"Whirr" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... too, but the movements of the horses and the rattle of their harness were all the sounds he could hear. Naab returned to his seat; the team started, now no longer in a trot; they were climbing. After that Hare fell into a slumber in which he could hear the slow grating whirr of wheels, and when it ceased he awoke to raise himself and turn his ear to the back trail. By-and-by he discovered that the black night had changed to gray; dawn was not far distant; he dozed and awakened to clear light. A rose-red horizon lay far below and to the eastward; the intervening ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... watch, folded his napkin in haste, seized his coat and hat, kissed his wife, patted her shoulder, nodded at me, and was gone. A minute later we heard the whirr and slide of his car, and Hepatica, at the window, ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... a rough whirr like a flushing cock partridge, and goes off on contact with a tremendous bang. It is not as dangerous as ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... of bits mouthed in those velvet muzzles; a hoof pawed sharply on the road; swish of long, restless tails; creaking of saddlery; and sudden bursts of all the instruments in unison when heads were tossed and shaken. Remotely the whirr of a ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... crazed household-clock with its whirr Rang midnight within as he stood, He heard the low sighing of her Who had striven from his birth for his good; But he still only asked the spring starlight, the breeze, What great thing or small thing ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... untied the neck of the sack. Buzz! Whirr! Hum! Zim! She had opened it but a tiny little crack when out crawled and hopped and flew the millions and swarms and colonies of all kinds of insects, and away they scattered in every direction. Such a noise as filled ...
— The Curious Book of Birds • Abbie Farwell Brown
... easier to dismiss superstitious fears out here in the sunlight. Perhaps it had been only bats, after all. Warlocks did not whirr in the air—at least, they were understood not to do so. Witches were supposed to reserve their aerial performances for the night-time. Perhaps it was only bats, as Rob asserted. Indeed, it would be safer—especially in Rob's presence—to accept his explanation of the mystery. At the same ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... a "whirr-rr," the doors of the little carved clock on the wall new open and a cuckoo came out and piped ...
— Judy • Temple Bailey
... glare from the windows, sinking ever more and more swiftly, receding and approaching—until for one instant a jagged line of rocks grinned like teeth through the mist, dropped away and vanished, and with a clash of bells, and a last scream of warning, the throb of the screw passed from a whirr to a rising note, and the note to stillness, as the huge ship, clear at last of the frontier peaks, shook out her wings steady once more, and set out for her humming flight through space.... Whatever it was, was behind them now, vanished ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... Magna Charta!' Dan whispered. It was one of the few history dates that he could remember. Kadmiel turned on him with a sweep and a whirr of his ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling
... were about to start, the storm, which must certainly have fallen for a while, sprang up suddenly, and when Tommy the Mate (barely recognisable in borrowed black garments) opened the door the wind came rushing into the house with a long-drawn whirr. ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... lower thousand and two thousand-foot lanes. The lights of Tappen were dwindling beneath us. The interior of the Cometara was humming with the whirr of its circulators and air-receivers, mingled with the throb of air pressure pumps. At three thousand feet I started the air-rocket engines. They came on with a gentle purring. The fluorescence ...
— Wandl the Invader • Raymond King Cummings
... the use of a bicyclette are so numerous and intricate, but so absolutely ignored. My own lamp seemed to be a grave distraction among the invisible occupants of the roadside meadows, and often much lowing rose up on either side. The hedges would suddenly whirr with countless grasshoppers, although, no doubt, they had been amusing themselves with their monotonous noises for hours. The strange sound seemed to follow me in a most persistent fashion, and then would be merged into the croaking of a vast assemblage of frogs. These sounds, however, ...
— Normandy, Complete - The Scenery & Romance Of Its Ancient Towns • Gordon Home
... fro about long enough, and have half a mind to throw up the contract with fate. But hold on a bit. There is something worse than too much work, and that is idleness. Imagine a sudden hush in all the myriad sounds of labor. The ceasing of the whirr of countless wheels whereat men stand day after day through toilful years, fashioning everything from a pin's head to a ship's mast; the suspended click of millions of sewing machines, above which bend delicate women stitching their lives into ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... the alternate cloud and sunshine outside. It was one of those perfect mornings of April, bright-coloured and windy, and the breeze in the lilacs combined with the notes of the piano until they could hardly be told apart. The rare whirr and explosion of a shell only had the effect of accentuating the intervening peace. Jonathan had never felt so at one with Nature and with his friend, and more than once, stolid and calm though he generally was, he felt a tear in his eye at an extra beautiful little bit of music ...
— Mud and Khaki - Sketches from Flanders and France • Vernon Bartlett
... Ajax still, unwearied, long'd to hurl His spear at Hector of the brazen helm; But he, well skill'd in war, his shoulders broad Protected by his shield of tough bull's hide, Watch'd for the whizzing shafts, and jav'lins' whirr. Full well he knew the tide of battle turn'd, Yet held his ground, his trusty friends ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... fat boy, when with a sudden whirr a partridge arose close beside them, and flew away with a ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... ran his car out among the tall weeds close to the line of scrub willows edging the creek; extinguished his lights, including the tail-lamp; left his engine running; stood listening a moment to the whispering whirr of his motor; then, taking the flash light from his pocket, he climbed over the roadside wall and ran back across the pasture ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... no sign. We throw a clod, but yet there is no movement of his wings. Not till a stick hits the limb close to where he is sitting does he stretch his long wings with their telltale white spots and fly rapidly away. And the other two sit unmoved. But some night we hear the whirr of the nighthawk's wings as he drops rapidly from a great height, or we see him skimming close to the surface of the stream in search of insects in some twilight hour and then he is the embodiment of strength, ...
— Some Spring Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... instantly rushed for the hedge, not two yards distant; but the hawk, dashing through the crowd of them as they rose, carried away a victim. It was done in the tenth of a second. He came, singled his bird, and was gone like the wind, before the whirr of wings had ceased on the ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... steps to the house, she heard the whirr of a motor in the street. It stopped in front of the house, and as Margaret waited she heard Mrs. Hillyer's thin voice: "I am so sorry! Please tell Mrs. Pole that I came over from Lancaster to get her for ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... almost noiseless throb of her engine and a whirr of her propeller, the aeroplane rolled swiftly over the level starting ground and took the air like ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton
... breather," and to gather themselves together for the supreme effort. The scene was not exhilarating. The grey mist falling—the scattered earth and mud rising and spluttering, the shrieking shells rending the air, already vibrant with the whirr of bullets—the closer sounds and sights of death and destruction—all these things were sufficient to stem the courage of stoutest hearts. Still the British band remained undaunted, still they prepared boldly for the final rush. Presently, with renewed energy the three gallant ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... the fresh wild breezes birr, New budded boughs among, I saw the deeper tinting stir In the green tassels of the fir, I heard the pheasant rise and whirr, ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... set up a shrill trumpeting that could be heard ten paces away, and held a mass meeting to protest; whereupon the father of all the dragon-flies, a magnificent warrior in a steel- blue armour, saw that a conspiracy was afoot, and swept into the midst with a whirr and a snap, a turn here and a flash there, that scattered the host in a ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... when the bird was singing its best, and the emperor was lying in bed listening to it, something gave way inside the bird with a 'whizz.' Then a spring burst, 'whirr' went all the wheels, and the music stopped. The emperor jumped out of bed and sent for his private physicians, but what good could they do? Then they sent for the watchmaker, and after a good deal ...
— Stories from Hans Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... was walking, nor was there a path to indicate that it was a place of any resort. It seemed to be a spot well adapted to privacy. No sound was to be heard, save the occasional tap of a woodpecker, or the whirr of the wings of a partridge, as, startled by the approach of the person, he suddenly rose into the air, or the songs of the robins, bidding farewell, in sweet and plaintive notes, to the disappearing sun. The female walked on, ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... of trains, the feathery whirr of motors, the echo of footsteps, the immense, indefinable breathing vibration of the iron monster, drowsing on its rock between three rivers and the sea, ceases utterly. And a vast stillness ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... with cane-bottoms, a pillow, and one unclean sheet. Those who were decoyed into these staterooms endured them with disgust while the boat was at anchor; but when the paddle-wheels began to revolve, and dismal din of clang and bang and whirr came down about their ears, and threatened to unroof the fortress of the brain, why, then they fled madly, precipitately, leaving their clothes mostly behind them. But I am anticipating. The passengers arrived ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... around!" went on Tom, in deep admiration. "All you can see is a whirr! We sure have a dandy engine in ...
— The Rover Boys in the Air - From College Campus to the Clouds • Edward Stratemeyer
... would you rather see the incessant stir Of insects in the windrows of the hay, And hear the locust and the grasshopper Their melancholy hurdy-gurdies play? Is this more pleasant to you than the whirr Of meadow-lark, and its sweet roundelay, Or twitter of little fieldfares, as you take Your nooning in the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... already worked six months in the factory, the scream of the whistle was the call of a frightful monster, whose black smoke-stack of a snout, with its blacker breath coming out, and the flaming eyes of the engine glaring through the smoke, completed the picture of a wild beast watching her. Within, the whirr and tremble of shuttle and machinery were the purr ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... a good way without any luck. There didn't seem anything to shoot in all the bush, though you may be sure I kept my eyes about me. I was beginning to grow disheartened. At length I made my way down to the creek. Just as I got near it, I heard a whirr-r-r over my head, and looking up, I saw a flock of wild duck. They seemed to pause a moment, and then dropped downwards. I couldn't see where they alighted, but of course I knew it must be in ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... seemed to gain strength as the fox put forth his, and after a quarter of a mile race, racing that was somehow all away from Taylor's Hill, the bird got unaccountably quite well, and, rising with a decisive whirr, flew off through the woods, leaving the fox utterly dumfounded to realize that he had been made a fool of, and, worst of all, he now remembered that this was not the first time he had been served this very trick, though he never knew the reason ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... be a council school, aggressive in its hideousness, up every second side street; the grinding whirr of the municipal trams was always in your ears, to remind you of the poverty of the neighbourhood in case our eyes should play you false, that worst form of poverty which has to wear a decent black suit and possesses ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... motor 'buses tinkled noisily, and there was an incessant roar of the traffic that rumbled heavily over the wooden pavements. There was a clatter of horses' hoofs, and the blowing of horns; the electric broughams whizzed past with an odd, metallic whirr. ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... garbage and for the friendly lizard too, in the hospital compound. One night, as I lay in my tent looking to the moon-lit camp, Fritz, our little ground squirrel that lived beneath the table of the mess tent, met an untimely fate from a big white owl. A whirr of soft owl wings to the ground outside my tent, a tiny squeak, and Fritz had vanished from our ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey
... the homes of Oliver's more fortunate brothers and sisters. When I first saw Ruth there in the midst of the confusion of unpacking, the room in Irving Place with its old chests and samovars, Esther Claff quietly writing in her corner, the telephone bell muffled to an undisturbing whirr, flashed before me. ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... whirr, and buzz, and rush Became a harvest sound, Or monsters trailed their tails of spikes, Or ploughed the ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... forward until they grew to circles of flame, and all at once lifted themselves up as if in angry surprise. Then for the first time thrilled in Mr. Bernard's ears the dreadful sound that nothing which breathes, be it man or brute, can hear unmoved,—the long, loud, stinging whirr, as the huge, thick bodied reptile shook his many-jointed rattle and adjusted his loops for the fatal stroke. His eyes were drawn as with magnets toward the circles of flame. His ears rung as in the ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... are loved, save only I; their hearts Beat warm with love and joy, beat full thereof: They cannot guess, who play the pleasant parts, My heart is breaking for a little love. While beehives wake and whirr, And rabbit thins his fur, 20 In living spring that sets the ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... venerable appearance contrasting most strangely with its surroundings. Many chimneys—so many that it seems impossible to count them—pour forth their smoke on every side of it; crowds of operatives jostle past it; heavily laden carts cause its old walls to tremble; the whirr of machinery and the whistle of the railway engine break in upon its repose; while within a stone's throw of it flows the River Cart, the manifold defilements of which have passed into a proverb. But it is not difficult, even without being imaginative, ...
— Scottish Cathedrals and Abbeys • Dugald Butler and Herbert Story
... "Whirr! whirr! how many questions! I prescribe for him a course of early rising, accompanied by long prayer and fasting. If he shows an inclination for exercise, give him a rosary. Take away juvenile books, and give him the Lives of the Saints and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... full of wonder and romance. I am writing, as usual, by my window, the moonlight brighter in its whiteness than my mean little yellow-shining lamp. From the mysterious greyness, the olive groves and lanes beneath my terrace, rises a confused quaver of frogs, and buzz and whirr of insects: something, in sound, like the vague trails of countless stars, the galaxies on galaxies blurred into mere blue shimmer by the moon, which rides slowly across the highest heaven. The olive twigs glisten in the rays: the flowers of the pomegranate ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... knowing of the dangers through which their luxury has come to them. Like the Bedouin of the desert who darts alone across the sands of Africa, the bird is neither seen nor heard; the torpid atmosphere, deprived of its electrical conditions, echoes neither the whirr of its wings nor its joyous notes. Besides, what human eye was strong enough to bear the glitter of those pinnacles adorned with sparkling crystals, or the sharp reflections of the snow, iridescent on the summits in the rays of a pallid sun which ...
— Seraphita • Honore de Balzac
... road. Then came the sound of horse's hoofs, and at the same time he heard a motor-car approaching from the opposite direction. The rider made appearance first, riding a grey horse with an Arab's high set head and tail. She was holding him with difficulty, for the whirr of the approaching car grew every moment louder. Shelton rose; the car flashed by. He saw the horse stagger in the gate-way, crushing its ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... rotten, while its flooring was, as I knew, heavily broken away in spots, making it a dangerous task to walk about its passage-ways, or even to enter the large and solitary rooms which once shook to the whirr and hum ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... admit, as we picture to ourselves some brushy ravine in which the trapper has his irons cunningly set out for the betrayal of the stone-marten and the glossy-backed "fisher-cat,"—but the breeze in it is quite as wholesome as a brandy-smash. The whirr of the sage-hen's wing, as she rises from the fragrant thicket, brings a flavor with it fresher far than that of the mint-julep. It is cheaper than the latter compound, too, and much more conducive to health. Continuing to indulge our fancy ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... mine amusement: wherever I find such clocks I shall wind them up with my mockery, and they shall even whirr thereby! ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... possible into his little lungs, and outraged the solemn silences with shouts and squeals of sheer ecstasy, which Uncle Andy had not the heart to suppress. Then, all at once, he remembered what the thrilling air, the gold and scarlet of the trees, the fairy ice films, the whirr of the partridge wings, and the sharp cries of the bluejays all meant. It meant that soon Uncle Andy would take him back to town, the cabin under the hemlock would be boarded up. Bill the Guide would go off to ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... The whirr and snort of a taxi broke the thread of her thoughts. With a grinding of brakes the cab came to a standstill at the entrance to the block of flats, and after a few minutes Emily, the unhurried maid-of-all-work, whom Nan's sense of fitness had re-christened ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... and roar of the streets below, seething with holiday traffic. The elevator opposite her door buzzed up and down unheeded. She did not even notice when it stopped on her floor, and some one walked across the corridor with a heavy tread. But the whirr of her door bell brought her to herself with a start, and she looked up impatiently, half inclined to pay no attention to the interruption. Then thinking it might be some business message which she could not afford to ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... to just proper pitch, it suddenly snapped, and the ladies recoiled in alarm. The Baroness, handling the brittle wires with her delicate little fingers, gave me the numbers as I wanted them, and carefully held the coil whilst I unrolled it. Suddenly one of them coiled itself up again with a whirr, making the Baroness utter an impatient "Oh!" Lady Adelheid enjoyed a hearty laugh, whilst I pursued the tangled coil to the corner of the room. After we had all united our efforts to extract a perfectly straight string from it, and had tried it again, to our mortification it again broke; ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... The lights of the city had long been extinguished by the darkness. The roaring of the sea had died away in the distance; his anxious soul had even lost the recollection of having heard it. No single sound—no mournful cry of nocturnal bird, nor whirr of wings, nor rustling of trees, nor murmur of a merry stream—broke the deep silence. Only the blind will-o'-the-wisps flickered here and there over rocks, and sheet-lightning, unaccompanied by any sound, flared up and died down against crag-peaks. This brief illumination merely emphasised the ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... back to my old point of view, when I was not so indifferent, and ask myself why I, a distinguished man, a privy councillor, am sitting in this little hotel room, on this bed with the unfamiliar grey quilt. Why am I looking at that cheap tin washing-stand and listening to the whirr of the wretched clock in the corridor? Is all this in keeping with my fame and my lofty position? And I answer these questions with a jeer. I am amused by the naivete with which I used in my youth to exaggerate the value of renown and of the exceptional ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... dissenting voices, and presently Bob heard the whirr of the sending set, followed by the voice ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... heard the bleating of goats and fat-tailed sheep, the coo and whirr of pigeons, the thump of wooden mortars in which the women, their nude bodies covered with intricate designs of scars, were grinding millet. At times these noises were pierced by the clatter of little hammers, ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... They gave off a muffled clink of hollowness when he tapped them. When he shook the armor, there was something extra in the sound, and that impelled him to hold a plate close to his ear. He heard a soft, rhythmic whirr of machinery. ...
— The Devil's Asteroid • Manly Wade Wellman
... 'long; be ticky-ticky. Buzz-zz-uzz," he went, with a wonderfully good imitation of the whirr of an insect's wings, while he made his hand describe the dartings ...
— King o' the Beach - A Tropic Tale • George Manville Fenn
... workers at a distance, hunting for grains of corn, and over in the woods, a chewink scratched and rustled among the deep leaves as it searched for grubs. From time to time a flock of quail arose before them with a whirr and scattered down the fields, reassembling later at the call of their leader, from a rider of the snake fence, which inclosed ...
— At the Foot of the Rainbow • Gene Stratton-Porter
... sailing as before, but with the swift-cutting flight of a falcon pouncing down upon its prey. It seemed descending not in a straight line, but in an acute parabolic curve, like a thunderbolt or some aerolite projected toward the surface of the sea. But the bird, with a whirr like the sound of running spindles, was going in a definite direction, the point evidently aimed at being the ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... her leaning on her staff, and moved farther along the trail, stopping again to gaze at the shadowed valley below while I mused on the centuries it had seen and the brief moment of a man's life. Standing thus, I was like to lose my own, for suddenly I heard a whirr like that of a shrapnel shell on its murderous errand, and at my feet ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... mother to him, for he is too little to know he may attract enemies as well as friends; and his cries have been heard by the eagle, who comes down like an avalanche, and, seizing him firmly in its great talons, carries him away higher and higher to the nest in the cliff. Then there is a whirr and swoop, and the mother or father eagle, whichever it is, alights on the rough platform in the cliff and lays the still warm and only half-dead woolly lamb before the young ones. There is not much chance for it then, but let us hope it has been stunned and made unconscious long ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... Lieuts. E.E. Wynne and N.C. Marriott, both of whom were sent to "B" Company, where they joined Capt. Griffiths at dinner. They were half way through their meal when, without the slightest warning, the ground heaved, pieces of the roof fell on the table, and they heard the ominous whirr of falling clods, which betokens a mine at ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... animals still are in harness; and so the stable, with blacksmith shop, harness shop, and wagon-repair shops, are serving their respective purposes, though on a reduced scale. A printing shop vibrates with the whirr of mammoth printing presses turning out thousands upon thousands of coffee-wrappers and circulars; and doubtless it will be news to many that the first three-color printing press ever built was expressly designed and built for Arbuckle Bros. Then there is a sunny first-aid hospital on top ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... more work they had in them, the more talk; it was a test, like a steam-gauge. Only the poor, pale, worn-out ones, like Emma Hollen, who coughed and breathed short, and could not spend strength even in listening, amidst the conflicting whirr of the feeds and wheels,—and the old, sobered-down, slow ones, like Miss Bree and Miss Proddle, button-holing and gather-sewing for dear life, with their spectacles over their noses, and great bald ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... Regiment de Salm, speaks trustful words; but here again is answered by the cry of forty-four thousand livres odd sous. A cry waxing more and more vociferous, as Salm's humour mounts; which cry, as it will produce no cash or promise of cash, ends in the wide simultaneous whirr of shouldered muskets, and a determined quick-time march on the part of Salm—towards its Colonel's house, in the next street, there to seize the colours and military chest. Thus does Salm, for its part; strong in the faith that meum is not tuum, that fair speeches are ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... He was a light sleeper, and half a noise of that kind would have roused him. It was clank and whirr and swish and rattle in one. At first it sounded from the far corner on the right; then it passed along the hedgerow, growing more and more menacing until it seemed to be within a yard of him. Then it shrank away to nothing on the left, ceased for a moment, and, in obedience to ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... clock in the next room, after a grumble and whirr, struck eleven, as if reproving the old couple for sitting up so late to read a novel. Before the ringing of the last stroke died away, footsteps were heard descending the stairs. Mrs. Morgan gave her husband a significant glance, saying in a ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... garage unseen. There, he had backed out the car, by hand; shoving it into the open, lest the motor-whirr give premature announcement of his presence. Then, as he boarded the machine and reached for the self-starter, all bedlam broke loose, from somewhere in the general direction of the house, ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... as, peeping at the hens, he hurried on his clothes. Hundreds were there pecking along like so many turkeys. It was the combined whirr of their wings that woke him so effectually; many an older person on the frontier has been deceived by the same sound, supposing it to be thunder, so heavy a noise do these wild fowl of the prairies make when numbers of ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson
... into an inarticulate whirr of its own machinery. The recital was over. Tudor must have died immediately after securing the record in the safe in his bedroom, where Hugo had just listened ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... was a loud whirr of wheels, a buzz of internal mechanism, and all the little figures would stop dead with arms outstretched, whilst the beheaded doll rolled off the board and was lost to view, no doubt preparatory to going through ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... breast of his jacket. Then he sat again on the table and looked fixedly at the door of the room he had just left. He listened also intently. He heard a dry sound of rustling; sharp cracks as of dry wood snapping; a whirr like of a bird's wings when it rises suddenly, and then he saw a thin stream of smoke come through the keyhole. The monkey struggled under his coat. Ali appeared with his eyes ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... missed another sitting. To restore my reputation with the Burmese boy, I had to claw down some high pigeons from untold heights on their way home to roost. After this, as I was loading, a partridge got up from some stubbly grass in a clearing, with an astonishingly familiar whirr, and went clear away, and I'd barely loaded when a Button quail whipped over some bushes, and it dropped, but in impenetrable thorns! I'd not heard of Burmese partridges, but the flight and whirr ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... The whirr of the machinery and the strong breeze made by the boat's motion, made it certain that no one could hear us, and so I began my attack: "Mr. van Tuiver, I am a friend of your wife's. I came here to help her in this crisis, and I came to-day to meet you because ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... followed relentlessly, and as the two smart little craft cleared from the area of the black smoke cloud, there came the ringing report of a 6-inch gun followed by the familiar whirr of a heavy shell. ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... said Colonel Decies, and, with a swift run and throbbing whirr, the aeroplane soared from the ground and rose to where, a thousand feet from the plain, lay the mangled "problem". As it came to a halt and hovered[29] (like a gigantic dragon-fly poised on its invisibly-rapid wings above a pool), the junior officer's ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... there are some who regret this, who associate national greatness with the whirr and buzz of many wheels, the smoke of factories and with large dividends; and others, again, who wish that our simple minds were illuminated by the culture and wisdom of our neighbours. But I raise the standard of ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... wide sweep to the left, then turned slowly right, then climbed swiftly. Jimmy raised his machine at the same time, but, thinking to save the left turn and unconsciously slowing in a little on the plane in front, was reminded that he would be wise to change course a bit. The ominous whirr of pieces of projectile told him that the German "Archie" had fired a shot with good direction. He knew that shell might be closely followed by another at a better elevation, so turned right, climbing, until he had regained his eight hundred feet ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... vastness. It was not, I suppose, a great Forest, but to-day it seemed as though we were winding further and further, through labyrinth after labyrinth of clouding obscurity, winding towards some destination from which we could never again escape. "Pum—pum—pum," whispered the cannon; "Whirr—whirr—whirr," the shadowy trembling background echoed. Then with a sudden lifting of the curtain Vulatch was revealed to us. Ruined towns and villages were, by this time, no new sight to me, but this place was different ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... profound it you will hurl. A murky vapour thickens night. Hark! Through the woods the tempests roar! The owlets flit in wild affright. Hark! Splinter'd are the columns that upbore The leafy palace, green for aye: The shivered branches whirr and sigh, Yawn the huge trunks with mighty groan. The roots upriven, creak and moan! In fearful and entangled fall, One crashing ruin whelms them all, While through the desolate abyss, Sweeping the, wreck-strewn precipice, The raging storm-blasts howl and hiss! ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... When all was ready, he climbed up to his seat, and at a signal from the station-keeper, who watched with paternal pride all the movements of the little prodigy, we dashed off at a pace rarely attained by post-horses. He had the faculty of emitting a peculiar sound—something between a whirr and a whistle—that appeared to have a magical effect on the team and every few minutes he employed this incentive. The road was rough, and at every jolt he was shot upwards into the air, but he always fell back into his proper ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... the wilderness was nothing but an automatic metamorphosis of the locusts and wild honey. They could tell us 'with an iron strength of logic' that all the thoughts and moral struggles of humanity were but as the clanging whirr of a machine, which if a little better adjusted might for the future go on spinning in silence. But they see that the discovery on man's part that his life was nothing more than this would mean a complete change in its mechanism, ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... What was that whirring, singing sound? Was that a new signal that Barney was trying? Was it—Whirr, s-st! Down like a shot dropped Tam's head, and like an arrow he leaped forward, swerving sideways to escape the danger he had scented,—the danger of a lariat flung by ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry
... passengers and crew, the Interplanetary liner Hyperion bored serenely onward through space at normal acceleration. In the railed-off sanctum in one corner of the control room a bell tinkled, a smothered whirr was heard, and Captain Bradley frowned as he studied the brief message upon the tape of the recorder—a message flashed to his desk from the operator's panel. He beckoned, and the second officer, whose watch it now ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... should I, in such a case! There's nothing feels so like disgrace, Or gives you such a scurvy look— A kick and pail of slush from Cook, Clefsticks, or Kettle, all in one, As standing to a missing gun! It's whirr! and bang! and off you bound, To catch your bird before the ground: But no—a pump and ginger pop As soon would get a bird to drop! So there you stand, quite struck a-heap, Till all your tail is gone to sleep; A sort of stiffness in your nape, Holding your head well ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... was it in the big circus tent after the band stopped playing, while Joe prepared to do his head slide, that the whirr of the steel wheels in his leather cap could plainly be heard as ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum
... stiffness generally. A splendid grand piano (he receives a new one every year,) stands in one window. The other window is always open and looks out on the park. There is a dovecote just opposite the window, and doves promenade up and down upon the roof of it, and fly about, and sometimes whirr down on the sill itself. That pleases Liszt. His writing-table is beautifully fitted up with things that match. Everything is in bronze—inkstand, paper-weight, match-box, etc.—and there is always a lighted candle standing on it by which he and the gentlemen can light their cigars. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... the cabin window and pushed aside one of the short, calico curtains. She looked out on the court. A tall woman had just pulled up a bucket of water from the well and had emptied it into a pitcher. She finished, let the bucket drop with a whirr and a clash, and raised her head. For a second she and Jasper Morena's wife looked at each other. Betty nodded, smiled, and drew ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... daylight, I saw Maloney deliberately creep closer to the fire and heap the wood on. We gathered in to the heat, and to each other, and listened to Dr. Silence's voice as it mingled with the swish and whirr of the wind about us, and the falling ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... her open them; and, most wonderful of all the wonderful things that had happened to her, the trees, the country, the distant city, all were gone! There was a charming log-fire on the hearth, sparkling and crackling; whirr, whirr, whirr, went the old woman's wheel, and there she sate in her chair just as usual; and the wind was blowing, and the rain was pelting against the shutters, exactly as it did the very night puss had left the cottage in ...
— Tales From Catland, for Little Kittens • Tabitha Grimalkin
... minute they repeated this phrase together, speaking so fast as to produce a sound like the whirr of a rapidly revolving machine. Meanwhile Coue quickly stroked the man's shoulder. At the end of that time the patient admitted that ...
— The Practice of Autosuggestion • C. Harry Brooks
... of her soul to the soul of music, and from that day forward she took pleasure in all sweet and gentle sounds whatsoever—in the voices of children at play—in the bleat of the goat—in the footsteps of them she loved—in the hiss and whirr of her mother's old spinning-wheel, which now she learned to work—and in Ali's harp, when he played it in the patio in the cool ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... rightful ambition, and I remembered Mr. Wilde as I had last left him, his face all torn and bloody from the claws of that devil's creature, and what he said—ah, what he said. The alarm bell in the safe began to whirr harshly, and I knew my time was up; but I would not heed it, and replacing the flashing circlet upon my head I turned defiantly to the mirror. I stood for a long time absorbed in the changing expression ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... protect her. The din of noises seemed far away, the cries somewhere at a distance ever increasing. The moans that had seemed to him those of the girl who clutched his arm grew fainter, until they were lost in the buzz and whirr of a hundred other sounds. Then the clasp which held him relaxed as suddenly as if a rope had been cut away. It came into his mind with a wave of horror that the girl who had held him was dead. The thought that Berenice ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... frivolous, as usual, and wanted to be running giddily about, hunting rabbits and the like; but I made her sit beside me, for it seemed a desecration every time the October silence of those woods was broken by aught save the dropping of a ripened nut, or the whirr ...
— How to Cook Husbands • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... distress, puts her head down low and skulks off through the grass and ferns while the chicks hasten to hide themselves. Your natural inclination is to follow the mother, and then she will take very short flights, alternated with runs in the grass, until she has led you far from her family. Then a whirr of strong wings and she is gone back to the cover where she clucks them together. But if you first turn your attention to the chicks the mother will turn on her trail, stretch out her long, broad, banded tail into a beautiful fan, ruffle ...
— Some Summer Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... night. Our battery had moved back at least two miles and gone into park in a field, where, at short intervals, a large gunboat shell would burst over us, scattering pieces around, while the main part would whirr on, it seemed, indefinitely. ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... Louie the absorbing interest was generally to see whether the prayer would be over before the eight-day clock struck nine, or whether the loud whirr which preceded that event would be suddenly and deafeningly let loose upon Uncle Reuben in the middle of his peroration, as sometimes happened when the speaker forgot himself. To-night that catastrophe was just avoided by a somewhat obvious hurry through the Lord's Prayer. When they ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... shoot respectively at the birds which go right or left or straight before us, and then advance to flush the covey ourselves. The staunch dog never winces as we pass her: two paces, three, a sudden rush and whirr as of many wings, five sharp reports in quick succession and four birds down! Another, wild with fright, rises straight up for twenty feet and darts off behind us, but his beautiful head droops as the crack of my last barrel resounds on the air and a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various |
