 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 ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... Wherever a hedge gives shelter he will roll himself up and sleep. And it is possibly because he has no property of his own that he is so slow to recognise the rights of property in others. But above all, his tongue—the weird, corrupt, barbarous Sanscrit 'patter' or 'jib,' known only to himself and to those of his blood—is the keynote of his strange life. In spite of every effort that has been made to fathom it, the Gipsy dialect is still unintelligible to 'Gorgios'—a few experts such as Mr. Borrow alone excepted. But wherever the true Gipsy ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... on with your patter. Gaskell," he called to his man, "stand forward here." Then he took his place beside the lady, who had risen, and stood pale, with eyes cast down and—as Mr. Caryll alone saw—the faintest quiver at the corners of her lips. This served ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... you think o' that?" said he in English. "Carnehan can't talk their patter, so I've made him my servant. He makes a handsome servant. 'T isn't for nothing that I've been knocking about the country for fourteen years. Didn't I do that talk neat? We'll hitch on to a caravan at ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... smothered by a billow of smoke. Buregarde leaped into the cloud and disappeared. There was a hoarse shriek and the mad scrabble of dog-claws on the hard floor, the sound of a heavy thud, and the angry snarl of a dog with its teeth fastened into something soft. Then there was the fast patter of dog-feet and Buregarde came around the door on a dead run, sliding side-wise to carom off the opened door into safety just as a pencil-ray ...
— History Repeats • George Oliver Smith
... change! the plough is sweeping O'er some scene of household mirth, The sickle hand is reaping O'er some ancient rural hearth— Where the mother and the daughter In the evenings used to spin, And where little feet went patter, Full often ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... whole thing from bottom to top. Through it all, he kept up the glib patter of a showman; the ironic intent of it becoming more and more marked all ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... Grandfather hadn't the slightest idea there was a shower coming. Mr. Meadow Mouse, however, had watched the dark clouds gathering in the sky. But he had said nothing of what he saw. And when the rain-drops began to patter on top of Grandfather Mole's sunshade Mr. Meadow Mouse cried in a brisk voice: "I'll thank you, sir, for the loan ...
— The Tale of Grandfather Mole • Arthur Scott Bailey
... man running at the side. Shots whistled over our heads, and here was the brown fort. Its big gates swung together as we dashed through the narrowed opening. Then, as he lifted us off, I knew that the man who had saved us was Tom himself. The gates closed with a bang, and a patter of bullets beat against them ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... stupidly simple. She had known "Missy" from a chile! She had just traipsed over to see her that afternoon; they were walking together when the sojers stopped her. She had never been stopped before, even by "the patter rollers."* Her old massa (Manly) had gib leaf to go see Miss Tilly, and hadn't ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... he hesitate? he was pouring out all the consolation and sympathy of his ardent soul to the man he had loved as a boy, and he never felt the chill that was stiffening all his joints, he never heeded the ceaseless patter of the dreary rain. The clock had stopped and the fire had gone out, and still he sat crouched in his chair, with the strange letter lying listlessly ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... silence. Even the rain withheld its continuous patter, a dumb, gray film covered the ashes of the hushed hearth. For the first time the Right Bower ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... to the nursery and played all day, watching the rain patter upon the new tin gutter. She wondered where Raggedy Andy was, although she did not get worried about him until she had asked Mama where ...
— Raggedy Andy Stories • Johnny Gruelle
... truly," said Gerald. "There's smaller boys than me put on to it in India. Look here, I owe you one for telling me about my ears. If you like to run the show for me I'll go shares. Let me have your tent to perform in, and you do the patter at ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit
... quiet evening sky with far-spaced passionless stars, that seemed as little troubled by what they looked upon as he was by the stealthy creeping life in the grasses and underbrush at his feet. The dull patter of soft little feet in the soft dust of the road, the gentle gleam of moist and wondering little eyes on the branches and in the mossy edges of the boulder, did not disturb him. He sat patiently through it all, as if he had not ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... people who talked badly, but he could read as well as any Grammar School boy, and had plenty of intelligence behind his freckled face to grasp what he read. He was deep in the little volume, when he heard the patter of running feet behind him. He turned, and saw Dick Elliott coming up to him. They knew ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... hospital, using the aisles between the rows of bushes for wards and the green gooseberries for pills—a most convenient arrangement because the supply of medicine never gave out. But, alas, before Dr. Katy had time to inspect a single ward, big drops began to patter down, and Gertie's cherished Minnie, suffering from a terrible attack of pneumonia, was well sprinkled before her anxious mother could remove her to a sheltered spot. The sprinkle was but the beginning ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... be impossible out of Ireland, and is absolutely incomprehensible even there; but the fact remains that it is done, and all one can remark is to echo the patter ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... 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, ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... didn't see any good reason for going away, in spite of Milly's pretty speeches, and next morning there was the same patter on the window, the same gray sky and dripping garden. After breakfast there was just a hope of its clearing up. For about an hour the rain seemed to get less and the clouds a little brighter. But it soon came on again ...
— Milly and Olly • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... man-hunting business; he yearned to rescue the innocent and punish the guilty. Whenever a great crime was committed he instantly overflowed with theories as to what the criminal was likely to do afterward. Haggerty enjoyed listening to his patter; and often there were illuminating flashes which obtained results for the detective, who never applied his energies in the direction of logical deduction. Besides, the chairs in the studio were comfortable, the imported beer not too cold, and ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
... in the sky, showing clear every detail in that scene of desolation, when they arrived. Patter, patter, patter sounded their hoof-beats in the distance. More and more loud they grew, muffled yet penetrating in the silence of night, always augmenting in volume. Out of the shadows figures came dimly into view, taking form against the background of constellations. The straining ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... mother sit There's a drift of dead leaves at the door Like pitter-patter of little feet That come ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various
... the patter of little feet among the fallen leaves, and looking up, there was the child, sure enough, right by her side, and there was something bright and shining all around its head. How it found its way out of the woods, the Lord only knows. Well, the child didn't bear one bit of malice, for it was a holy ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... room, and, not wanting to be left alone, Ruth followed. But, before either of the girls had time to look about and see if it were possible to kindle a blaze in the old stove, they heard a noise in the room they had just left. It was the patter, as of bare feet, on the wooden floor. Startled, the two gazed at one another. Then they clasped their arms about each ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Oak Farm - or, Queer Happenings While Taking Rural Plays • Laura Lee Hope
... the bark of the trees creak, and forgotten seeds on the ground burst forth; insects buzzing across the bars of light which shot through the foliage danced like golden sparks; ripe figs loosened from the branches fell with soft patter; in the distance rose the murmur of the sea lashing the rocks at the foot of the wall. This calm was broken only by Febrer who continued firing his pistol. He had become a master shot. When he aimed at ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... see a shower of ragged splinters and broken limbs fly when a two-hundred-foot fir smashed a dead cedar that stood in the way of its downward swoop. They could hear the pieces strike against brush and trees like the patter of shot on a ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... strange sight. For out of every hole the rats came tumbling. There were none too old and none too young, none too big and none too little to crowd at the Piper's heels and with eager feet and upturned noses to patter after him as he paced the streets. Nor was the Piper unmindful of the little toddling ones, for every fifty yards he'd stop and give an extra flourish on his pipe just to give them time to keep up with the older ...
— More English Fairy Tales • Various
... made fair minstrel patter if Peter Siner had shared the white conviction that every emotion expressed in a negro's patois is humorous. Unfortunately, Peter was too close to the negroes to hold such a tenet. He knew this quarrel was none the less rancorous for ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... lodge been empty, and he is lonely. And his heart has eaten itself in silence, and grown hungry for a woman to sit beside him in his lodge, to meet him from the hunt with warm fire and good food. He has heard strange things, the patter of baby moccasins and the sound of children's voices. And one night a vision came upon him, and he beheld the Raven, who is thy father, the great Raven, who is the father of all the Sticks. And the Raven spake to the lonely White Man, saying: "Bind thou thy moccasins upon thee, and gird ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... night's sleep for Barlow; the beat of horses' hoofs on the streets or the white sands beyond was like the patter of rain on a roof. There were hoarse bull-throated cries of men who rode hither and thither; tremulous voices floated on the night air wild dirges, like the weird Afghan love song. Sometimes a long ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... abruptly, and sprang backward, like some proud, untamable animal, rearing; then she rushed quickly through the darkness toward the house. He heard the patter of her little boots on the stones of the yard, deadened afterward by the sand of the walk. He, on his side, already grieved and uneasy, called her back in urgent tones. But she ran on without answering, without hearing. Alarmed, and with a heavy heart, he hurried ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... in the kitchen we had heard little or nothing. But we plainly heard Dal on the first floor and Flannigan on the second yelling "fire," and the patter of feet as the guards ran to the front of the house. And at that instant we ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... too late. Already the unknown enemy was running swiftly down the corridor, the sucking patter of his feet giving more evidence of his Ganymedan origin. Pemberton sprang to the door, thrust it open just in time to see a dark shape disappearing around a bend in the corridor. There was no use of pursuit; the passageway ended in a spray of smaller corridors, from which ambush ...
— Pirates of the Gorm • Nat Schachner
... better of me and I went on more and louder, and I played tunes and tunes. I could play as well then as I can now, and so the other fairies, that had been without me for some time, must have heard me playing, for soon I heard the rustle and the whisper and the patter of their coming, and then they gathered round me, and I had been left there lonely for so long that I kept on playing, to keep ...
— Fairies and Folk of Ireland • William Henry Frost
... the carpet the dear little feet Came with a patter to climb on my seat; Two merry eyes, full of frolic and glee, Under their lashes looked up unto me; Two little hands pressing soft on my face, Drew me down close in a loving embrace; Two rosy lips gave the answer so true, "Good to love you, ...
— McGuffey's Second Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... feeling of awe of the discipline that controlled them, melted away almost noiselessly, like those Arabs who 'folded their tents' according to the poem, the boys being all in their bare feet, and their patter along the deck and down the hatchways not making any sound above a faint shuffling; and soon this was drowned by the eldritch screeching of our friends the seagulls circling round on the wing in their wonted manner, and poising themselves anon in mid-air above the ship, looking ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... conversation, beside him. The Hall carriage was drawn close up to the door, and Mrs. Darcy, evidently much excited, had her small head out of the window, and was showering a number of flighty inquiries and suggestions on her brother, to which he paid no more heed than to the patter ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... with its lonely patter and Kenny told him tales of Ireland, delighted at the sympathetic quiet of his mood. Unbrandied, the evenings, ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... 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 ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... antique patter backstage, until I sometimes wonder whether I'm in Central Park, New York City, nineteen hundred and three quarters, or somewhere in Southwark, Merry England, fifteen hundred and same. The truth is that ...
— No Great Magic • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... that Ann Veronica used hansoms, and to be in one was itself eventful and exhilarating. She liked the high, easy swing of the thing over its big wheels, the quick clatter-patter of the horse, the passage of the teeming streets. She admitted ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... face, slicing off the front of his hat and missing his head by the width of an eyelash. As he sprang back the door slammed in his face and he heard the bolts shot home, followed by the sound of a weapon clattering on the floor and the patter of naked feet. Realizing that the men he was after were making their escape by another exit, Jennings hurled himself against the door, an automatic in either hand. It gave way before his assault and he was ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... As he stood there, wishing chance would bring her out of the house, there appeared a light in the door-window of the room where he knew the convalescent boy lay. Margaret's shadow formed a silhouette on the blind. Yates caught up a handful of sand, and flung it lightly against the pane. Its soft patter evidently attracted the attention of the girl, for, after a moment's pause, the window opened carefully, while Margaret stepped quickly out and closed it, quietly ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... this we do not mean that he has a large command of language. No fallacy is greater than that which confounds fluency with expression. Washerwomen, and boys at debating clubs, often display more fluency than WEBSTER; but his words are to theirs, as the roll of thunder to the patter of rain. Language often receives its significance and power from the person who uses it. Unless permeated by the higher faculties of the mind, unless it be not the clothing, but the 'incarnation of thought,' it is quite an humble power. ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... up the road, and a touring car jolted over the boards behind us, with a load of veils and goggles. The dust sifted through the bridge, and we heard it patter on ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... 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, ...
— A Collection of Beatrix Potter Stories • Beatrix Potter
... coat-collar Phelan made a dash for the shed, but the shower overtook him half-way. It was not one of your gentle little summer showers, that patter on the shingles waking echoes underneath; it was a large and instantaneous breakage in the celestial plumbing that let gallons of water down Phelan's back, filling his pockets, hat brim, and shoes and sending a dashing cascade ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... Bernice found herself at Elizabeth's home on the evening of the party. Her hostess met her smilingly. "She is really glad that I came," thought Bernice. And she felt her soul suddenly warm to life, just as the thirsty earth brightens and glows and sends up little shoots of new green at a patter of ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... to offer. Within a quarter of a mile of this place where I speak, stands a courtly old house, where once, no doubt, blooming children were born, and grew up to be men and women, and married, and brought their own blooming children back to patter up the old oak staircase which stood but the other day, and to wonder at the old oak carvings on the chimney-pieces. In the airy wards into which the old state drawing-rooms and family bedchambers of that house are now converted are such little patients that ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... ineffectual fire of the two sentries the squad doubled. By the sounds in the rear it was evident that the alarm had been communicated to the reserves, as the hurried patter of bare feet and the excited orders of the German section commanders announced that the men were aware of the loss of the machine gun. Musketry fire was opened upon the retiring raiders, but in the darkness the ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... themselves in pure and excellent English the moment they drop the mask of their personage. This is very characteristic. Many educated Americans take great delight, and even pride, in keeping abreast of the daily developments of slang and patter; but this study does not in the least impair their sense for, or their command of, good English. The idea that the English language is degenerating in America is an absolutely groundless illusion. ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... a 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
... broken by 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 scent of blossoming ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... swiftly.... But light footsteps as before patter behind me, close, close.... And before me ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... 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 social ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... when was I to do my reading? Taking Fiske's "Cosmic Philosophy" from my trunk I descended to the back parlor, lit a cigar and a student-lamp, and began to read. I had not fairly commenced when I heard a patter of small feet, and saw my elder nephew before me. There was sorrowful protestation in every line of his countenance, as ...
— Helen's Babies • John Habberton
... Wake up, I want to tell you something." Marjorie stood outside the boy's bedroom door, and called in as loud a whisper as she dared, fearing lest she should awaken the rest of the household. There was a scuffle and a patter of bare feet inside, and Dick appeared at the door rubbing his eyes, evidently ...
— Dick, Marjorie and Fidge - A Search for the Wonderful Dodo • G. E. Farrow
... 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
... went to see "Patter versus Clatter," after all, having all some previous engagement, so that, though it was literally given for our special amusement, we were ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... down the long slopes of Buckeye Hill the flowers were already effacing the last dented footprints of the winter rains, and the winds no longer brought their monotonous patter. In the pine woods there were the song and flash of birds, and the quickening stimulus of the stirring aromatic sap. Miners and tunnelmen were already forsaking the direct road for a ramble through the woodland trail and its sylvan charms, and occasionally ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... should learn to notice outdoor sounds—the songs of the birds, the noises that the animals make, the wind in the trees, and the patter of the rain. The old Norsemen have a story that their god Heimdall had such keen ears that he could hear the grass growing in the meadow and the wool growing on the backs of the sheep! Your ears can never be so keen ...
— The Child's Day • Woods Hutchinson
... all fell to the business of landing, and a strange enough scene it was, what with the medley of men, the lanthorns swinging, and a frothy Upper from the sea running up till sometimes it was over our boots; and all the time there was a patter of French and Dutch, for most of the Bonaventure's men were foreigners. But I shall not speak more of this; for, after all, one landing is very like another, and kegs come ashore in much the same way, whether they are to pay excise ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... 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
... strange rustling of the leaves in the near thicket. It was an odd, continuous sound, and though it went this way and that way and came ever nearer, there was no patter of feet with it. Rag had lived his whole life in the swamp (he was three weeks old) and yet had never heard anything like this. Of course his curiosity was greatly aroused. His mother had cautioned him to lay low, but that was understood to be in case of danger, and this ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... 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 ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... became easier and the danger greater. Then we paused and lifted our rifles if a twig broke near by, or a fox barked, or wind rushed among leaves as a patter of moccasins might come. Skenedonk and I, sure of the northern Indians, were making a venture in the west. We knew nothing of Tecumseh's swift red warriors, except that scarcely a year had passed since his allies had tomahawked ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... from the tea party for the voice of a lady suddenly fairly shrieked for a "boy." After this explosion the tension of the situation was relieved, and there was a sound as of chairs hastily pushed back and the patter of little feet and the rustle of sarongs, which led X. to infer that there had been some sort of a retreat. Then a flurried native appeared, he seemed a kind of gardener hastily fetched from his duties, possibly the mowing machine, and pouring forth words in a strange dialect ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... save for a lapse here and there into North Country idiom, and for a trace now and then of North Country burr, his English was pure and refined. In ordinary life, too, he spoke excellent French, although in the ring he had to follow the classical tradition of the English clown, and pronounce his patter with a nerve-rasping Britannic accent. He never told me his history. But there he was, the principal clown, and as perfect a clown as clown could be, with every bit of his business at his fingers' ends, ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... rain began to patter on the leaves. Thunder began to mutter, then growl in the distance. I ran on. The rain fell heavier. At length the thick leaves could hold it up no longer; and, like a second firmament, they poured their torrents ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... like friars, Tell their beads in drops of rain, And patter their doleful prayers; But their prayers are all ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... fellow, though I say it that shouldn't," was his answer. "I am one of those who deal in deeds more than words. I cannot patter Ave Marias with a Catholic, nor sing interminable psalms like a Huguenot, but neither can I endure the ways the Catholics are taking to compel the Huguenots to submission. I take my own way, d'ye see, and am fettered by nobody. ...
— Jacques Bonneval • Anne Manning
... long time before she made up her mind to open it: the paper—damp with the rain—seemed to hold a certain fatefulness within its folds. At last she read the letter, and long after she had read it she sat at the open window, listening to the dreary, monotonous patter of the rain, and to the distant sounds of moving horses and men, the rattle of wheels, the bugle calls, the departure of the allied troops to meet the armies of the great adventurer on the ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... through the 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 ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... tugging desperately at the huge windlass, slowly winding up the heavy bucket, moaning all the while in a distracted undertone, while tears of fright trickled down her dirty face. So busy was she that she never heard the patter of Tabitha's feet behind her, and the first intimation she had of help at hand was when the older girl jerked her back from the mouth of the shaft, released the half-raised bucket, and sent it hurtling back into the ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... now, I realise why rhyme is so needful in poetry. Because of it the words come to an end, and yet end not; the utterance is over, but not its ring; and the ear and the mind can go on and on with their game of tossing the rhyme to each other. Thus did the rain patter and the leaves quiver again and again, the live-long ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... Kate's strength was slow in returning, and she spent much of the day sitting in the garden with her baby. It came to be Benoix' habit to stop there for a while coming or going from his house beyond. The baby knew the pit-a-patter of his racking horse, and had learned to clap her hands and crow when she heard it. The Creole had the same grave simplicity for children, as for his equals. It never ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... forth in a wide sheet, as though an overcharged cloud had burst at once asunder; the next, descending in zigzag lines, or darting through amongst the tall pines and cypress trees; whilst the quick patter of the horses' hoofs were for a time heard loudly rattling over the loose hollow planks, and then again drowned wholly by the crash ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... There is only one happier household on the Island, and that is ours at Beaumanoir, for it is full of the sound of children's voices, and the patter ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... a Republican for Revenue Only, had been awarded a remunerative Federal position as a tribute to his ambidextrous versatility in the life strenuous, and his known prowess as a "Stand-Patter." ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... say. Do you really find that very unpardonable? Come, let me put you a case. Never mind about whether it is our case. A man spends his time incessantly in going about in third-class carriages to fifth-rate lodgings. He has to make up new tricks, new patter, new nonsense, sometimes every night of his life. Mostly he has to do it in the beastly black cities of the Midlands and the North, where he can't get out into the country. Now and again he does it at some gentleman's country-house, where ...
— Magic - A Fantastic Comedy • G.K. Chesterton
... array! How varied a procession! The humours of the parlour, shop, and street; Philistia's every calling, craft, profession, Cockneydom's cheery cheek and patter fleet. ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 17, 1891 • Various
... having seen the glory of the coming of the Lord in the triumph of his side in the great war, was inclined to think that all reform had ceased, and was a political stand-patter—a very honest and sincere one. Moreover, he was influential enough so that when Mr. Cummins or Mr. Dolliver came into the county on political errands, Colonel Woodruff had always been called into conference. He was of the old New England type, believed very much in heredity, ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick
... he well knew that, from the time of their sanctification, they were nameless, and no more to be named but by hallowed names; so then he appealed to me.' 'Dinias?' I put in; 'Who is Dinias?' 'Oh, he's a dance-for-your-supper carry-your-luggage rattle- your-patter gaming-house sort of man; eschews the barber, and takes care of his poor chest and toes.' 'Well,' said I, 'paid he the penalty in some wise, or showed a clean pair of heels?' 'Our delicate goer is now fast bound. ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... dined with two of the male correspondents of the London Press. Conversation, in the sense of a mere flow of talk, is never difficult with newspaper men. They are among the most articulate of the British, although much that they articulate is only patter. These two had plenty of miscellaneous information, much of which I received in a sceptical spirit, but I learned some interesting facts, which I verified from other sources later on. Chief of these ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... far back in the past, in sunny days when he had been riding by the edge of the fen to the town, or down to the firm sand by the sea, where Solomon always managed to throw him and then gallop off. Then there were the wintry times, when the donkey's hoofs used to patter so loudly over ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... invisible, a swelling monotone through which, incessantly, near and distant, broken, cheery little flurries of bugle music, and far and farther still, where mists hung over a vast hollow in the hills, the dropping shots of the outposts thickened to a steady patter, running backward and forward, from east to west, as far as the ear ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... and Thayer grew impatient for his closing phrase, that he might hear the storm of applause which was bound to follow. He had not counted upon the veering wind of popular interest which scattered the storm, leaving only the gentle patter of a summer shower. The critics applauded; but society applied its lorgnette to its eye and discovered that, in his excitement, Arlt had neglected to make sure that his tie was mathematically straight. The patter died away into silence. Then the wind veered again and the storm ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... 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 ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... with dark, sad eyes into the fire, now burned down to a glowing bed of coals. The silence remained unbroken save for the moan of the rising wind outside, the rattle of hail, and the patter of rain drops ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... 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 war around, Like pine-trees, ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... the shooting of bolts, the sounds of voices and presently the quick patter of feminine footsteps which McGuire, now completely oblivious of ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... bring her to him. "It is 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 he ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... sky The late swallows fly, The low red willows In the river quiver; From the beeches nigh Russet leaves sail by, The tawny billows In the chill wind shiver; The beech-burrs burst, And the nuts down-patter; The red squirrels chatter ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... fall." I have been in the midst of an animated, recital of how homesick I had been the day before, ridiculing myself and my malady with unctuous freedom, when suddenly Billy's little face would seem to rise out of the flowers on the dinner-table, or the patter of his little flying feet as they used to sound in my ear as he fluttered down the long hall to my study, or the darling way he used to ran towards me when I held out my arms and said, "Come, Billy, let Tattah ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... that Ermine heard the quick patter of the child's steps, followed by the manly tread, and the words sounded in her ears, "Aunt Ermine, there's a gentleman, and he has a great beard, and he says he is papa's old friend! And ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in the octagonal room on the piano nobile of the castle, where his lost ladies of old years smiled on him from their frames. He had heard an approaching patter of feet on the pavement of the room beyond; and then Annunziata's little grey figure, white face, and big grave eyes, had appeared, one picture the more, in the vast carved ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... there with the sack!" cried this worthy, as they rolled on the path together. Another ruffian seized Antoine by the throat. A weapon gleamed before his eyes; but in that moment a quick patter of feet sounded in the roadway, followed by two reports like the sudden breaking of a cocoa-nut. Crack! crack! and the ruffian's body fell heavily against the fence, as two shadows—the two shadows that had been following Antoine so long—danced in the footway, whence they ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... with a frightful scowl and a faint aroma of garlic, "patter your pater-nosters as fast as you conveniently may. You have but ten minutes to exist. Has either ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... families at Medlicote or Wyck. She was not sorry when they were gone; the stillness of the house rested her. But she missed Colin. Last Sunday he had been there, sitting beside her in his chair by the hearth, reading. Today he was with Jerrold at the Manor. The soft drizzle turned to a quick patter of rain; a curtain of rain fell, covering the grey fields between the farm and the Manor, cutting ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... other up to her lips and peels off a kind of whoop-e-e-e yodel that shakes the skylight. Talk about your cornet bugle calls! That little ventriloquist pass of hers had 'em stung to a whisper. It cut through all that patter and screech like a siren whistle splittin' a fish horn serenade, and it was as clear as the ring of silver sleigh ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... 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 ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... the patter of little feet on the hard snow; then we saw the chipmunks approaching from all directions. Some stopped and ran experimentally up a tree or a log, as if uncertain of the exact direction of the call; others ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... we looked at him in silence. Water dripped from him, made a dark pool, and ran crookedly across the cabin floor. We could hear Jackson, who had gone out to drive away our Malay seamen from the doorway of the companion; he swore menacingly in the patter of a heavy shower, and there was a great commotion on deck. The watchmen, scared out of their wits by the glimpse of a shadowy figure leaping over the rail, straight out of the night as it ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... elms made delicate groves of shade, contrasting strangely with the tough masses of pine forest that held the hills in a grip of dark-blue green. Even as John looked he saw three fawns in single file patter out from one clump about a half-mile away and disappear with awkward gaiety into the black-ribbed half-light of another. John would not have been surprised to see a goat-foot piping his way among the trees or to catch a glimpse ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... 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 brightly lighted cabin, and up the lifting ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... The patter of feet was heard on the kitchen floor, the door opened, and two little figures in white trailing nightgowns entered. At first they looked in shy wonder and perplexity at their tall brother, whom they had not seen for months, but at his familiar voice, recalling many a romp ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... Fanny's heart began to patter violently: Huxter's fists, plunged into the pockets of his paletot, clenched themselves involuntarily and armed themselves, as it were, in ambush: Mrs. Bolton began to talk with all her might, and with a wonderful volubility: and Lor! she was so 'apply to see Mr. Pendennis, ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... undertake At the same high pitch as an altercation. It's not for me, of course, to judge How much a deaf lady ought to begrudge; But half-a-guinea seems no great matter - Letting alone more rational patter - Only to hear a parrot chatter: Not to mention that feathered wit, The starling, who speaks when his tongue is slit; The pies and jays that utter words, And other Dicky Gossips of birds, That talk with as much good ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... house lay silent in the heat My thoughts would be so full of you, my sweet, That dreaming half—I seemed to hear once more Your little fingers fluttering at the door, The pitter patter of your childish feet In joyous ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel
... on with absorbed 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 ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... 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, ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... she had heard a loud call, words spoken in English (a language which she understood), a pleasant laugh, and a brief but violent scuffle. After that the hurrying retreat of many feet, the click of sabots on the uneven pavement and patter of shoeless feet, ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... stealthy step he came back to the centre of the ring, where his man was still standing. Bang came Harrison's right upon the mark once more, but Crab broke the blow with his elbow, and jumped laughing away. Both men were a little winded, and their quick, high breathing, with the light patter of their feet as they danced round each other, blended into one continuous, long-drawn sound. Two simultaneous exchanges with the left made a clap like a pistol-shot, and then as Harrison rushed in for ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle |
