"Drummer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is not to be endured!" was the war-cry of the subordinate drummers. But how could they help it? The lists were scrutinised again, and it was found that Toth Janos, the potter, had not voted. "Where is Toth Janos, the potter? and why did he not vote?" added my chief drummer. "Beg pardon," said one of the subalterns, "but the man was buried the ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... We hold thee very dear, as well we may: It is the kernel of the year to-day— All hail to thee! thou art a welcome comer! If every insect were a fairy drummer, And I a fifer that could deftly play, We'd give the old Earth such a roundelay That she would cast all thought of labour from her.— Ah! what is this upon my window-pane? Some sulky, drooping cloud comes pouting up, Stamping its glittering ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... i. Destiny or that which is written on the Forehead, i. Dethroned Ruler, whose reign and wealth were restored to him, Tale of the, i. Devotee accused of Lewdness, Tale of the, i. Disciple's Story, The, i. Druggist, Tale of the Singer and the, i. Drummer Abu Kasim became a Kazi, How, iv. Duenna and the King's Son, The Linguist-Dame, the, vi. Eighth Constable's History, ii. Eleventh Constable's History, ii. Enchanting Bird, Story of the King of Al-Yaman and ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... was succeeded by a dance, in which many performers assisted, all of whom were provided with little bells, which were fastened to their legs and arms; and here too the drum regulated their motions. It was beaten with a crooked stick, which the drummer held in his right hand, occasionally using his left to deaden the sound, and thus vary the music. The drum is likewise applied on these occasions to keep order among the spectators, by imitating the sound of certain Mandingo sentences: for example, when the wrestling match is ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... am desirous of introducing to the trade. I shall give you the names of men in my line in Albany, Buffalo, Cleveland and Chicago, and it will be your duty to call upon them, explain the merits of the chair, and solicit orders. In other words, you will be a traveling salesman or drummer. I shall pay your traveling expenses, ten dollars a week, and, if your orders exceed a certain limit, I shall give you a commission ...
— Driven From Home - Carl Crawford's Experience • Horatio Alger
... strangers, supposed to be from the counties of Fife, Stirling, Perth, and Dumfries, many of them landed gentlemen, entered the West Port of Edinburgh between nine and ten o'clock at night, and having seized the Portsburgh drummer by the way, brought along his drum with them, and his son. Some of them advancing up into the Grassmarket, commanded the drummer's son to beat to arms. They then called out, "Here! all those who dare to ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... fallen in love over his depth with that beefy Mrs. Claymore and takes me motoring to pour his love (of her) into my aural labyrinths. I don't object to playing second fiddle, but when it comes to holding the triangle for the drummer, I pass blind. Never mind, while he isn't watching some day he'll get stung, for I'm really fond of him. You say that you are so much stronger willed than I am—did you ever look at yourself in the mirror? Carlton has eyes that ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr
... The drummer, who had the upper berth, had retreated at the first sign of trouble to the safety of the smoking-room, and was apparently trying more completely to hide himself in clouds of obscuring cigar smoke. The passengers were all cowed into attentive quietude; the sympathetic ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... hushed, and the dancers break rank, seeking rest. They collect in groups or mingle with the bystanders, chatting, laughing, panting. Their violent exercise has played sad havoc with the paint upon their faces and bodies, rendering them less fantastic but more ludicrous. The drummer occasionally raps his instrument to satisfy himself that it is in order, otherwise there is a lull of which all avail themselves to take part in the general conversation. Children resume their sports in ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... quarrels. Albert, a rude soldier, with a thousand leagues of ocean betwixt him and responsibility, grew harsh, domineering, and violent beyond endurance. None could question or oppose him without peril of death. He hanged a drummer who had fallen under his displeasure, and banished La Chere, a soldier, to a solitary island, three leagues from the fort, where he left him to starve. For a time his comrades chafed in smothered fury. The crisis came ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... continentals, Yielding not, When the grenadiers were lunging, And like hail fell the plunging Cannon-shot; When the files Of the isles From the smoky night encampment, bore the banner of the rampant Unicorn, And grummer, grummer, grummer rolled the roll of the drummer, Through the morn! Then with eyes to the front all, And with ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... he was sent, after his arrival in New York, to the house of Dr. Stewart, who was a family connection of mine. After supper he reminded the ladies that he had not heard tattoo yet, and wished to know at what hour they beat the reveille. He evidently thought every well-regulated family kept a drummer and fifer on hand, to sound the calls. He was very unhappy until he had procured a small stick and a miniature flag. Every morning at sunrise he hoisted the flag, and carefully lowered it and put it away at sunset. He is now a cabinet-maker at Marion, ...
— Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie in 1860-'61 • Abner Doubleday
... the commotion among the horses, and slipping the knife into his pocket, entered the saloon from which he emerged unobserved while the boisterous crowd was refilling its glasses at the solicitation of a white goods drummer who had been among the first to accept the ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... hundred yards of the works. Several days passed in landing artillery and stores, cannonading from the fort and shelling from the English bomb-ketch, when on the twenty-ninth, Ensign Perelle, with a drummer and a flag of truce, came to Nicholson's tent, bringing a letter from Subercase, who begged him to receive into his camp and under his protection certain ladies of the fort who were distressed by the bursting of the English shells. The conduct of Perelle was irregular, as he had not given notice ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... men survived; all the officers, except five, were either dead or captured. Three thousand combatants had been massacred in that barn. A sergeant of the English Guards, the foremost boxer in England, reputed invulnerable by his companions, had been killed there by a little French drummer-boy. Baring had been dislodged, Alten put to the sword. Many flags had been lost, one from Alten's division, and one from the battalion of Lunenburg, carried by a prince of the house of Deux-Ponts. ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... the South have been and are learning how the present leaders have duped them upon all these points. They have discovered we are not cowards. Every prisoner, from the chivalric Corcoran to the urchin drummer-boy at Richmond who spat on the sentinel, has afforded proof of courage and fortitude, whilst thousands and thousands of people have secretly admired it. The very death vacancies at family boards throughout ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... his jump the snare drummer rattled out a "ruffle," and as it started Joe leaned forward ...
— Joe Strong on the Trapeze - or The Daring Feats of a Young Circus Performer • Vance Barnum
... we kept on. And there was not a soul on board the 'Scourge,' from the drummer-boy up, who did not agree with the captain. How those villains on board the pirate relished this decision we could only surmise; but, at all risks, he held his course with a nerve that might have made the devil ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... merciful slit in the jaw of the cardboard lion, through which the portly drummer puffed and spluttered ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... requiem, heavy with its own inherent beauty and with the vast weight of harrowing tradition, was to wring the tears from Constance's eyes; they fell on her aproned bosom, and she sank into a chair. And though, the cheeks of the trumpeters were puffed out, and though the drummer had to protrude his stomach and arch his spine backwards lest he should tumble over his drum, there was majesty in the passage of the band. The boom of the drum, desolating the interruptions of the melody, made sick the heart, but with a lofty grief; and the ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... of over thirty miles, only to be done by a merciful man between sunrise and sunset. Mr. and Mrs. Jardine started at five o'clock, breakfasted and lunched on the road, and brought their faithful steed, Drummer Boy, up to the Wimperfield portico at seven in the evening, with not a hair turned. Ida was waiting ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... your Sunday clothes," panted Mrs. Bolum, when she reached the floor again. Stepping back, she eyed him critically. "You look handsomer than a drummer," she ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... their patrons took a deep personal interest, and were not at all tolerant of neglected duties. We are told that the chief selected the song which was to be sung, and the tune by which it was to be accompanied; and did any one of the choir sing falsely, a drummer beat out of time, or a dancer strike an incorrect attitude, the unfortunate artist was instantly called forth, placed in bonds and summarily ...
— Ancient Nahuatl Poetry - Brinton's Library of Aboriginal American Literature Number VII. • Daniel G. Brinton
... company; four of whom bore on their shoulders a coffin, covered with a coarse black pall that had perhaps already assisted at fifty interments; while the other four carried, in addition to their own, the muskets of their burdened comrades. After these, marched a solitary drummer-boy; whose tall bear-skin cap attested him to be of the grenadiers also, while his muffled instrument marked the duty for which he had been selected. Like his comrades, none of whom exhibited their scarlet uniforms, he wore the collar of his great coat closely buttoned beneath his ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... The chief drummer of this camp of Manila received one hundred and twenty pesos per year. He receives the same now, and has been reduced in ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Various
... precious. Being on foot myself, no man could complain, and we generally went at the double-quick, with occasional rests. The road lay along Deer Creek, passing several plantations; and occasionally, at the bends, it crossed the swamp, where the water came above my hips. The smaller drummer-boys had to carry their drums on their heads, and most of the men slang their cartridge-boxes around their necks. The soldiers generally were glad to have their general and field officers afoot, but we gave them ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... his company, when in reality he is at that precise moment endeavoring to convince his company-cooks that salt-junk needs five hours' boiling, or is anxiously deciding which pair of worn-out trousers shall be ejected from a drummer-boy's knapsack. Courage is, no doubt, a good quality in a soldier, and luckily not often wanting; but, in the long run, courage depends largely on the haversack. Men are naturally brave, and when the crisis comes, almost all men will fight well, if well ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... of this terrific bombardment further resistance was useless, and at ten o'clock on the morning of October 17, 1781, exactly four years after the surrender of Burgoyne, a red-coated drummer boy mounted on the crumbling ramparts and beside him appeared an officer with a white 15 flag. Instantly the firing ceased, and an American officer approaching, the flag bearer was blindfolded and conducted to Washington. ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... Guards, however, had gone up to the first floor of the town hall with buns spitted on their bayonets, and the drummer of the battalion carried a basket with bottles. Madame Bovary took Rodolphe's arm; he saw her home; they separated at her door; then he walked about alone in the meadow while he waited for the time ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... is not the native element of the drummer. An average fish can go a longer time out of water than this breed can live without talking. One of them now looked across the table at the grave, flannel-shirted Virginian; he inspected, and came to the imprudent conclusion that he ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... was beaten near her; and we are told of a woman who could not hear a word except when the sound of a drum was near, in which case she could hear perfectly well. When she married, her husband hired a drummer for his servant. In instances of this kind the noise probably excites the action of the torpid muscles, which then put the apparatus in a ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett
... from the flag-ship, and then on board all the boats there was a shrill whistle. It was the boatswain piping all hands to quarters. The drummer beat his roll, and the marines seized their muskets. The sailors threw open the ports, ran out the guns, brought up shot and shells, stowed away furniture, took down rammers and sponges, seized their handspikes, stripped off ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... writes Menendez, "the lives of two young gentlemen of about eighteen years of age, as well as of three others, the fifer, the drummer, and the trumpeter; and I caused Jean Ribaut with all the rest to be passed under the knife, judging this to be expedient for the service of God our Lord, and of your Majesty. And I consider it great good fortune that he (Jean Ribaut) should be dead, for the King of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... church and giggled like a schoolgirl, and rocked madly on the veranda in a rickety rocking-chair, demurely tolerant of the adoration of two boys working their way through, college, a smartly dressed and very confident drummer doing his two weeks, and several assorted and ardent young men who, at odd moments, had persuaded her to straw rides and soda at the ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... drummer, who had been among the crew of the shipwrecked vessels, washed upon the shore upon his drum, which lie had used as a raft. The poor fellow had his thigh broken, and had remained more than twenty ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... Mazzini for the amicable reception of the French, and who, losing his temper, revealed more than he was meant to reveal. His last words, 'Les Italiens ne se battent pas,' unquestionably expressed the belief of the whole French force, from the general-in-chief to the youngest drummer. They were soon going to have a chance of testing ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... of voltigeurs, composed of the Hoppers, who advanced nimbly to their assistance on one foot. Nor must I omit to mention the valiant achievements of Antony Van Corlear, who, for a good quarter of an hour, waged stubborn fight with a little pursy Swedish drummer, whose hide he drummed most magnificently, and whom he would infallibly have annihilated on the spot, but that he had come into the battle with no other weapon but ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... to him that a "printer's devil" came to him in his chamber to ask for "more copy" of the important narrative. The imp disturbed him, and he awoke to find a man in his room; but it was only a half-tipsy "drummer" from the city, who had got into the wrong chamber when ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic
... instantly ensued in the town was something pandemoniacal. Only three drums were found, but tin kettles and pans were not wanting, and these, superintended by Hugh Barr, the town drummer, did great execution. Three key-bugles, an old French horn, and a tin trumpet of a mail-coach guard, were sounded at intervals in every quarter of the town, while the men were marshalled, and made to march hither and thither in detached bodies, as ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... Charmian was created out of nothing, what should you say if I were frank about the other characters of my story? Could you deny that the drummer who was first engaged to Cornelia was anything more than a materialization from seeing a painter very long ago make his two fingers do a ballet-dance? Or that Ludlow was not at first a mere pointed beard and a complexion glimpsed in a slim young Cuban one night at Saratoga? Or ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... the theatre when the engagement was made. As they ate, they talked of the plays at the Chicago theatres, and Sam told her a story of an amateur performance that had once taken place in the hall over Geiger's drug store in Caxton when he was boy. In the performance Sam had taken the role of a drummer boy killed on the field of battle by a swaggering villain in a grey uniform, and John Telfer, in the role of villain, had become so in earnest that, a pistol not exploding at a critical moment, he had chased Sam about the stage ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... saw his child again. We rode on several miles, keeping away from villages, and then crossed the river. Our thirst was extreme. M—— had dreadful cramps, so that I had to hold him on the horse. I was very uneasy about him. The day before I saw the drummer's wife eating chupatties, and asked her to give a piece to the child, which she did. I now saw water in a ravine. The descent was steep, and our only drinkingvessel was M——'s cap. Our horse got water, and I bathed my neck. I had no stockings, and my feet were torn and blistered. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... something like a first-class reputation, won nearly every game they played. Their captain, Tom Vincent, was a grand back, and, indeed, one of the crack men in that position, of whom Scotland has now so many to select from; and then there was Bentback, Bill Donoup, Jack Drummer, and Mat Neil, all fine players at their respective positions. Never shall I forget the match between the Blues and the Conquerors for the Association Cup a dozen years ago, about the last big match in which I took an active part. My master's ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone
... measured martial tune, but a kind of rub-a-dub-dub, like that with which the fire-drum startles the slumbering artisans of a Scotch burgh. It is the object of this history to do justice to all men; I must therefore record, in justice to the drummer, that he protested he could beat any known march or point of war known in the British army, and had accordingly commenced with 'Dumbarton's Drums,' when he was silenced by Gifted Gilfillan, the commander of the party, who refused to permit his followers to ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... fighting spirit. "Now boys," one of their non-commissioned officers is reported to have said, "no surrender for us! Ye've got yer rifles, and yer baynits, and yer butts, and after that, ye divils, there's yer fists." A drummer of the Irish Fusiliers who had lost his regiment, met another soldier on the road and begged for the loan of his rifle "just to get a last pop at the divils." Sir John French is himself of Irish parentage—Roscommon and Galway claim him—and there is no more ...
— Tommy Atkins at War - As Told in His Own Letters • James Alexander Kilpatrick
... day Thomas left his haying and rounded up the faithful. There were seven members of the order in the community, all of whom were willing to stand for their country's honor. There was James Shewfelt, who was a drummer, and could play the tunes without the fife at all. There was John Barker, who did a musical turn in the form of a ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... manage a bit of "business" at Haworth. So we borrowed two costumes. Mine was a monkey dress—a kind of skin covering for the whole body—which I had lent to me by "Billy Shanteney." Spencer obtained the loan of a clown's dress. At this time there was a drummer who lived in Wellington-street. He was well known to Keighley folk as "Old Bill Heblett." Bill used to march the streets in company with bands of music, and caused some amount of wonder and amazement by throwing his drum-sticks into the air and catching them between ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... friends that rather astonished me by its catholicity. It included, for instance, and quite naively, real estate dealers, clerks, a bank cashier or two, some man who had a leather shop or cigar factory in the downtown section, a drummer, a printer, two or three newspaper artists and reporters—a list too long to catalogue here and seemingly not interesting, at least not inspiring to look at or live in contact with. Yet his relations with all of these were of a warm, genial, helpful, homely ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... half buried in the snow, and the only remains of the invading army were General Montgomery, his two aides-de-camp, Cheeseman and M'Pherson, a sergeant, and eight men. All but the sergeant were dead, and he too died within an hour. As for the General, only an arm appeared above the snow, and a drummer-boy picked up his sword close by. The English soldiers, uncertain whose body it was, fetched a prisoner, one of Arnold's forlorn hope, who could not restrain his grief for the brave General who had been the idol of his troops. ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... Ain't she always jolted quick in the first reel by the husband getting all ruined up in Wall Street, or the child getting stole, or the daughter that's just budding into womanhood running off with a polished shoe-drummer with city ways, or the only son robbing a bank, or husband taking up with a lady adventuress that lives across the hall in the ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... to less than a drummer's circuit, was nevertheless immense, surrounded by a thin veneer of universe—the Stream of Ocean. But how it has shrunk! To-day, precisely charted, weighed, and measured, a thousand times larger than the world of Homer, it is become a tiny speck, ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... with any of the folk with whom his daily routine threw him into contact, with a care which might suggest a fear of some sort of contagion for her. But not all the members of the orchestra resented it. The drummer (who also played the triangle and tambourine when need was, imitated railway noises with shrewd implements, pumped an auto-horn when motor-cars were supposed to be approaching or departing "off-stage" and made himself, in general, a useful ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... finding his prospects, I had some of his friends interviewed, and managed to learn that the friend on whom Maroney principally relied to furnish bail, was one whom he had met in the South when he was a drummer, but who had now become ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... necks like keeking-glasses. But, puh! the fellows did not give one pinch of snuff; so off they set, and in this manner were drummed through the bounds of the parish, a constable walking at each side of them with Lochaber axes, and the town-drummer row-de-dowing the thief's march at their backs. ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... all the while beats time, accompanying his notes with cries and howls, reminding one of the Apache Indian when engaged in a war dance. It is astonishing to witness to what a degree of excitement this negro drummer will work himself up, often fairly frothing at the mouth. A buxom wench and her mate step forward and perform a wild, sensuous combination of movements, a sort of negro can-can, like those dancing girls one ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... said that he must go, and he was cast in due form and replaced by a washy, bay beast as ugly as a mule, with a ewe-neck, rat-tail, and cow- hocks. The Drummer detested that animal, and the best of the Band-horses put back their ears and showed the whites of their eyes at the very sight of him. They knew him for an upstart and no gentleman. I fancy that the ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... thousand in killed and wounded, and nine hundred prisoners. Twenty pieces of artillery were captured. This blow will crush the Spanish brigands, and make certain the independence of the island. Our loss was trifling—only a drummer-boy or two. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, Issue 10 • Various
... had to hold it with both hands, and finally the plate was full, and he had to go and empty it on the table in front of the pulpit, though he was careful to remember where he left off, so he wouldn't go twice to the same drummer. ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... care of my place when I was away, it became possible for me gradually to extend my territory as traveling salesman till it reached Nebraska and Louisiana. Thus, having failed as a drummer himself, he made up for it by enabling me to ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... infantry, the bugles of the cavalry and artillery would begin; some early riser would rouse up his regiment; then another would take it up; until the call had gone through every corps. The old staid rub-a-dub of the English drummer is giving place to the stirring French rat-a-plan. And there was one band that generally led off in a splendid style. They did beat their drums lively and sharply. Not being obliged to be up with the sun and cook our own breakfast, we generally ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... she blushed so that her freckles were veiled for the moment as she read, half aloud: "L. Middleton—with Frank Brothers. Dealers in first-class canned goods," the New York address being in the corner. The feeling of disappointment only lasted for a moment, for was not a travelling man, as the drummer is always called in country towns, a person of experience and knowledge of the world, as well as being not infrequently shrouded in mystery? As she pondered on the card, wondering if she dared put it in her pocket, he said in a matter-of-fact way, again extending the wallet: "Don't hesitate, ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... down and ship as a powder monkey, on one of the ships of war; or enlist as a drummer, in one of the regiments; and then I should be ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... and sly when the shadows came; and though they made no confidences in words, I read their lives, leaving them to wonder at the change of manner this midnight magic wrought in their nurse. A few talked busily; one drummer boy sang sweetly, though no persuasions could win a note from him by day; and several depended on being told what they had talked of in the morning. Even my constitutionals in the chilly halls, possessed a certain charm, for the house was never still. Sentinels tramped ...
— Hospital Sketches • Louisa May Alcott
... having had quite enough into his head, he turned to us his tail. These animals show a great antipathy to Europeans, probably from not having been accustomed to their dress. Red, of course, makes them furious, and, thanks to his jacket, a drummer of one of the regiments was killed by these animals. Towards evening we felt it quite impossible to wade any further; and although nightfall is considered the best time for shooting ducks, we thought it was the best time to return to the boat, which we did ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... and approach camp in order (the march is usually in route step,—i.e., every man marches and carries his gun as he pleases). The fifes and the snare-drums promptly obeyed, but the big bass drum was silent. The men fell into cadence step in fine shape, including the bass drummer, but his big shell gave forth no sound. The colonel called out, "What's the matter with the bass drum?" Still no response. A second ejaculation from head-quarters, a little more emphatic, fared no better. Patience now exhausted, the colonel yelled, "What in h——l's ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... long hours of this trying day Clark had kept up the spirits of his men in every way he could. In telling about it later, he said: "I received much help from a little antic drummer, a boy with such a fun-loving spirit that he made the men laugh, in spite of their weariness, ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy
... phenomenon of the morning of the 13th of November, said that the stars shot over in the form of a bow, and seemed to drop into the lake. Such a display, he added, was never before seen. He says that the Chippewa Indians called the Wolverine "Gween-guh-auga," which means underground drummer. This animal is a great digger ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... who was bringing ham and eggs to a commercial drummer, was amazed by this familiarity and stopped and showed that amazement. He was more astonished by what he overheard. Mr. Orne was saying, "As your ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... Philosophical considerations touching the being of Witches and Witchcraft; with an account of the Demon of Tedworth." Lond. 1666, 4to. There are other editions in folio and 8vo. in 1667 and 1668. Addison founded his comedy of "The Drummer, or the Haunted House," on this occurrence. ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey
... would rather call you brother Englishmen at this moment, I have forgotten one thing. Before our young hero replies to his health, let us give him that spirited song 'Billy Blue,' which is well known to every man here, I'll be bound. Tell the drummer down there to be ready for chorus." Billy Blue, though almost forgotten now (because the enemy would not fight him), the blockader of Brest, the hardy, skilful, and ever watchful Admiral Cornwallis, would be known to us ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... widow's arrival in town, with a drummer beating before her, whose cap was bedecked with ostrich feathers; a bowman walking on foot at the head of her horse; a train behind, armed with bows, swords, and spears. She rode a-straddle on a fine horse, whose trappings ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 357 - Vol. XIII, No. 357., Saturday, February 21, 1829 • Various
... word, Arina Prohorovna, nobody is listening, really!" cried Lyamshin, jumping up. "I won't play! I've come to you as a visitor, not as a drummer!" ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... industries, the overstimulation of others, for speculative purposes; the assignments and bank failures, the crises and panics, the deserted towns and the starving populations! Consider the energies wasted in the seeking of markets, the sterile trades, such as drummer, solicitor, bill-poster, advertising agent. Consider the wastes incidental to the crowding into cities, made necessary by competition and by monopoly railroad rates; consider the slums, the bad air, the disease and the waste of vital energies; consider the office buildings, the ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... out of the box to look, and suddenly the drummer saw him, pointed in his direction with a drumstick, and spoke to a girl leaning near by. She, too, looked up, and then clapped ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... Josephine. But the dauber would have been wrong, for this massive splendor was wanting neither in grandeur nor character. Two pictures only lighted up the cold walls; one, signed by Gros, was an equestrian portrait of the Marshal, Madame Fontaine's father, the old drummer of Pont de Lodi, one of the bravest of Napoleon's lieutenants. He was represented in full-dress uniform, with an enormous black-plumed hat, brandishing his blue velvet baton, sprinkled with golden bees, and under the rearing ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... and absent from their countreynmen, haue also added this present example. (M412) They entred therefore into partialities and dissentions, which began about a souldier named Guernache, which was a drummer of the French bands: which, as it was tolde me, was very cruelly hanged by his owne captaine, and for a smal fault: which captaine also vsing to threaten the rest of his souldiers which staied behind vnder his obedience, and peraduenture ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... unless we learn it together. So we shall both serve our apprenticeship, and we do not mean to be treated as gentlemen, but as real apprentices who are not there for fun; why should not we actually be apprenticed? Peter the Great was a ship's carpenter and drummer to his own troops; was not that prince at least your equal in birth and merit? You understand this is addressed not to Emile but to you—to you, ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... passed, they were yielded to with the utmost respect, and they were whispering in the crowd: "There are my soldiers! there are our defenders!" I envy them, I thought, it's a beautiful thing to be a grenadier! And I approached the division, and having taken the place beside the drummer, I marched in the grenadiers' step, singling out the commander, to whom I immediately wished ...
— My First Battle • Adam Mickiewicz
... jealously counts up its honours. You'll hear men say: 'Our regiment has two V.C.s, five D.S.O.s, and twenty Distinguished Conduct Medals.' and the feeling is that all the honours are lumped together and shared by everybody, from the Colonel to the drummer-boys. And each individual is proud of his share because he knows that he deserves it. And so it happens that those whom chance has set aside for distinction, like the lucky winners in a sweepstake, are the most embarrassed people you can imagine, ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... of Tedworth," that drummed, and scratched, and pounded, and threw things about, in 1661, in Mr. Mompesson's house turned out to be a gipsy drummer and confederates. ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... prim front of her squares, the cordial grasp of hand-in-hand with which they form to resist all masculine charges, no one would imagine the ruthless severity with which woman was breaking some poor drummer-boy inside. ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... found him and the chief man apparently on the most friendly terms. The chief, a remarkably stout black, wore a scanty petticoat, with a fillet of crocodile's teeth round his head, a similar ornament on his neck, and bracelets on his arms. He was attended by a drummer, who, as I approached, beat with might and main to do me honour. His followers were armed with shields made of reeds, very cleverly woven, sufficiently long to protect the whole body and legs, and about three feet broad. At their backs hung quivers ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... missing two are said to have been figures of Cromwell and Ireton, destroyed at the Restoration. They stand about a foot in height, and represent the different soldiers of the army, from the fifer and drummer to the captain, and originally, to the commanders. They are curious for more reasons than one; their locality, their truthfulness, their history, and the picture they help us to realise of the army of Cromwell are all so ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... beat, the drums beat! O then the drums beat! And hurrying, stumbling through the street Came the hurrying stumbling feet. O I have heard the drums beat For war! I have heard the townsfolk come, I have heard the roll and thunder of the nearest drum As the drummer stopped and cried, "Hear! Be strong! The summons comes! Prepare!" Closing he prayed ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... should ask you which are the most famous American game birds, you may answer without hesitation, 'Bob White, Ruffed Grouse, and Woodcock'—the whistler, the drummer, and the sky dancer—all three good Citizens ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... boys," said a Scot, as the sound of the pipes grew louder. "There's a drummer for ye. Listen 'til that double roll, ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... under the thong, the pompous poltroons! If you only knew how they behaved to me! By Jove, sir, they hooted me going to the House of Lords, and nearly pulled me off my horse. The ruffians would have massacred me if they could; and then they all ran away from a drummer-boy and a couple of grenadiers, who were going the rounds to change guard. Was not that good? Fine, eh? A brutish mob in a fit of morality about to immolate a gentleman, and then scampering off from a sentry. I ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... plays it, The German band brays it, 'T is sung on the platform and stage; All over the city They're chanting the ditty; At summer resorts it's the rage. The drum corps, it beats it, The echo repeats it, The bass-drummer brings it out strong, And we speak, and we talk, And we dance, and we walk, To the notes of that ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln
... June 1801, was an instinctive criminal, who, at Leith Races, in 1813, enlisted, whilst drunk, as a drummer in the West Norfolks. Eventually he obtained his discharge and continued on his career of crime and prison-breaking, among other things murdering a policeman and a gaoler, until, on 18th July 1821, ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... king's person, and his treasurer was a Russian named Deiss, in whom his Majesty placed more confidence than he appears to have deserved; since for maladministration, or some equally notorious fault, his majesty a few days ago, dismissed him from his high post, and ordered him to be employed as a drummer in a marching regiment. Deiss affected to submit patiently to his sentence, and, on being arrested, begged leave of the officer only to go into his room, adjoining the king's writing-closet, to fetch his hat. This being granted, he immediately locked the door, took a pistol from his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... carriages were so full that they broke down, and the rocking-horses rocked over, and wounded some little men; and the little women snatched their dolls from one another, and the dolls were broken. And on the fourth day the Prince Joujou cut a hole in the very largest drum, and made the drummer angry; and the drummer threw a drumstick at Joujou, and Prince Joujou told the drummer he should go to prison. Then the drummer got on the top of the painted wall, and shot arrows at the Prince, which did not hurt him much, because they were toy-arrows, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... on which he sat slightly back from the table, and dropped himself, standing, to the floor,—his head being only a little above the level of the table, as he stood. With pain and labor, lifting one foot over the other, as a drummer handles his sticks, he took a few steps from his place,—his motions and the dead beat of the misshapen boots announcing to my practised eye and ear the malformation which is called in learned language talipes ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... arts of the theatre for the liturgy of patriots. One of the most touching of all the minor dramatic incidents of the Revolution was the death of Barra. This was a child of thirteen who enrolled himself as a drummer, and marched with the Blues to suppress the rebel Whites in La Vendee. One day he advanced too close to the enemy's post, intrepidly beating the charge. He was surrounded, but the peasant soldiers were loth to strike, 'Cry Long live the King!' they shouted, 'or ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... as she stood listening to the familiar music. In the enclosure set apart for the orchestra the massed musicians earned their living violently in the midst of the gaily dressed idlers, who heard them with indifference, and saw them as wound-up marionettes. The drummer hammered on his blatant instrument with all the crude skill of his tribe, producing occasional terrific noises with darting fists, while his face remained as immovable as that of a Punchinello. A flautist ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... threw himself from the saddle and closed his gauntleted hand with force on the arm of a drummer boy. "Beat the ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... that a pease-barrel should be manufactured into a big drum, that two ramrods should be metamorphosed into triangles, that the two bassoons and the hautboy taken in the French frigate should be brought into action without loss of time, that the marine and ship's fifer, with the marine drummer, should be drilled with the others, under the direction of the sergeant, in the captain's cabin twice a day, and a horrible confusion of unmusical sounds they made for more than six weeks. The skipper was in his glory, and everybody else amazed. Some of ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... perfecting myself. Long before this I remember dimly some rehearsal when I was put in the orchestra and taken care of by "the gentleman who played the drum," and how badly I wanted to play it too! I afterwards took lessons from Mr. Woodhouse, the drummer at the Princess's. Kate gave an imitation of Mrs. Kean as Constance so beautifully that she used to bring tears to my eyes, and ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... beating his long roll on a hollow tree in the Green Forest. Rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat! Rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat! Drummer thought it the most beautiful sound in the world. After each long roll he would stop and listen for a reply. You see, sometimes one of his family in another part of the Green Forest, or over in the Old Orchard, would hear him drumming and would hasten to find a hollow tree himself and drum too. ...
— Mother West Wind "How" Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... up entirely of fore-top-men, a dashing, blaze-away set of men-of-war's-men, who called themselves the "Cape Horn Snorters and Neversink Invincibles." Opposite, was one of the marine messes, mustering the aristocracy of the marine corps—the two corporals, the drummer and fifer, and some six or eight rather gentlemanly privates, native-born Americans, who had served in the Seminole campaigns of Florida; and they now enlivened their salt fare with stories of wild ambushes in the Everglades; and one of them related a surprising tale of his ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... seeing him once more in command of a powerful fleet. On the eve of his departure the Mayor of Plymouth, a Trelawny, 'by a general consent,' at the town's expense entertained the Admiral and his followers. The town also 'paid the drummer for calling Sir Walter Ralegh's company aboard.' On June 12, seven ships of war and three pinnaces sailed from the port. At sea they were joined by loiterers, which brought the total up to thirteen ships, manned ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... intended to belong to the Butler Guards when he grew up; and he would have given anything to be the drummer or the marker. These were both boys, and they were just as much dressed up as the Guards themselves, only they had caps instead of hats with plumes. It was strange that the other fellows somehow did not know ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... number the cornet only struck the right note once and that frightened him so he stopped playing. The clarinet player had been taking lessons from a banjo teacher for three years and had never made the same noise twice. There were six French horns, all Dutch. The trap drummer was blind and played ...
— Continuous Vaudeville • Will M. Cressy
... morning service drew near, the drummer took his accustomed stand before the church and began to thunder forth his summons,—a summons not unfitting those stern Puritans whose idea of religion was that of a life-long warfare against the world, ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch
... Kindly greeting found the hunter, Fire to warm and food to nourish, Golden trout from Gitchee Gumee, Caught by Kk-kh-g—the Raven. With a snare he caught the rabbit— Caught Wabse, the furry footed, [7] Caught Peny, the forest drummer; [7] Sometimes with his bow and arrows, Shot the red deer in the forest. Shot the squirrel in the pine top, Shot Ne-k, the wild goose, flying. Proud as Waub-Ojeeg, the warrior, To the lodge he bore his trophies So when homeward ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... the name of the Second Empire, stretched its hand of iron across the sea, and forced the soldiers of France down into nameless graves, with the desert sand choking their mouths; but he was no more to Cigarette than any drummer-boy that might be present. She had all the contempt for the laws of rank of your thorough inborn democrat, all the gay insouciant indifference to station of the really free and untrammelled nature; and, in her sight, a dying soldier, lying quietly in a ditch ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... mind was comprehensive and careful, as well as courageous and grasping. As it was said of the Duke of Wellington, in the Peninsula, that he had a thought for everybody—from Lord Hill to the smallest drummer in the army—in like manner Tom Billings bestowed HIS attention on high and low; but in the shape of blows: he would fight the strongest and kick the smallest, and was always at work with one or the other. At thirteen, when he was removed from the establishment whither ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a trumpet. The door was kicked open and two convalescent soldiers entered, one wearing a festive cap of coloured paper such as is secreted in Christmas "crackers." He was playing a fife, and the drummer was close ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... was, however, that a young gentleman, who, in the eyes of his family, and in his own, doubtless, was looked upon as a consummate hero, found that the great hero of the day took no more notice of him than of the smallest drummer in his Grace's army. The Dowager at Chelsey was furious against this neglect of her family, and had a great battle with Lady Marlborough (as Lady Castlewood insisted on calling the Duchess). Her Grace was now ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... attacked it and was beaten off. There was now no hope for Cornwallis. No help could reach him by sea. The soldiers of the allies outnumbered him two to one. On October 17, 1781, four years to a day since the surrender of Burgoyne, a drummer boy appeared on the rampart of Yorktown and beat a parley. Two days later the British soldiers marched out to the good old British tune of "The world turned upside down," and laid down ...
— A Short History of the United States • Edward Channing
... replied, "I was but fifteen years old at that time. I didn't do much good or harm, for I was but a snare drummer the first two years of my soldiering, and the last year I was detailed as mounted orderly at brigade headquarters. But just see the people! Give them some messages! We shall be out of 'Yankee Doodle' ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... this pretty and harmless little bird. In one of the many Irish rebellions a night march was made by a body of rebels on a party of royalists, and when, about dawn of day, they neared the sleeping out-posts, a slumbering drummer was aroused by a tapping on his drum; and, giving the alarm, the rebels were repulsed. The tapping was caused by a wren pecking at the crumbs left on the drum-head after the drummer's last meal. Henceforward a grudge ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... Paris—where he had fallen in with the whole band of Plassans—he had taken to art criticism, and, for a livelihood, he wrote articles for twenty francs apiece in a small, slashing paper called 'The Drummer.' Indeed, one of these articles, a study on a picture by Claude exhibited at Papa Malgras's, had just caused a tremendous scandal; for Jory had therein run down all the painters whom the public appreciated to extol his friend, whom he set up as the leader ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... tavern. There was a wire-fenced patch of sandy red earth a hundred yards from the house, a patch wherein the white woman who was mistress at the tavern had tried to grow a few common English flower-seeds out of a gaily-covered packet left by a drummer who had passed that way. She had grown tired of the trouble of watering and tending them, so that some of them had withered, and the lean fowls had flown over the fence and scratched ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... Major," whimpered a drummer, looking up from his duty of attending to a wounded comrade. "He knowed how to put his men in the right place, and his men knowed when they was in the right place. But it's goin' to be uphill through the steepest part of hell the rest ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... as little liable to be disputed with as possible, dressed immediately, that I might make no one wait. The first preparation for our setting out was, that the captain's half-pike was placed near the coachman, and a drum behind the coach. In the mean time the drummer, the captain's equipage, was very loud, that none of the captain's things should be placed so as to be spoiled; upon which his cloak-bag was fixed in the seat of the coach; and the captain himself, according ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... (10), and it was designed for the decoration of a large hall of music. Here we have the conductor, the pianist, the fat little cornet-player, the left-handed player of the double-bass, whose attitude is life-like, though he does stand at an unusual distance from his instrument, and the drummer-boy, with his imposing music-stand. The dog at the back of the pianoforte is not howling: ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... up with the wild joys of living. And then earlier memories still—of his childhood in Duesseldorf—seemed to flow through his comatose brain; his mother and brothers and sisters; the dancing-master he threw out of the window; the emancipation of the Jewry by the French conquerors; the joyous drummer who taught him French; the passing of Napoleon on his white horse; the atheist school-boy friend with whom he studied Spinoza on the sly, and the country louts from whom he bought birds merely to set them free, and the blood-red hair of the hangman's ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... pleasant; and this time I put a chair at one end of the little table, and the cat jumped up in it and began to purr like a young tiger, while the dog sat on the floor at the other end and pounded the floor with his tail like any drummer might beat his drum. I also began to get them into the bad practice of eating at the same time I did; but I had to have ...
— Track's End • Hayden Carruth
... Captain Dove a solemn, big-headed boy of eleven issuing his orders with the gravity of a general, and his Falstaffian regiment obeying them with more docility than skill. The little Snow children did very well, and Lieutenant Jack Dove was fine to see; so was Drummer Frank, the errand-boy of the house, as he rub-a-dub-dubbed with all his heart and drumsticks. Jamie had "trained" before, and was made a colonel at once; but Pokey was the best of all, and called forth a spontaneous burst of applause ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... now drawn up on the flags under the semicircular piazza just before Mrs. Yearsley's library. A little band of children, who had been mustered by Lady Diana Sweepstakes' SPIRITED EXERTIONS, closed the procession. They were now all in readiness. The drummer only waited for her ladyship's signal; and the archers' corps only waited for her ladyship's word of ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... player, minstrel; bard &c (poet) 597; [specific types of musicians] accompanist, accordionist, instrumentalist, organist, pianist, violinist, flautist; harper, fiddler, fifer^, trumpeter, piper, drummer; catgut scraper. band, orchestral waits. vocalist, melodist; singer, warbler; songster, chaunter^, chauntress^, songstress; cantatrice^. choir, quire, chorister; chorus, chorus singer; liedertafel [G.]. nightingale, philomel^, thrush; siren; bulbul, mavis; Pierides; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... enabled the press to outdistance its old rivals, the pulpit and the platform, and thus become the chief ally of public opinion. It has also economized business by bringing the producer and consumer into more direct contact, and in many cases has actually abolished the middle man and drummer. ...
— Commercialism and Journalism • Hamilton Holt
... Second Sergeant, John Kerney. Third Sergeant, Robert Howard. Fourth Sergeant, Dennis Bush. First Corporal, John Seaburn. Second Corporal, Evert Hoglant. Third Corporal, Thomas Knox. Fourth Corporal, Jonathan Gibbons. Drummer, Stephen Vardine. Fifer, Thomas Cook. Armourer, ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... one of the best-known American painters and many of his canvasses are found in the leading galleries of the world. He served as a drummer boy with the Sixtieth Massachusetts volunteers in the Civil War, and from early manhood took a prominent part in public affairs. He was director of the decorations for the Chicago Exposition and was, at the time of the disaster, secretary ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... green; Father's a nobleman, mother's a queen; And Betty's a lady, and wears a gold ring; And Johnny's a drummer, and drums ...
— The Real Mother Goose • (Illustrated by Blanche Fisher Wright)
... of the Earl of Airlie, has for many years past been famous for its mysterious drummer, for whenever the sound of his drum is heard it is regarded as the sure indication of the approaching death of a member of the Ogilvie family. There is a tragic origin given to this curious phenomenon, the story generally told being ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... For a drummer to check his trunk, is an omen of advancement and comfort. If he finds that his trunk is too small for his wares, he will soon hear of his promotion, and his desires will reach gratification. For a young woman to dream that she tries to unlock her trunk and can't, signifies that she will make ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... signal to begin and stop work in the haying field. In Windsor, Connecticut, a man walked up and down on a platform on the top of the meeting-house and blew a trumpet to summon worshippers. Many churches had a church drummer, who stood on the roof or in the belfry and drummed; a few raised a flag as a summons, or fired ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... days when his school friends from the Academy flocked in to see him, their old acknowledged leader, and of the burning words of earnest patriotism spoken in the crowded little room, so that in three months the Academy was almost deserted and the new Company who marched away in the autumn took as drummer boy Tommy's third brother, who was only seventeen and too young for a regular. She remembered the still darker days that followed, when the bright drummer boy was in Andersonville prison, and little by little she learned ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... and managed to cut off and silence the outposts without their firing a shot. Encouraged by this he pressed on to the very gates of the town, and had actually entered the street when the alarm was sounded—and by whom? By a single drummer whom General Trant, distrusting the watchfulness of his militia, had posted at his bedroom door! Trant's servant entering with his coffee at daybreak brought a report that the French were at the gates; the drummer plied his ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... The drummer, Long Jorgen, beat furiously with the thicker ends of his drumsticks; men with hoarse voices, and boys with shrill notes like those of sea-gulls, rushed through the ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... a heap ruther sit outside. Say, that drummer hadn't ought to worry Miss Ramona. She's not feelin' very peart, anyhow. I reckon she set the world an' all by that scalawag brother ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... bent forward to whisper, and if she had anything terrible to tell I was glad of that, for when she whispered I heard her best. For a time only a murmur of words reached me, distant music with an "ou" now and again that fired Tibbie as the beating of his drum may rouse the martial spirit of a drummer. At last our visitor broke into an agitated whisper, and it was only when she stopped whispering, as she did now and again, that I ceased to hear her. Jess evidently put a question at times, but so politely (for she had on her best wrapper) that ...
— A Window in Thrums • J. M. Barrie
... walls of St. Privat! Look at that fellow with his head bound up, and this one with no head to bind. That's meant for our colonel on the white horse. See him hounding us on to hell! And there's a drummer drumming as though we could hear a single beat! Our very colours were blown to ribbons, you see, and we ourselves to shreds; but the shreds hung together, my young fellow, and so will you and I in our day of battle!" Baumgartner might ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... was cold and drizzly, a "pragmatical" drummer went out from the nearer trench, beating his drum for a parley, lest his person should be dismissed without ceremony to the ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... shouting and their shrieking shall fill the world!—Rash Coalised Kings, such a fire have ye kindled; yourselves fireless, your fighters animated only by drill-serjeants, messroom moralities, and the drummer's cat! However, it is begun, and will not end: not for a matter of twenty years. So long, this Gaelic fire, through its successive changes of colour and character, will blaze over the face of Europe, and afflict the scorch all men:—till ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... drummer boy in Captain Borrow's regiment. Borrow describes him upsetting the New Town champion in one of the bickers. Seven years later he was condemned to death at Edinburgh, and to earn a little money for his mother he dictated an account of his life to the ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... same instant the starting bomb boomed out. The crowd yelled, and the drummer of the band pounded his instrument furiously. Above the uproar sounded the sharp, crackerlike report of the motors. As more power was applied they roared like batteries of ...
— The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly • Margaret Burnham
... was very impartial, and distributed her kind looks to everybody. She had not the slightest prejudice against color, and did not care in the least whether her particular friends were black or white. Her especial favorites, I think, were the little drummer-boys, who were not my favorites by any means, for they were a roguish set of little scamps, and gave more trouble than all the grown men in the regiment. I think Annie liked them because they were small, and made a noise, and had red ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... asleep, her hand resting on a gilded cage containing a startled canary. At intervals she was aroused by the flitting figure of a small boy on the way to the cooler of iced water. From the rear of the car came the amiable drawl of the conductor as he discussed the affairs of the State with a local drummer, whose feet rested upon a square ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... baby, thy cradle is green; Father's a nobleman, mother's a queen; And Betty's a lady, and wears a gold ring, And Johnny's a drummer, and drums ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... perhaps known them in England, where, before their marriage, they resided for five years with their parents, the Marquis and Marquise de Courtin; and were often admired by the loungers in Bond Street. The one married for money, Gillot, a ci-devant drummer in the French Guard, but who, since the Revolution, has, as a general; made a large fortune; and the other united herself to a ci-devant Abbe, from love; but both are now divorced from their husbands, who passed them without any notice while they were ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... man need not feel it discreditable to adopt. The contemporaries of a brilliant youth at Oxford or at Cambridge do not secretly despise him if he declines to enter business. The first-class man does not normally aspire to start life as a drummer. Public life and the Church offer honourable careers; and both of them have traditional affinities with literature. So has the Law, still in England a profession and not a trade. One may even be a don or ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... stateroom, occupying the upper berth, was a little round-bodied, red-faced Canadian drummer, "traveling" in harvest-machines. The name of the machine, its price, and the terms of purchase were his universe; he knew them in several languages; beyond them, nothing. He was good-natured, conceding anything to save trouble. "D'ye mind the light for a bit while ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... account of these little frogs that we call 'hylas' for short. Shy as they are, and quick to disappear when approached, he has seen them, as they climb out of the mud upon a sedge or stick in the marshes, inflate their throats until they 'suggest a little drummer-boy with his drum hung high.' In this bubble-like swelling at its throat the noise is made; and to me it is a welcome note of spring, although I have heard people speak of it as one of the most lonesome and melancholy of sounds. It is a ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... welcomed me on my arrival. He secured a house for himself at Raj Ghat, the northern boundary of the city, with a crowded population around him, and there till his death he lived with his family, during all the period diligently prosecuting his missionary work. He had been a drummer in the native army, spoke the Hindustanee as his mother tongue, and belonged to the large class who, having European blood in their veins, are professing Christians, but as to their ordinary habits ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... outside. In the day-time the wagons and tents presented a dreary appearance, sunk in snow, the dogs shivering between the wheels, and but little other sign of life visible. When dusk came the lights were lit, and the drummer and fifer from the booth of tumblers were sent into the town to entice an audience. They marched quickly through, the nipping, windy streets, and then returned with two or three score of men, women, and children, plunging through the snow or mud ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... Bird Hunter Bugler Business Women*** Canner Child Nurse Citizen*** Cook Craftsman Cyclist Dairy Maid Dancer Dressmaker Drummer Economist Electrician Farmer First Aide*** Flower Finder Gardener Handy Woman Health Guardian*** Health Winner Home Maker Home Nurse*** Horsewoman Hostess Interpreter Journalist**** Laundress Milliner Motorist**** Musician Needlewoman Pathfinder Photographer Pioneer*** Rock Tapper ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... reached the springy life net he straightened out and came down feet first, bouncing up, and down like a rubber ball. The instant he landed the bass drum gave forth a thundering "boom," and as Joe rose, and came down again, the drummer punctuated each descent with a bang, until the crowd that had applauded madly at the jump was laughing at the queer effect of Joe's bouncing to the accompaniment ...
— Joe Strong on the Trapeze - or The Daring Feats of a Young Circus Performer • Vance Barnum
... tottering old Invalids, who took their places under us with drawn sabres. Then came a superb drum-major, a handsome smiling good-humored giant of a man, his breeches astonishingly embroidered with silver lace. Him a dozen little drummer-boys followed—"the little darlings!" all the ladies cried out in a breath: they were indeed pretty little fellows, and came and stood close under us: the huge drum-major smiled over his little red-capped flock, and for many hours in the most perfect contentment ...
— The Second Funeral of Napoleon • William Makepeace Thackeray (AKA "Michael Angelo Titmarch")
... off! S'elp me, 'e couldn't fall off," blubbered a drummer-boy, "Go an' hunt acrost the river. He's over there if he's anywhere, an' maybe those Pathans have got 'im. For the love o' Gawd don't look for 'im in the nullahs! Let's ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... astonished at the discontents of the Irish. But with all my reluctance to introduce any thing ludicrous upon so serious an occasion, I cannot help referring to a little story which those very astonished persons call to my mind. It was with respect to an Irish drummer, who was employed to inflict punishment upon a soldier. When the boy struck high, the poor soldier exclaimed, 'Lower, bless you,' with which the boy complied. But soon after the soldier exclaimed, 'Higher if you please,' But again he called out, 'A little lower:' upon which the accommodating ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... hypothesis, which is not true." In fact, he did his best to get larger "mercy." And he shall have it; and at a length which shall content him, unless his mecometer be an insatiable apparatus. But I fear that in other respects I shall no more satisfy him than the Irish drummer satisfied the poor culprit when, after several times changing the direction of the stroke at earnest entreaty, he was at last provoked to call out, "Bad cess to ye, ye spalpeen! strike where one will, there's ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... burst upon our ears there was not a man, down to the drummer boys, who did not understand what it meant. It was Napoleon's last great effort to crush us. There were but two more hours of light, and if we could hold our own for those all would be well. Starved and weary and spent, we prayed that we might ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... merry martial song was sung at the bivouac fires, many a story of campaigns and battles told, and no thought of failure entered the minds of anyone, from the oldest veteran to the youngest drummer-boy. Of an evening, after halting, Julian generally had half an hour's drill, until, three weeks after leaving Verdun, he was pronounced fit to take part in a review under the eyes of the Emperor himself. His readiness to oblige, even to undertaking sentry duty for a comrade ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... Defarge's knife was in her girdle; the drum was beating in the streets, as if it and a drummer had flown together by magic; and The Vengeance, uttering terrific shrieks, and flinging her arms about her head like all the forty Furies at once, was tearing from house to house, rousing ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... love her. And if he loves me, he'll forgive my acting against his wishes, and see it was the only thing to be done. Come! step out! what a time we've been!" and away he went, compelling Ripton to the sort of strides a drummer-boy has to take beside ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... public. They should not be at large. An ordinance should require them to go masked. For Miss Briggs also I was able to make excuses. Why should she not protect herself from the advances of strange young men? If a popular novelist, and especially an ex-popular one, chose to go about disguised as a drummer for the Blue Bird automobile and behaved as such, and was treated as such, what right had he to complain? So I persuaded myself I had been punished as I deserved. But to salve my injured pride I assured myself also that any one who read my ...
— The Log of The "Jolly Polly" • Richard Harding Davis
... could soothe my injured spirit now but success. Accordingly when Mr. Blake stepped up to the ticket office of the Hudson River Railroad next morning, to buy a ticket for Putney, a small town in the northern part of Vermont, he found beside him a spruce young drummer, or what certainly appeared such, who by some strange coincidence, wanted a ticket for the same place. The fact did not seem in the least to surprise him, nor did he cast me a look beyond the ordinary glance of one stranger at another. Indeed Mr. Blake ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... because it was not a severe one; if a severe one, he grumbled because he was not able to fight the next day. He had been nearly cut to pieces in many actions, but he was not content. Like the man under punishment, the drummer might strike high or strike low, there was no pleasing S—: nothing but the coup de grace, if he be now alive, will satisfy him. But notwithstanding this mania for being carved, he was an excellent and judicious officer. I have been told he is since dead; if so, his Majesty ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... expiate the dishonor done to his family, he caused to be drowned in the moat." In strictness this woman could hardly be termed a Banshee. The motive for the haunting is akin to that in the tale of the Scotch "Drummer of Cortachy," where the spirit of the murdered man haunts the family out of revenge, and ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various |
