"Thumping" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which, if fantastic and daring, had a sweet, bright charm very fascinating. He writes in one of his treatises: "Methinks music ought appeal directly to the heart, and in this no performer on the piano-forte will succeed by merely thumping and drumming, or by continual arpeggio playing. During the last few years my chief endeavor has been to play the piano-forte, in spite of its deficiency in sustaining the sound, so much as possible, in a singing manner, ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... they took a drink or two, and sprinkled to their several huts, and Black Hat was at peace, There were no dogs or cats to make night hideous—no uneasy roosters to be sounding alarm at unearthly hours—no horrible policemen thumping the sidewalks with clubs—no fashionable or dissipated people rattling about in carriages. Excepting an occasional cough, or sneeze, or over-loud snore, the most perfect peace reigned at ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... a very hard kind to describe, at any rate," said his father. "It is a kind of quivering, which begins in one place and spreads in every direction. Don't you hear a kind of a thumping sound?" ...
— Rollo's Philosophy. [Air] • Jacob Abbott
... A churning, thumping noise, which he had disregarded before, suddenly swelled louder and warned him of possible danger. He was about off the middle of Strand-on-the-Green, and, glancing around, he saw one of the big Thames excursion steamers, laden with passengers, ploughing up-stream within fifty ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... the seething streets, along Piccadilly, all on fire with its streams of people, carriages, and brilliant lights, and, arriving at the corner of the Square, jumped out. He walked slowly up and down the pavement. He could feel his heart thumping with excitement; his cheeks were burning with an unusual colour. He cursed himself for coming, yet the sound of every carriage which turned the corner sent the blood leaping through his veins. He cursed himself for a fool, but waited with the eagerness of a boy, and when her brougham came ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... Hapgood in reply, thumping his hand on the arm of his chair with a vigor that startled his hosts. "Yes, sir, I was, sir; perfectly successful; ...
— Ethel Morton's Enterprise • Mabell S.C. Smith
... her answer I was pounding on her door. But it had been stoutly sealed by Spawn. I flung my shoulder against it, raging, thumping. But the heavy metal panels would not yield; the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... angry. He hits at the stone, and sends it flying through the air in a big curve. But when the stone has gone up and up in that curve, it begins to come down, down, the same way—and gives the bear a thumping whack on the jaw. ...
— The Wonders of the Jungle - Book One • Prince Sarath Ghosh
... rigid, his heart thumping. The darkness seemed to surge around him with menaces and dangers. The splashing feet were nearer, coming up on their right, and once some metal gear clinked as its wearer scraped against the wall. He could ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... recovered, and remained free from complaint until the next attack. This practice of swathing was resorted to on account of the tympany which followed these spasmodic ravings, but the bystanders frequently relieved patients in a less artificial manner, by thumping and trampling upon the parts affected. While dancing they neither saw nor heard, being insensible to external impressions through the senses, but were haunted by visions, their fancies conjuring up spirits ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... order of their hospitable entertainer. On Donald, however, his libations were now beginning to produce, in a very marked manner, their usual effects. He was first getting into a state of high excitation; thumping the table violently with his fist, and sputtering out furious discharges of Gaelic and English, mingled in one strange and unintelligible mess of words, and seemingly oblivious of the fact that not a syllable of what he said could be comprehended by his auditory. ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... the sounds of the Rattler's activity and production, the heavy, thunderous roar of the stamp mill, the clash of cars of ore dumped into the maws of the grizzly to be hammered into smaller fragments in their journey to the crusher, and thence downward to end their journeys over the thumping stamps, and out, disintegrated, across the wet ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... a town in the north of Holland. All the cheese-fanciers are out, thumping the cannon-ball Edams and the millstone Goudas with their bare red knuckles, plugging in with a hollow steel tool for samples. In Holland the business of judging a crumb of cheese has been taken with great seriousness for centuries. The abracadabra is ...
— The Complete Book of Cheese • Robert Carlton Brown
... eyes, wondered what it all meant. Ah, yes; there was no mistaking the room and Mrs M'Donnell's good-natured Scotch voice. It was all a dream, and my imagination had magnified the thumping at the door into the 'sweet music of popular applause.' I fell back in bed, hid my face in the pillow, sighed over my short-lived glory, and felt very wretched when my young clerk came smiling into the room. 'Here's some business at last, sir!' ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 446 - Volume 18, New Series, July 17, 1852 • Various
... as we discovered by the chilling and haughty manner in which he received us. Farnham and I agreed to keep watch alternately, but this arrangement was superfluous, as neither of us could sleep a wink for the infernal thumping and singing made by the medicine men all night long, by a dying native. I had an opportunity of seeing the sick man make his last will and testament: having caused to be brought to him whatever he had that was most precious, his bracelets of copper, ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere
... business now was with St. Pierre, and the hour was at hand when the game had ceased to be a woman's game. He had looked ahead to this hour. He had prepared himself for it and had promised himself action that would be both quick and decisive. And yet, as he went on, his heart was still thumping unsteadily, and in his arms and against his face remained still the sweet, warm thrill of his contact with Marie-Anne. He could not drive that from him. It would never completely go. As long as he lived, what had happened in the creek ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... Mike was busy thumping the green balls with his knuckles, and feeling of the stems, and when he had tested each in turn, he answered, "Yis, I'll sell thim for you, but ye'd better wait a week or two. They ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... track for old Dan Tucker," and from the convulsive gripping of his hands and arms and the hysterical intake of his breath we who had seen Joe Nevison dive from the top of the old tree, from limb to limb to the bottom, knew what he was doing. His heart was thumping audibly when he finished, and we tried to calm him. For a while we all sat about him in silence—forgetting the walls that shut us in, and living with him in the open, Slaves of the Magic Tree. Then one by one ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... civilian's clothes, spoke to him this time and with a sufficient knowledge of the English language. The bald-headed secretary still snapped up the unconsidered insectile trifles which troubled his paper. Alban, his heart thumping audibly, followed the newcomer from the room and remembered only that he was going ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... Confession of Faith may not be familiar to the majority of readers, and as it is a specimen of the current songs of Little Britain, I subjoin it in its original orthography. I would observe that the whole club always join in the chorus with a fearful thumping on the table and clattering ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... had she endeavoured to avoid their contact that, on one occasion, when she and Sally had been climbing up to the second floor, and the door of his room was opened, through which his voice had sounded, calling to Sally, she had run hurriedly up the stairs out of sight, her heart thumping with excitement when he ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... willingness on my part was but a cloak for my real feelings, for I will not here disguise the fact that the prospect before me was anything but agreeable; indeed my heart was thumping in a most unpleasant manner, and my tongue and lips had become strangely parched and dry, as ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... much about it. It was something to do with business. I got an offer of a thumping big partnership three ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... more cargo, and an additional tonkang was attached, which relieved some of the congestion on ours. One afternoon the monotony was relieved by a fight in the kitchen of the little steamer, when a sudden thumping sound of nude feet against the floor was heard and boiled rice flew about. But it was very soon over, evidently only an outburst of dissatisfaction with the cook; somebody called for the Malay captain and we heard ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... like any other, and gives joy perpetually. It is something to say: 'I have saved a Balzac.' Humanity has good impulses of the sort; and there are people who, without being English, are capable of like eccentricities. 'Either a millionaire or a banker,' he cried, thumping on his chest, 'one of ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... slide away. An empty chest clattered turning over; a man fell head first with a jump, as if lifted by a kick; and farther off, indistinct, others streamed like a mass of rolling stones down a bank, thumping the deck with their feet and flourishing their arms wildly. The hatchway ladder was loaded with coolies swarming on it like bees on a branch. They hung on the steps in a crawling, stirring cluster, beating madly with their fists the underside of the battened hatch, and the headlong rush ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad
... find by my memorandum that I owe you about sixty dollars. Here is the money. There, now, do not draw back and flush all over your face at the idea of taking money you have well earned. Oh, but you will get over that in time, and when you are a lawyer you will hold out your hand for a thumping fee before you give an opinion on a case!" laughed the judge, as he forced a roll of banknotes into Ishmael's hands, and left ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... finds it convenient to tell a lie, he should sport a good thumping one when he is about it. If a great lie serves his purpose better than a little one, why hesitate between the two, when the sin is equally great in both cases? The former has this advantage, that, when detected, its enormity may be so great as to enable ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 583 - Volume 20, Number 583, Saturday, December 29, 1832 • Various
... my mouth I could not on the instant respond to the lash. And as Corkran would have said, it takes more than one swallow to make a speech. Ruthlessly he rapped, seizing what I wished might be his dying chance to indulge a mania for puns and thumping wood. ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... mother of the Loves and Graces—Minerva may sing odes and dythambrics, or whatsoever her wisdomship pleases. Let her sing, or let her say, she'll never get a husband, in this world or the other, without she had a good thumping fortin, and then ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... at their tired legs like so many nightmare hands trying to hold them back to their destruction. They were young and hardy, but their physical strength was sorely tested by the battle with the elements. Their hearts were thumping as though they would burst through their ribs, and their breath ...
— Army Boys on German Soil • Homer Randall
... didn't kill—he won't die, will he? Why didn't you tell us before? Why didn't you telegraph?" she cried, and there was no wrath in the thumping, terrified little heart. Lady Saxondale turned quickly upon hearing the excited words of the girl who but a moment before had been ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... of the gun downwards. The lead was false. He hurtled jarringly into the door jamb, the gun thumping against the floor. The wind was knocked from him; the nausea of his wound swept him again with a surge of dizziness. But the painful scuffle of unseen feet ahead pulled him up once more; like a punch-drunk ...
— Raiders Invisible • Desmond Winter Hall
... strong-winded performer consisted in extracting a succession of roars and bellowings from its upper end, which would have done honour to the vocal powers of its late possessor. A tune it certainly was, for immense outbreaks of sound came at regular intervals, and the performer kept thumping his foot on the floor as if he were keeping time; but as the intermediate notes were of such a very soft nature as to be altogether inaudible, the company were left to fill up the blanks at their own discretion; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... elaborately-devised trick. It had lured him out into mid-ocean and smoothed the sea and stilled the winds and given him a singularly sympathetic comrade, and then it had turned and delivered him a thumping blow in mid-chest. "Yes," he said, after an attempt at the usual formal congratulation, "you certainly ought to do better—with Miss Garland waiting ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... whose fearful effects I knew. My tentative approach, however, proved to me, when I remained unaffected, that, here and now, whatever danger there had been was past; and finally, by a hanging rope, with a thumping desperation of heart, ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... charred remnants of staves and rusty hoops left of the barrel through which the copper worm had run, while the copper still itself was reduced to a battered heap. The worm and the thumping keg and all the essentials for making whiskey leaped into a living scene, however, when Jorde Foley got to telling of the days when he and Cynthie and young Ben, peaceable and contented, earned a ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... cages, and from his cages back to his flasks. While he told Pentaur of the state he had found his room in on his return home, he wandered about in feverish excitement, unable to keep still, now kicking over a bundle of plants, now thumping down his fist on the table; his favorite birds were starved to death, his snakes had escaped, and his ape had followed their example, apparently in ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... And a batten that shall suit it, And a loom of best construction, And a treadle of the finest. Make the weaver's chair all ready, For the damsel fix the treadle, Lay her hand upon the batten. Soon the shuttle shall be singing, And the treadle shall be thumping, Till the rattling fills the village, And the noise is heard beyond it: 70 And the crones will all perceive it, And the village women question, 'Who is this we hear a-weaving?' And you thus must make them answer: ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... dragging a metal table there; and, upended under the knob, making an angle with the floor, it held stoutly closed the door, now thumping and quivering with blows given it from outside. The panting negro fell back from the door exhausted, but rose to help his master at the need ...
— The Affair of the Brains • Anthony Gilmore
... of St. Peter's bells in full peal had been wafted to them while he spoke, and now the genial thumping of the town band, renowned for its unstinted use of the drum-stick, throbbed ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... the fifth night after the captain had left the ship that all on board were startled by a mighty thumping, accompanied by a shock that threw ...
— Facing the World • Horatio Alger
... electric light man within call, and now set him at work moving two other arc lamps to a position where they made the ground about the growing piles of timber nearly as light as day. Through the night air he could hear the thumping of the planks on the wharf. Faintly over this sound came the shouting of men and the tramp and shuffle of feet. And at intervals a train would rumble in the distance, slowly coming nearer, until with a roar that swallowed all the other noises it was past. The arc lamps glowed and buzzed over ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... are, over to the right," he exclaimed presently. He set his machine in the general direction indicated. Soon a black patch began to appear among the lights and shadows. Surely here was the village they sought. The realization set his heart thumping violently. ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... themselves.—The other day a little yellow bird flew into one of the empty rooms, of which there are half a dozen on the lower floor, and could not find his way out again, flying at the glass of the windows, instead of at the door, thumping his head against the panes or against the ceiling. I drove him into the entry and chased him from end to end, endeavoring to make him fly through one of the open doors. He would fly at the circular light over the door, clinging to the casement, sometimes ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... would be a two-edged sword, that might cut too keenly on the wrong side," reflected the submarine boy. "Millard would be sure to claim that I was assaulting him. It would look like that, too, and I'd probably get a thumping from the crowd, while Millard slipped away. Then he would be warned that he was wanted, and he'd make himself mighty scarce ...
— The Submarine Boys for the Flag - Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam • Victor G. Durham
... rest of the earth, the sea—and all his companions. He swore, as he alighted heavily on his heels, that he would never, never any more associate with any fool that "hadn't savee enough to know his knee from his elbow." He managed by his thumping to scare the last remnant of wits out of Jimmy. We could hear the object of our exasperated solicitude darting to and fro under the planks. He had cracked his voice at last, and could only squeak miserably. His back or else ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... fires flashed like meteors. A solid shot struck a field-carriage not thirty yards from my feet, and one of the flying splinters spitted a gunner as if he had been pierced by an arrow. An artillery-man was standing with folded arms so near that I could have reached to touch him; a whistle and a thumping shock and he fell beneath my nag's head. I wonder, as I calmly recall these episodes now, how I escaped the death that played about me, chilled me, thrilled me,—but spared me! "They are fixing bayonets for a charge. My God! See them come ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... illumination, been thinking that after the next logging season he would annex Joyce Birkdale to his few belongings—the cabin, his dog and gun. The idea had not roused him much, but it had been a pleasurable conclusion to arrive at; and now? Every nerve was aching and the boy's heart was thumping heavily. Again he dropped his head, and he cursed everything his thought touched upon—even the girl he meant, in some way, still ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... as fast as I can," retorted Goddard sturdily; his heart thumping as he saw her confusion. "Miss Newton—Nancy—I mean every word I have said. Tell ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... virtuously and pushed back his chair. From their faces, and the remarks they had made, he felt very confident of the ultimate decision. "What about you, Patsy?" he asked suddenly, turning to the bulky, bald German cook who was thumping bread dough in a far corner. "You got any homestead or desert rights you ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... became aware that a Shadow, dark and impenetrable, stood between me and the open window. At first it seemed simply a formless mass of black vapour,—but very gradually it assumed the outline of a Shape which did not seem human. I laid down my pen,—and, with my heart thumping hammer-strokes of fear, looked at this strange Darkness gathered as it were in one place and blocking out the silver gleam of the moon. As I looked, all the light in my room was suddenly extinguished. A cry rose involuntarily to my ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... nodded, "yes." She could not say more, her heart was thumping so, but her small twining fingers in the doctor's palm told him a ...
— The Heiress of Wyvern Court • Emilie Searchfield
... hardly a trace of motion in the air, but somehow the creature half-scented Thyrsis; and so it stood and trumpeted to the night. Oh, the wildness of that sound—and the thumping of the heart of the hunter, and the breathless suspense, and the burning desire. The deer would take a step, and a twig would crack; and then it would stand still again, and Thyrsis would listen, crouching like a statue, clutching his weapon and striving to ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... ladies and gentlemen, and to accept all the other responsibilities incidental to creating a dramatic world out of a domestic chaos. Having further accustomed themselves to the breaking of furniture and the staining of walls—to thumping, tumbling, hammering, and screaming; to doors always banging, and to footsteps perpetually running up and down stairs—the nominal master and mistress of the house fondly believed that their chief troubles were ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... come out here; here is one of the soldiers of Gettysburg! Yes, sir; and this knee—you see I can't bend it much—got stiffened at Chickamauga; and this scratch here in the neck was from a bullet at Gaines Mill; and this here, sir—thumping his chest—you notice I don't dare to cough much —after the explosion of a shell at Petersburg I found myself lying on my-back, and the only one of my squad who was not killed outright. Was it the imagination of the citizen or of ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... once or twice in his life into close touch with dangerous happenings, and conducted himself with average pluck. He never attempted to conceal from himself, however, that these few minutes were minutes of breathless, unreasoning fear. His heart was thumping against his side, and the muscles at the back of his neck were almost numb as he slowly looked round the room. His eyes paused at the door. It was slightly open, to his nervous fancy it seemed to be shaking. His teeth chattered, ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... not care, and he said he had nowhere to go to. But he got into Snuffy's very own room at daybreak whilst we stood outside and heard him snoring; and very loud he must have snored too, for I could hear my heart thumping so I should not have thought I could have heard anything else. And Lorraine took the back-door key off the drawers, and let us out, and took it back again. He feared nothing. There was a walnut-tree by the gate, and Jem said, "Suppose we do our faces like gipsies, so that nobody may know us." ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... besides of famous crimes. The thing was as clear as an illusion; he was once again that little boy; he was looking once again, and with the same sense of physical revolt, at these vile pictures; he was still stunned by the thumping of the drums. A bar of that day's music returned upon his memory; and at that, for the first time, a qualm came over him, a breath of nausea, a sudden weakness of the joints, which he ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... Jim plunged and ran with the speed of a frightened deer, until he had gone a few rods, when he darted to one side, ran a little farther, and dropped flat on his face. For a moment, while he lay listening, he heard nothing but the thumping of his own heart, which he feared ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... she returned and when she did so I saw her creep into her cubicle and sit there for quite a great time before going to bed. My heart was thumping hard, for I had a vague feeling that I had been partly to blame for what had occurred, but after a while I fell asleep and remembered no more until I was awakened in the middle of the night by somebody kissing me in ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... hitch to his trousers, which Is a trick all seamen larn, And having got rid of a thumping quid, ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert
... his back, and led him into the road, which he had some difficulty in accomplishing, and when there he would not go a bit better than in the field. He had no preference to the turnpike road, and George, after fatiguing himself, and getting into a violent heat by beating and thumping the animal's impenetrable skin, considered that he had better get him back again into the field, and there leave him. But here again the stubborn beast perplexed him; he would not budge an inch, no, not even when George pulled and dragged him by the halter till his arms ached so much he was obliged ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... up into the loving face, his heart thumping so fiercely that his ears drummed. Suddenly he realised how much it meant to him that now he was the only one that counted; she would have pulled the trigger rather than risk ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... Dinah's thumping heart gave a great start and seemed to stop. "Oh yes," she gasped desperately. "Yes, I couldn't possibly—be ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... delightful ceremony Otto had stood on the left of his daughter, his heart thumping away, his face growing redder every minute, his eyes intent on each guest elbowing a way through the crowd as Masie handed them their gifts, noting the general happiness and the laughter that followed the reading of the lines, wondering all the time why no one was offended at the ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... aggravate him;" and after again beaming mildly through her spectacles she disappeared from the window, and Davy went cautiously around the corner of the house, curious to see what Gobobbles might be like. As he approached the front of the house he heard a loud, thumping noise, and presently he came in sight of Gobobbles, who proved to be a large and very bold-mannered turkey with all his feathers taken off except a frowzy tuft about his neck. He was tied fast in a baby's high chair, and was thumping his chest with his wings in such a violent and ill-tempered ...
— Davy and The Goblin - What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' • Charles E. Carryl
... General Wragge, Captain Anstruther and Captain Murray faced Professor Andrew Fraser, whose face was as set as a stone sphinx. His feeble heart was thumping, for the stolen jewels were not his to return now. He cursed the day ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... every agitation of a new idea when the most prosperous weapon against it is a thumping epithet. The name must be apt enough to stick. Furthermore, no matter how misleading, it must be suggestive of ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... what better way was there than to have the boys learn some trade. James she had already apprenticed to learn the mystery of shoemaking. And for Lloyd she now sent and apprenticed him, too, to the same trade. Oh! but it was hard for the little man, the heavy lapstone and all this thumping and pounding to make a shoe. Oh! how the stiff waxen threads cut into his soft fingers, how all his body ached with the constrained position and the rough work of shoemaking. But one day the little nine-year-old, who was "not much bigger than a last," ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... noting the various particulars that were continually passing before our eyes, and as the Poet says, catching "the manners living as they rise," a thumping step was heard coming along the passage. The door opened, and a wooden-legged weather-beaten seaman, past the meridian, with a pot of beer in one hand and a bag in the other, showed his phiz. He was dressed in the usual sailor's garb, jacket and trousers, with a black handkerchief ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown
... the wet he examined the trail by the lantern's rays. The footsteps which he thought must be those of his father led around a bend in the stream and up a series of rocks covered with moss and dirt. With his heart thumping violently under his jacket he followed the footprints until the very summit of the rocks was gained. Then he let out ...
— The Boy Land Boomer - Dick Arbuckle's Adventures in Oklahoma • Ralph Bonehill
... than we supposed. From what we had seen of the moon we could not have imagined a more unexpected thing than that which happened to us then. Suddenly, above the roar of the wind and the thumping of our car on the rocks, even above the tumult of our spirits, there came to us the strains of more than earthly music. Whether it was from voice or instrument we could not tell, and in its sweetness and power it was absolutely indescribable. ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... whirled until it seemed to be spinning dreams, thick as motes in the sun. The clay rose in smooth spirals under his hand, and the wheel sang, 'Shall the vessel reprove him who made one to honour and one to dishonour?' And I saw the potter thumping his wet clay, and the clay, plastic as dream-stuff, shaped swift as light, and the three Fates stood at his shoulder. Dreams, dreams, and all in the spinning of the wheel, and the rich shadows of the old broken courtyard ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck
... "Curious, but true. Saw it meself. In the Afghan war I was convoying supplies through the passes, when we were set upon by Afreedees, hillmen, and robbers. I had fifty men of the 27th Native Infantry under me, with a sergeant. Among the Afreedees was a thumping big chief, who stood among the rocks with that very knife in his hand, the long one, shouting insults at our fellows. Our sergeant was a smart little nigger, and this cheek set his blood up. Be jabers! he chucked his gun down, pulled out that curved dagger—a ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... exclaimed, pumping the little man's arm up and down with one hand and thumping his shrinking shoulder blades with the other. "If it ain't the perfessor himself! How are you this mornin', Mr. Bangs? Right up ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Ireland. We hear a great deal about resistance to tyrants being obedience to God, but I fear that obedience to God is not the strongest natural passion of the human heart, and I doubt whether resistance to tyrants can often be promoted by putting about a general conviction that the tyrant has a thumping big stick in his hand, and may be relied upon to use it. Even Tom Paine had the wit to see that it was his "good heart" which brought ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... watching and listening, and by and by a puff of warm air blew across the sand, and a thumping tumble of louder thunder leaped from out the belly of the storm cloud, which every minute was coming nearer and nearer. ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... filmy dressing-gown. Locke turned to vision a creation of loveliness in the candle-light which set his heart thumping. ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... step, thumping the boardwalk in a rhythm she would have recognized but for its allegrity. The gate was opened with a sweep that brought a shriek from its old rheumatic hinge, and was permitted to swing shut with an unheeded smack. Ellaphine feared ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... them come, and backed against the wall. His heart was thumping furiously. He was in for it now, he felt. He had come down to the town with this very situation in his mind. A wild idea of doing something to restore his self-respect and his credit in the eyes of the house had driven him to the High Street. But now that the crisis ...
— The White Feather • P. G. Wodehouse
... for a moment. She could hear the thumping of her heart. Then she said in an almost ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... rather nearer to the equator, and is probably pretty warm; but really it does not matter where we land so long as we arrive on the planet. Your votes are two to my one; so, as you have a thumping majority, go ahead, M'Allister, for the place you have chosen! We will see whether we can cut the Gordian Knot, if we cannot ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... he had got well on his way, sitting tense with shining eyes and thumping heart, then, snatching off her helmet, she brought it down with a resounding smack on the hindquarters of the servant's horse, stampeding it in the direction of the camp, and, wheeling Silver Star, headed for the ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... Your witty remarks are about as light as those young tree-trunks we have for paddles. All together now!" as Dave bent over beside him. A lurch, a grinding, thumping slide, and the flat-boat slid free ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island • Gordon Stuart
... spent only one night in the room, filling the silence with painful eructations, and thumping on the partition which separated ...
— The New Book Of Martyrs • Georges Duhamel
... quite grasp what it meant, there was a sharp rattling, as if a big stick was being rapidly moved in the chimney, then another yell, a fresh rattling as of another great stick against the stone sides of the chimney, with a heavy thumping overhead. ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn
... who forgets that dreary hour When, as with misty eyes, To call the old familiar roll The solemn sergeant tries— One feels that thumping of the heart ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... suddenly that she started, but it was only the "cuckoo! cuckoo!" of the painted bird on the gilded clock. That clock was fifteen minutes slower than Miss Jane's watch; and Salome put her face in her hands, and tried to still the loud thumping sound of the blood at ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... cold, they were attacked by a mob of proslaveryites who had paraded the streets of Wolcottville and had elevated their courage with New England rum. They gathered around the barn which was near the Congregational church, yelling, blowing horns, thumping on tin pans and kettles, and ringing furiously the church bell, and finally, by brute force, broke up the meeting ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... took up her needle, and was resuming work, when Lysander entered, and, after thumping the floor, announced: ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... down the hall; then there was the sound of a tiny fist thumping on the door, and the voice of little Horace calling, "Elsie, Elsie, tum out! me wants ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... the coral lagoons of the north-west; when the Queensland schooners ran full "nigger" cargoes to Bundaberg, Maryborough, and Port Mackay; when the Government agents, drunk nine days out of ten, did as much recruiting as the recruiters themselves, and drew—even as they may draw to-day—thumping bonuses from the planters sub rosa! In those days the nigger-catching fleet from the Hawaiian Islands cruised right away south to palm-clad Arorai, in the Line Islands, and ran the Queensland ships close in the business. They came down from Honolulu in ballast-trim, ...
— Concerning "Bully" Hayes - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... out upstairs: there were thumping feet, shrieks, wild laughter, and slamming doors. With a suddenly lightened heart Richard ran up the wide, square flight to the landing. His son, in pajamas that were more or less visible beneath his streaming robe of Oriental silk, was pirouetting about the upper ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... prodigal younger son. After all, at worst, I am a sort of latter-day Robin Hood; I take from the rich according to their incomes. I don't give to the poor certainly, I don't get enough. But—there are other good works. Many a poor weakling have I comforted with Lies, great thumping, silly Lies, about the grave! Compare me with one of those rascals who disseminate phossy jaw and lead poisons, compare me with a millionaire who runs a music hall with an eye to feminine talent, or an underwriter, or the common stockbroker. Or any ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... later, still early in the morning, they were awakened by the arrival of the truck and the thumping of boxes, tables and supplies as the Salvation Army truck drivers unloaded and set up the paraphernalia of the canteen. The girls opened their eyes and looked about them, and there all around the ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... of joy, was waving a skate in each hand. "Mother, mother!" he was shouting. "See, I've got a boy present, a real boy present—just as if I was—like other boys. I've always had books and puzzles and girl presents! Everybody's thought of them when they thought of me!" he cried, thumping the crutches at his side. "But this is a real present— Now I've got something to show, and to lend—something that is something!" And on and on he chattered, with me staring at him as if I thought he ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... the street I heard a thumping; and I knew it was the stumping Of the Corporal, our old neighbor, on that wooden leg he wore, With a knot of women round him,—it was lucky I had found him,— So I followed with the others, and the ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... which people will take under the influence of fear. There was a striking instance of this in the recent case of the M'Keands; the boy cleared a height, such as he will never clear again to his dying day. Talents also of the most brilliant description for thumping, and indeed for all the gymnastic exercises, have sometimes been developed by the panic which accompanies our artists; talents else buried and hid under a bushel to the possessors, as much as to their friends. I remember ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... tell the near approach of the undesired, inevitable guest, what sound short of the muffled noises made by the undertakers as they turn the corners in the dim-lighted house, with low shuffle of feet and whispered cautions, carries such a sense of knocking-kneed collapse with it as the thumping down in the front entry of the heavy portmanteau, rammed with the changes ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... say to my grandson, Tom, and what he says to me, is our own business!" exclaimed the old gentleman in a passion, thumping the table with his clenched hand. "And no one else has a right to ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... one sang quite near us in the darkness to an instrument of strings telling of Singanee and his battle against the monster. And soon we saw him sitting on the ground and singing to the night of that spear-thrust that had found the thumping heart of the destroyer of Perdondaris; and we stopped awhile and asked him who had seen so memorable a struggle and he answered none but Singanee and he whose tusk had scattered Perdondaris, and now the last was dead. And when we asked him if Singanee had told him of the struggle he said ...
— Tales of Three Hemispheres • Lord Dunsany
... Penny, flopping into a chair, "my heart haven't been in such a thumping state of uproar since I used to sit up on old Midsummer- eves to see who my husband was going ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... you will find much harder. Place them on the ground gently after each set of processes. Now can you hold them out horizontally at arm's length, forward and then sideways? Your arms quiver and quiver, and down come the clubs thumping at last. Take them presently in a different and more difficult manner, holding each club with the point erect instead of hanging down; it tries your wrists, you will find, to manipulate them so, yet all the most graceful exercises ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... schoolboy: an expedition against bargemen, or a match at cricket, may be very pretty things to recollect; but, thank my stars, I can remember things that are very near as pretty. The beginning of my Roman history was spent in the asylum, or conversing in Egeria's hallowed grove; not in thumping ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... occur on board ships," she said, after a long pause; "such rattling, and thumping, and creaking, and stamping. Perhaps the sailors get their feet wet and are so cold that they require to stamp constantly to ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... the click of oars in rowlocks became presently a distant thumping, and then all sound was lost in the ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... on the three like a choking, blinding fog. The two outside the hangings must have been staring at each other, too bewildered or shocked to speak. The one inside clutched her throat, muttering, "If my heart keeps up this thumping, faith, he'll think ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... sitting on the bench and striving vainly to quiet her thumping heart. She heard him come lightly up behind her, but she did not turn her head though she had no tears to conceal. She was possessed by an insane desire to spring up and flee. It took all her resolution ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... this place whenas the elfin knight Approached, him seemed that the merry sound Of a shrill pipe, he playing heard on height, And many feet fast thumping the hollow ground, That through the woods their echo did rebound; He nigher drew to wit what it mote be. There he a troop of ladies dancing found Full merrily and making gladful glee; And in the midst a ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... upturned mass rose above the gunwale, smashed in the bulwarks, and deposited half a ton of ice on deck. Scarcely had this danger passed when a new enemy appeared in sight ahead. Directly in their way, just beyond the line of floe-ice against which they were alternately thumping and grinding, lay a group of bergs. There was no possibility of avoiding them, and the only question was, whether they were to be dashed to pieces on their hard blue sides, or, perchance, in some providential nook to find a ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... heartier welcome still. Then was there a dance indeed—no soft swish of lace and muslin, but the active swing of linsey and simple homespun; no French fiddler's bows and scrapings, no intricate lancers, no languid waltz; but neat shuffling forward and back, with every note of the music beat; floor-thumping "cuttings of the pigeon's wing," and jolly jigs, two by two, and a great "swinging of corners," and "caging the bird," and "fust lady to the right CHEAT an' swing"; no flirting from behind fans and ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... twice shy," and I had not so much enjoyed my call as to wish to repeat it. But I believe that what Mr. Carlyle absolutely needed above all things on earth was somebody to put on the gloves with him metaphorically about once a day, and give and take a few thumping blows; nor do I believe that he would have shrunk from a tussle a la Choctaw, with biting, gouging, tomahawk and scalper, for he had an uncommonly dour look about the eyes, and must have been a magnificent fighter when once roused. But though I had not his vast genius nor wit, I had the great ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... He went off up the brook. I determined to catch a dozen as quickly as he did. So I strung my half-pound fish on a hazel twig, and scud along to the next bend of the brook. I had no more than looked to my bait and dropped in there, when I had a bite and (this time more carefully) swung out a thumping big trout that would have weighed near a pound! His sides were well specked with ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... business out there like that, alone!" he muttered, rising to an elbow and thumping his hard pillow viciously. "Good Lord! ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... delighted to lift her clear off the ground, under threat of additional boxed ears if she opened her mouth. The wide, firm little mouth always remained closed, but the blue eyes burned fiercely, and the outraged little heart, thumping furiously at its impotence, did its best to salve its wounds with ceaseless repetition of its own private addition to the prescribed form ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... was some time before there was another sound in the room; then suddenly I heard the Master swear. His voice was sharp and astonished. This time, Excellency, he got up swiftly and crossed the room to the fireplace... I could hear him distinctly. There was the sound of one tapping on metal, thumping it, as with ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... door open, and was awakened several times during the night. It seemed to him that the wind had shifted, and that there was much tacking, for all night there was running about on deck, and thumping of blocks. At least a dozen times he heard Jarrow bawling to "Go about," and Peth's voice from the bows yelling "Hard alee," and the jibs being handled to the accompaniment of shivering sails and the lurch of the schooner as she ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore
... 'mid the ruddy wheat, The thumping of the flail, The winnowing within the barn By ...
— Old Times at Otterbourne • Charlotte M. Yonge
... northern wing of the ranch-house, strongly lighted, came a tumult of sound; music, thumping feet, a ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... Instantly George's heart was thumping wildly and he was tempted to shout to the intruder. Hastily banishing the impulse he watched the man. The dim outline of his figure was distinctly seen. Perhaps the intruder had been startled by the discovery of the face at the window. At all events he remained motionless ...
— Go Ahead Boys and the Racing Motorboat • Ross Kay
... the chief and his henchmen. Two minutes of silent fidgeting along the line of mounted Indians. Like so many blue statues the skirmishers stood or knelt, carbines advanced, every hammer at full cock. Back in the shadows of the agency hearts were thumping hard and all eyes were strained upon the scene at the east. The moon, riding higher every moment, looked coldly down upon the valley. Elk came forward again, and Red Dog's war-bonnet wagged first to right and then to left. He was saying something in low ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... went below to handle the motive power machinery he heard Captain Moore thumping on the ...
— Boy Scouts in a Submarine • G. Harvey Ralphson
... to quarrel with a hardship which shortly afterwards I should have laughed at, I rolled up my cloak for a pillow, wrapped myself in a buffalo-skin, and slept as soundly as on the most luxurious couch. I was roused early by a general thumping and clattering, and, making the hasty toilette which one is compelled to do when destitute of appliances, I found the stage at the early hour of six ready at the door; and, to my surprise, the coachman was muffled up in furs, and the morning ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... series of great thumping notes. "And so have I, A W, so have I. I'm afraid youll ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... man of bronze or marble, but of pure iron." Then he gave one of his meaningless laughs, and putting his fingers on my wrist, said: "Feel here; this is not a man's pulse, but a lion's or a dragon's." At this, I, whose blood was thumping in my veins, probably far beyond anything which that fool of a doctor had learned from his Hippocrates or Galen, knew at once how serious was my situation; yet wishing not to add to my uneasiness ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... often that great chub, or any other coarse fish, are in earnest about anything; but just then they were thoroughly bent on feeding, and in half an hour Master Tom had deposited three thumping fellows at the foot of the giant willow. As he was baiting for a fourth pounder, and just going to throw in again, he became aware of a man coming up the bank not one hundred yards off. Another look told him that it was the under-keeper. Could he reach the shallow ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... to you how it was that I was adrift, like a bear in a washing-tub. My first-mate was below. I had just relieved the deck, for in this blowing weather we must keep watch in harbour. The men were all at their dinner, when I heard the boat thumping under the main channels. I got into her to ease off a fathom or two of the painter; but as I hauled her ahead to get at the bend, it appears that the monkey of a boy who made her fast, and has been but a few months at sea, had ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... and tranquil manner, produced that instantaneous effect which admonitions from great rogues generally work upon little. Messieurs the ravmpers ceased from their amusements; and the ringleader of the gang, thumping Paul heartily on the back, declared he was a capital fellow, and it was only a bit of a spree like, which he hoped had ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to still the thumping in his breast and decide what he should do. For the guests there was only one door of entrance or exit, and to reach it he must ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... together, keeping pace with the craft which was sliding away fast with the stream. Nasmyth could feel his heart thumping as he wondered what Clarence would do. Though he could not cross the river, it was possible that he might propel the light canoe back to the shingle with his hand before he reached the rapid. As he could not guide her in the strong rush of water, ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... exclamation of surprise The Red Man gave in poking about the mill Over the great big thumping shuffling mill-stone Disgusted the Miller physically as coming From one who had no right to be heard from. "Come, John," he said, "you want to ...
— Mountain Interval • Robert Frost
... a weather-beaten doublet. He gave her that queer twisted sort of smile which the girl could not but find attractive, somehow. He said: "Why, but this heart thumping here inside me may stop any moment like a broken clock. Here is Euripides writing better than I: and here in my body, under my hand, is the mechanism upon which depend all those masterpieces that are to blot the Athenian from the reckoning, ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... hails you Tom or Jack, And proves, by thumping on your back, His sense of your great merit, Is such a friend, that one had need Be very much his friend indeed To pardon, or to bear it. On Friendship. ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... sawmills; the air was almost free of their dust, and there were hints of holiday on all the town. Farmers' wagons were arriving early, and ribbons of orange and blue were fastened in the horses' headgear. From the backyard of Downey's Hotel the thumping of a big drum was heard, and the great square piles of yellow lumber near Ford's Mill gave back the shrilling of fifes that were tuning up for the event. As the sun rose high, the Orangemen of the Lodge appeared, each wearing regalia—cuffs and a collarette of sky-blue with a fringe of blazing ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... rallied to reform behind our beloved guns and noted the ridiculous brevity of our line—as we sank from sheer fatigue, and tried to moderate the terrific thumping of our hearts—as we caught our breath to ask who had seen such-and-such a comrade, and laughed hysterically at the reply—there swept past us and over us into the open field a long regiment with fixed bayonets and rifles on the right shoulder. Another followed, and another; two—three—four! ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... Jock and Mhor were up at an unearthly hour, parading the house, banging at Mrs. M'Cosh's door, and imploring her to rise in case breakfast was late, and thumping the barometer to see if it showed any inclination to fall. The car was ordered for nine o'clock, but they were down the road looking for it at least half an hour before it was due, feverishly anxious in case something had happened either to it ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... to her father, who started to go to her, but before he reached her she looked up and saw me. In a moment she was by my side, smiling and dimpling in a manner fit to set the heart of an anchorite a-thumping. ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... onward rush of his horse at the far end of the course, he heard faintly in the dim hollow recess of the helm the loud shout and the clapping of hands of those who looked on, and found himself gripping with nervous intensity the butt of a broken spear, his mouth clammy with excitement, and his heart thumping in his throat. ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... made it fluffy. There was plenty of room for its fluffiness. He could stretch his legs, too, and could wiggle his wings against his sides. This felt good. And he could move his head all he cared to. But he did not begin thumping the sides of his new world with it. He tucked it down between two warm little things close by, and went to sleep. The two warm little things were his sister and brother, for Larie was not alone ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch
... very near. With utmost wariness we crawled from bush to bush, pausing every now and then, and crouching low. Then, judging the way still clear, we crawled forward, and finally gained the top of the ridge. With thumping hearts we rested a moment in a crouching posture, for we had at last arrived upon the scene. Slowly and breathlessly raising our heads, we peered through the leafy screen and beheld the love dance in ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... He had liked Roland; with all his faults, he had liked him much; and it was as if some cherished statue had fallen, and been dashed to pieces. Wild, joyful beatings of relief, that Hamish was innocent, were mingling with it, thumping against his heart, soon to exclude all else and fill it to bursting. But as yet this was indistinct; and the first clear idea that came to him was—Was Roland telling truth, or was he only playing a joke upon him? ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... a window, while Ab was watching the movement of the loom, and looked across the fields. Suddenly the others heard him utter an ejaculation of profound astonishment. The loom ceased its monotonous thumping, and all eyes turned ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... to the last tr-r-op of our plood!" said the colonel, thumping the table; "and ve must tie for our Emperor, and zen all vill pe vell. And ve must discuss it as little as po-o-ossible"... he dwelt particularly on the word possible... "as po-o-ossible," he ended, again turning to the count. "Zat is how ve ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... He was at the piano, playing for her, when he became conscious that another lady had entered the room, and, turning, saw Nellie Travers. He rose and bowed to her, extending his hand as he did so, and knowing that his heart was thumping and his color rising as he felt the soft, warm touch of her slender fingers in his grasp. She, too, had flushed,—any one could see it, though the lamps were not turned high, nor ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... His heart was thumping so his ribs shook, and his breath was coming in gulps between parted lips. Garman's lips were smashed beyond all resemblance to a mouth, and the heaving of his great chest told how the pace was telling. His first kick had done the work, however. A numbness was spreading over Roger's right ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... the stick and coat. Only after he had gone some distance from the castle did Count Vavel notice that some heavy object kept thumping against his side. The faithful Henry had smuggled a double-barreled pistol into the pocket of his coat, in addition to the bloodletting instruments. The count did not take the road which ran around the cove to the manor, but hurried to the shore, where he sprang into his canoe, and with a ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... Rag was big enough to go out alone, his mother taught him the signal code. Rabbits telegraph each other by thumping on the ground with their hind feet. Along the ground sound carries far; a thump that at six feet from the earth is not heard at twenty yards will, near the ground, be heard at least one hundred yards. Rabbits have very keen hearing, and so might hear this same thump at two hundred yards, and ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... shelter when an Indian rose from beside a fire, raked the embers together, and threw some sticks upon it. As Cameron stood watching him, his heart-beat thumping in his ears, a rotten twig snapped under his feet. The Indian turned his face in their direction, and, bending forward, appeared to be listening intently. Instantly Jerry, stooping down, made a scrambling noise in the leaves, ending with a thump upon the ground. Immediately the Indian ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... out doing her morning marketing, she heard the feeble thump of a cane overhead which was her mother's signal. She was determined not to see her mother again until she could say that she was married, but the thumping continued, and was followed by the crash ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... old and evidently tired from the long day's hunt. He swayed a little in his saddle, then recovered and looked about him, fumbling at his side for his horn. His mount raised its head and beat a forefoot against the ground. The heavy foot made a deep, thumping noise and leaves rustled and rose in ...
— Millennium • Everett B. Cole
... as I took it from him, but how dare I call it false to its face? As well accuse the sun in heaven of being a cheap imitation. I faltered and prevaricated feebly. Where was my moral courage, and where was the good, honest, thumping lie that should have aided me? "I have the best authority for recognizing this as a very good copy of a famous stone in the possession of the Bishop of Northchurch." His scowl grew so black that I saw he believed me, and I went on more cheerily: ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... morning. The creatures must live that idle gentlemen may shoot them for pleasure, even though they eat our food and leave us to go hungry." His brow darkened and a long-smouldering wrath burst forth into words. "There's no justice in it," he declared, thumping the table with his fist till the spoons danced, "Lairds or no Lairds, Anguses ...
— The Scotch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... violet, tender green and gold, the country lay before us. Then, even as we watched from covert, our ears made acquaintance with a new and ominous sound. From an infinite distance the morning breeze from the north carried with it a deadened thumping sound, now regular as the muffled rolling of drums, now softly irregular with intervals of stillness. It was the dominating monotone of cannonading. No need to tell the boys ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy
... handful of them, had already reached the Thuria's deck, as Carthoris glanced in the direction the Lotharian had indicated. The sight that met his eyes set his heart to thumping in joy and relief—Thuvia of Ptarth might yet be saved? For from below there poured a stream of giant bowmen, grim and terrible. Not the bowmen of Tario or Jav, but the bowmen of an odwar of bowmen—savage fighting ...
— Thuvia, Maid of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the fiddle and the thumping of feet could be heard as they drove up. Already the rooms seemed to be pretty well filled, as Helen noticed when they entered. Three sets were on the floor for a quadrille and the house shook with the energy of the dancers. On benches against the walls were seated the ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... once, by some magic which is not explainable, she found out that that was what he was meaning. This is not an admirable sentence; but it is difficult to know how to put it better. It was quite a strange discovery. It set her heart beating, thumping against her breast. She herself meant nothing whatever, and she never thought of any response, or of the time when he might ask her to make a response. The sensation of the moment was quite enough for Ursula. ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... Doctor Hilary," announced Trix, still calmly. Inwardly she was not so calm. In fact, her heart was thumping quite loudly. ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... face looked quite miserable, but sounds of thumping at the back door drew her away from the parlour, and stopped any further confidences. ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... searing pain in his throat, but shutting it out of his consciousness was the steady, thumping beat of ...
— The Alternate Plan • Gerry Maddren
... on Respiration, says—"The story of Anne Green, executed at Oxford, December 14, 1650, is still well remembered among the seniors there. She was hanged by the neck near half an hour, some of her friends in the mean time thumping her on the breast, others hanging with all their weight upon her legs, sometimes lifting her up, and then pulling her down again with a sudden jerk, thereby the sooner to dispatch her out of her pain, as her printed account wordeth it. After she was in her coffin, being observed to breathe, a lusty ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 530, January 21, 1832 • Various |
