"Clank" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... as the whale sounded for a long dive, but a moment later there came a dull, muffled report from the water, the explosive head of the harpoon, known as the 'bomb,' having burst. For a minute or two there was no sound but the swish of the line and the clank of the big winch as it ran out, while the animal sank to the bottom. There was a moment's wait, and then Hank, seeing the line tauten and ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... apple-blossoms fleck The cloudless sky, a neighbouring beck With many a happy gurgle goes Down to the farm through alder-rows. Strange it is, and it is sweet, To hear the distant mill-wheel beat, And the kindly cries of men Turning the cattle home again, The clank of pails and all the shades Of laughter of the busy maids. Now is come the evening star, And my limbs new-blooded are. So beside the stream I choose A path that patient anglers use, Which with many twists and turns Brings me where a candle burns, A lowly ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... buildings, the ground was undermined and burrowed out into stables, where cart-horses, troubled by rats, might be heard on a quiet Sunday rattling their halters, as disturbed spirits in tales of haunted houses are said to clank their chains. ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... and something bright twinkle over her cheek. He took no notice, and when he looked up again, she had moved away and was sitting on the grass crying bitterly with her hands over her face. The sun was bright, a lark sang overhead; from adjacent inland fields came the jolt and clank of a plow with a man's voice calling to his horses at the turns. The artist put down his palette and ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... though he wondered if it might not be possible; her hand lay so listlessly by her skirt, on the sand.... They rode back in twilight of early June. Carl was cheerful as their wheels crunched the dirt roads in a long, crisp hum. The stilly rhythm of frogs drowned the clank of their pedals, and the sky was ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... monotony. This is a bad way. The average reader would not see the point. Paragraphs from a dozen American papers, all couched in the same utilitarian dialect,— simple but not always clear, concise yet seldom accurate, emphatic but as ugly as the clank of an automobile chain,—why, we read thousands of such lines daily! We think in such English; we talk in it; to revolt from this style, to which the Associated Press has given the largest circulation on record, would be like protesting against the ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... charlatan's conditio sine qua non. Is not this comparison of mine between the priesthood and the military caste interesting and logical? Here the riassa and the censer; there the gold-laced uniform and the clank of arms. Here bigotry, hypocritical humility, sighs and sugary, sanctimonious, unmeaning phrases; there the same odious grimaces, although its method and means are of another kind—swaggering manners, bold and scornful looks—'God help the man who dares to insult ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... having, meanwhile, instructed her castellan to raise the bridge again the moment the duke should set foot upon it. The castellan took her instructions too literally, for even as the duke did set one foot upon it there was a grind and clank of machinery, and the great structure swung up and clattered into place. The duke remained outside, saved by a too great eagerness on the part of those who worked the winches, for had they waited but a second longer they must ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... Afric, shout! Your shackled sons are free; No mother wails her child 'Neath the banana-tree: No slave-ship dashes on thy shore; The clank of chains ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams
... and quiet age of the settlement is near its close. Enterprise and speculation, with their bustle and turmoil, have laid hold of it. The clank of the hammer, the whistle of steamboats, the rattling of carts, heaps of lumber and of bricks, excavations and gratings, short corners and rough unshapen walks, will usurp the quiet and the regularity of the place. Indeed a man ought to make a fortune to compensate for residing ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews
... him with easy faith, he added that there was often heard at night, in the Court of the Lions, a low, confused sound, resembling the murmurings of a multitude; with now and then a faint tinkling, like the distant clank of chains. These noises are probably produced by the bubbling currents and tinkling falls of water, conducted under the pavement through the pipes and channels to supply the fountains; but according to the legend of the son of ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... sight of armed men marching steadily together; men well disciplined, keeping step to the measured clank of their armor. Like a great serpent the soldiers of Cologne issued from the forest, coming down two and two, for the path was narrow. They would march four abreast when they reached the river road, ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... here and there. Their silent sympathy, expressed with girlish shyness, was evident, though their snow-white dresses were in striking contrast to the colour of their carriage and of the horses, and the sombre black of the rest of the funeral party. As we saw the solemn procession and heard the clank of the horses' hoofs, we were suddenly reminded of that journey in July, 1913, when we met that poor wandering young family of fugitives from the Natives' Land Act. A sharp pang went through us, and caused our heart to bleed as we recalled the scene of their night funeral, ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... together with threshing and winnowing machines, improved ploughs, carts, cars, and all the other modern implements of an extensive farm. Very cheering, indeed, was the din of industry that arose from the clank of machinery, the grunting of hogs, the cackling of geese, the quacking of ducks, and all the various other sounds which proceeded from what at first sight might have appeared to be rather a scene of confusion, but which, on closer inspection, would be found a rough yet well—regulated system, ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... caressed by our vanity? You, young officer, who still measure your moustaches in the glass, and who have just assumed for the first time the epaulette and the gold belt, how did you feel when you went downstairs and heard the scabbard of your sabre go clink-clank on the steps, when with your cap on one side and your arm akimbo you found yourself in the street, and, an irresistible impulse urging you on, you gazed at your figure reflected in the chemist's bottles? Will ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... says: 'I wish you could have been along last night when I hit the trail for the Lower Ranch. You know what that old road looks like in the moonlight, all deep black in the gorges, and white on the cliffs, and not a dog-gone sound but the hoof-beats of your horse and the clank of the bridle-chains. Why, when you come out in the open and the wind gets to ripping 'cross the grass-fields, and the moon gets busy with every little old blade, and there's miles of beauty stretched out far as your eye can reach, ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice
... unconscious that eyes were gazing on her whose influence was to fix her destiny. A mail-clad warrior, terrible and powerful, whose will may not be resisted, whose gold glitters in her father's eyes, or whose chains clank in his ears, has seen and coveted her for his own, and her simple dream must be dispersed in air to make way for waking terrors. The unfortunate father trembles while he feebly resists, he listens to the duke's ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... background. He saw that the young man was in command and apparently knew what he was about, for one order followed another, succeeded by a quick movement of silent figures about the decks, a jingle of bells below, and soon the metallic clank of the steam-driven windlass. Shortly after this he felt the pulse beat of the engines below, and then saw the ship, as gently as a maid picking her way across a muddy street, move slowly ahead into ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... come from the face of the mountain, where no horse, I knew, could go at that speed, even if its rider courted certain destruction. There was a peculiarity, too, in the sound—a certain tinkle, or clank, which I fancied myself able, by auricular analysis, to distinguish from the body of the sound. Supposing the sound to be caused by the feet of a horse, the peculiarity was just such as would result from one of the shoes being loose. A terror—strange even to my experience—seized ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... part of the horizon where he rested a brief while without setting, the Eulalie,—her white sails spread to the cool, refreshing breeze,—swept gracefully and swiftly back to her old place on the Fjord, and her anchor dropped with musical clank and splash, just as Mr. Dyceworthy entered his house, fatigued, perspiring, and ill-tempered at the non-success of his day. All on board the yacht were at dinner—a dinner of the most tasteful and elegant description, such as Sir ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... silence I heard a sound which sent my heart into my mouth. It was the clank of the levers and the swish of the leaking cylinder. He had set the engine at work. The lamp still stood upon the floor where I had placed it when examining the trough. By its light I saw that the black ceiling was coming ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... lonesome bank The sheep beside me graze; And yon the gallows used to clank Fast by ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... But the clank of a long iron latch which fastened the outer door was enough to deflect her interest from the matter. She cast her cloak over the baby, and held it loosely on her knees, with its head to the fire. When the door shut ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... tumult, conflict and confusion, Clank and clamour of the vast machine Human hands have built for human bondage— Yet amid it all you float serene; Circling, soaring, sailing, swooping lightly Down to glean your harvest from the wave; In your heritage of air and water, You have ...
— Songs Out of Doors • Henry Van Dyke
... jackmen at his back, and oftener with fifty, bodin in all that effeirs to war as if they were to do battle for a kingdom, and mounted on nags that nicker at the clash of the sword as if it were the clank of the lid of a corn-chest—I say, when ye have computed all this, ye may guess what course ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... morsels sweet She erst with deglutition had drawn in. The rocks Your toils dissolve, to find perchance some treasure Lying there. Is yonder land of gold alone Your care? Observe along these shores The wheezing engine clank—the stamper ring. Once, hawks and eagles here pursued their prey, But now the white man ravens more than they. No! give me but my water and God's meats, And take your cares, your riches, and your thrones. What the Great Spirit gives, I take with joy, ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... iron tower, firm-planted to defy All force, divine or human. Night and day, Sleepless Tisiphone defends the way, Girt up with bloody garments. From within Loud groans are heard, and wailings of dismay, The whistling scourge, the fetter's clank and din, Shrieks, as of tortured fiends, and ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... of iron plate had been hurled about in wild confusion. The door of one furnace was blown clean out of its bolts; furnace bars and fire-bricks strewed the iron deck, while, each time the ship rolled, the heavy clank of loose metal somewhere in the engine-room proved that the damage was not confined ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... man. He had expected to send a bullet through the dog. But this was better—to watch him dying by inches, to taunt him as he would have taunted a human, to walk about him so that he could hear the clank of the traps and see the fresh blood drip as Baree twisted his tortured legs and body to keep facing him. It was a splendid vengeance. He was so engrossed in it that he did not hear the approach of snowshoes behind him. It was a voice—a man's ...
— Baree, Son of Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... He bore a long lance with a red square banner at the end, charged with a black boar's head, and the same symbol was engraved upon his shield. Slowly he rode through the forest, ponderous, menacing, with dull thudding of his charger's hoofs and constant clank of metal, while always in front of him came the distant peal of the silver trumpet calling all men to admit his majesty and to clear his path ere ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... warehouses, and barracks where the workmen lived. She had only once been in the main building since her father's death. The high ceilings with iron girders; the multitude of huge, rapidly turning wheels, connecting straps and levers; the shrill hissing; the clank of steel; the rattle of the trolleys; the harsh puffing of steam; the faces—pale, crimson, or black with coal-dust; the shirts soaked with sweat; the gleam of steel, of copper, and of fire; the smell of oil and coal; and the ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... after his accident. He was lying on his back, environed by slops and cursing his evil fate, and fretting his soul out of its fleshly prison, when suddenly he heard a cheerful trombone saying three words to Marthe, then came a clink-clank, and Marthe ushered into the sickroom the Commandant Raynal. The sick man raised himself in bed, with great ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... that he could look in. Now the giant had by his side his golden sword, which had the strange property that it clanked whenever the giant was angry. While the giant was busy thrashing at full speed, the boy threw a little stone which hit the sword, and caused it to clank. ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various
... the several bridges seized megaphones and shouted orders through them; boatswain's whistles shrilled and boatswain's lungs bellowed, "Clear lower deck! Hands up anchor, ahoy!" the massive cables began to quiver and clank as they were hove in; the flagship became a very rainbow of rapidly changing signal flags; answering pennants appeared like magic and vanished again; hundreds of sampans and craft of every description—anything and everything that would float, apparently—loaded with men and women, ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... anything but threaten, and mortals never would have trembled with fear at their frown if they had known how feeble they were. At best a revenant could only rattle a rusty skeleton, or shake a moldy shroud, or clank a chain—but as mortals cowered before his demonstrations, he didn't worry. If he wished to evoke the extreme of anguish from his host, he raised a menacing arm and uttered a windy word or two. Now it takes more than that ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... spirits; of the death-bed call Of him who robb'd the widow, and devour'd 260 The orphan's portion; of unquiet souls Risen from the grave to ease the heavy guilt Of deeds in life conceal'd; of shapes that walk At dead of night, and clank their chains, and wave The torch of hell around the murderer's bed. At every solemn pause the crowd recoil, Gazing each other speechless, and congeal'd With shivering sighs: till eager for the event, Around the beldame all erect they hang, Each trembling heart with grateful ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... shaft-house and dump heap, casting weird shadows along the rough planking, and occasionally calling to each other, their gruff voices clear in the still night. Every now and then those two silent watchers could hear the dismal clank of the windlass chain, and a rattle of ore on the dump, when the huge buckets were hoisted to the surface and emptied of their spoil. Once—it must have been after three o'clock—other men seemed ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... as the wind died the logs had begun to drift slowly out into the open water. The surface of the pond was covered with the scattered timbers floating idly. After a few moments the clank of the bars and ratchet was heard as two of the men raised the heavy sluice-gate on the dam. A roar of water, momently increasing, marked the slow rise of the barrier. A very imaginative man might then have made out a tendency forward on the part of those timbers ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... weary, and all the children of the world Joined her and followed her shining path. But ever as she ran, above her lifted head Darkened the monster cloud of slavery. Hark! In the walls, amid voices of prayer and of triumph, I hear the clank of manacles and the ominous mutterings of bondsmen! At Gettysburg, our Golgotha, the sons of the fathers Poured their blood to wash out a nation's shame. Cleansed by tribulation and atonement, The broken nation rose from her knees, And with hope reborn in her heart ...
— The Song of the Stone Wall • Helen Keller
... moment, eager to gain a brief respite from his darkening face. When she looked around, he was gone. She heard his footsteps passing down the corridor, the bell ringing for the lift, the clank of the gates as he stepped in. Once more she gazed out over the uninspiring prospect. There was a little more sunshine upon the river; more of the dusty chimney-pots seemed bathed in its silvery radiance. As she stood there, she felt herself growing ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... we lay in our narrow berths, too sick to read, too unhappy to talk, watching the cabin lamp as it swung uneasily in its well-oiled gimbals, and listening to the gurgle and swash of the water around the after dead-lights, and the regular clank, clank of the blocks of the try-sail sheet as the rolling of the vessel swung the heavy boom ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... after that. All hands got me over the side, and it seems to me I went to sleep, sitting in the stern-sheets and watching that Adamu steer. Then I saw the Flibberty's mainsail hoisting, and heard the clank of her chain coming in, and I woke up. 'Here, put me on the Flibberty,' I said to Adamu. 'I put you on the beach,' said he. 'Missie Lackalanna say beach plenty good for you.' Well, I let out a yell and reached for the steering-sweep. I was doing my best by ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... his servant; those who cannot answer are reproved, and St. Nicholas points to a terrible form that stands behind him with a rod—the hideous Klaubauf, a shaggy monster with horns, black face, fiery eyes, long red tongue, and chains that clank ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... the back, and harnessed tandem with two mules each, waiting under the guard of armed and mounted serenos. Don Pepe padlocked each door in succession, and at the signal of his whistle the string of carts would move off, closely surrounded by the clank of spur and carbine, with jolts and cracking of whips, with a sudden deep rumble over the boundary bridge ("into the land of thieves and sanguinary macaques," Don Pepe defined that crossing); hats bobbing in the first light of the dawn, on the heads ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... a ride last night, quite a lot of 'em. Others that the law would be glad to know of, with men so scarce for the King's navy. Well, to-day the beaks are out trying to find them other ones. There's a power of redcoats come here, besides the preventives, and there they go, clackity clank, all swords and horses, ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... dark and lonely it was," added Polly, "but you'd have to HEAR that armor clank to know ...
— Princess Polly's Playmates • Amy Brooks
... the shape of his ear. It was the sound of horses' feet knocking up through splashy ground, as if the bottom sucked them. Then a grunting of weary men, and the lifting noise of stirrups, and sometimes the clank of iron mixed with the wheezy croning of leather and the ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... upon which the fateful Chinaman had set his seal, as the suburb was awakening to a new day. The clank of milk-cans was my final impression of the avenue to which a dreadful minister of death had come at the bidding of the death lord. We left Inspector Weymouth in charge and returned to my rooms, scarcely exchanging a ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... giving attention to some trouble among his stock. Then, there is silence over the valley, except for the chorus of katydids and the whistle of the gray owl to his mate in the woods. Now and then there comes the soft, faint clank of a cow-bell, different from its sound as the cows run the road or feed in the pasture. It is a slow and sleepy tang that ...
— Sergeant York And His People • Sam Cowan
... to recall those bitter quarrels so long ago. Pistoja, beyond any other Tuscan town perhaps, is full of grace, and gives one always, as it were, a smiling salutation. La Ferrignosa she was called of old, but it is the last title that fits her now, for the clank of her irons has long been silent, and nothing any longer disturbs the quiet of her days. S. Atto is her saint, and it is by his street that you enter the city, walled still, coming at last into the Piazza Cino, Cino da Pistoja, ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... him her hand, and strove to rise; but at the first attempt, the shackles piercing her ankles, she sunk again on the ground. The cold iron on her wrists touched the hand of her preserver. He now recollected his surprise on hearing the clank of chains, when carrying her over the bridge. "Who" inquired he, "could ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... home. "Store clothes" were out of the question in those days. Wool must be carded and spun into thread for. Aunt Ann's old wooden loom. The cloth was then fashioned into garments for clothing to last a year after we should reach our goal far out on the Pacific shores. The clank of the old wooden loom was almost ceaseless. Merrily the shuttle sang to an accompaniment of a camp meeting melody. Neighbors also kindly volunteered their services in weaving and fashioning garments for the family. All was ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson
... clatter came with the clank of bayonets and guttural cries; but both died out in the infernal roar of the grenades exploding inside that stony spiral. And no more bayonets flickered ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... he heard a clank at the NX-1's bow! The submarine jerked, her bow tilted up—and with increasing speed she moved forward, silently as ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... rush of foggy air set the flames of the altar candles blowing wildly. There came the clank of ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... was the clank of pumps on board the Apple-treers, and the pumps were tackling the everlasting leaks. Water reddened by contact with bricks, water made turbid by percolation through paving-blocks, ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... furnaces were roaring and leaping in the darkness. Against their lurid background dark figures were bending and straining, twisting and turning, with the motion of winch or of windlass, to the rhythm of an eternal clank and roar. ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... and laid aside her knitting. An old-fashioned Controller stood at her elbow, which she reversed from time to time, and we could hear the snort and clank of the obedient cultivator half a mile ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... and Philo Gubb stepped into the room. Instantly the door slammed behind him, the key turned in the lock, and he heard a heavy iron bar clank as it fell into place outside. He was a prisoner, caught like a rat in a trap, and he knew it! He threw himself against the door, but it did not give. The electric light above his head went dark. He put out his hand, and the wall gave slightly. He drew the revolver ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... got on the street where the Babylon Hotel was he whipped up his horses so that they went almost on a run, and the horner blew his horn until his eyes seemed bursting, and with a grand sweep and a clank and a jingle we pulled up at the front of the big hotel. Out marched the head porter in a blue uniform, and out ran two under-porters with red coats, and down jumped the horner and put up his ladder, and Jone and I got down, after giving the coachman half-a-crown, ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton
... the winding road at the foot of the hill he could hear the trampling of men, the groaning of wheels, the clank of iron cavalrymen, the jingling of bits and swords, sharp words of command. The army was advancing. He could delay no longer. He must get back to his place in the ranks. Summoning his courage he crossed the threshold and stepped into ...
— And Thus He Came • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... said the same whisper in her ear as before. Suddenly a vivid light flashed out from an aperture or window, and she heard a groaning or rumbling and the clank of chains; but this was passed, and a pale dull light showed a low vaulted chamber, into which Alice was conveyed. An iron lamp hung from the ceiling in what seemed to have been one of the cellars of the old house, though she was unaware beforetime ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... interesting for some of the commons or lanes that spot and intersect the green, woody, undulating environs to view this city of Tubal Cain. Torrents of thick smoke, with ever and anon a burst of dingy flame, are issuing from a thousand funnels. 'A thousand hammers fall by turns.' You hear the clank of innumerable steam engines, the rumbling of cars and vans, and the hum of men interrupted by the sharper rattle of some canal boat loading or disloading, or, perhaps, some fierce explosion when the cannon founders [qy: the proof-house] are proving their new-made ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... portion, and no contumely ever was his in a time when men scorned the evidence of things not seen, no failure, no apparent weakness in her husband's nature, ever put a tremor in her faith in him. For she knew his heart. She could hear his armor clank and see it shine; she could feel the force and the precision of his lance when all the world of Harvey saw only a dreamer in rusty clothes, fumbling with some stupid and ponderous folly that the world did not understand. The printing office that Mary and Amos ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... rings over head. Some of these confines of misery-for here men's souls were goaded by the avarice of our natures-were solitary; and at night, when the turmoil of the day had ceased, human wailings and the clank of chains might be heard breaking through the walls of this charnel-house. These narrow confines were filled with living beings-beings with souls, souls sold according to the privileges of a free and happy country,—a country that fills us with admiration of its greatness. ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... his whole troop to stop and keep as quiet as possible. Then he, Dick, Warner, Sergeant Whitley and Carpenter rode slowly forward. Before they had gone many yards Dick heard the heavy clank of metal, the cracking of whips, the swearing of men, and the sound of horses' feet splashing in the mud. He knew by the amount and variety of the noises that a ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... noise, For th' active ther's praises, for th' idle ther's blame, If they'd hearken to th' saand of its voice; An' when flaggin a bit, ha refreshin to feel As yo pause an luk raand on the throng, At the clank o' the tappet, the hum o' the wheel, Sing this plain unmistakable song:— Nick a ting, nock a ting; Wages keep pocketing; Workin for little is better nor laiking; Twist an' twine, reel an' wind; Keep a contented mind; Troubles are oft ...
— Yorkshire Ditties, First Series - To Which Is Added The Cream Of Wit And Humour From His Popular Writings • John Hartley
... the scheme to my—to a Government. But they are scared of touching it. Scared, by Jove!" He threw up his arms to the ceiling and his voice trembled with passion. "Germany scared! And there was a time when Europe cringed at the clank of the Prussian sword! When the lightest word of Potsdam set ministries trembling in Petrograd and London. You told me the other day you were a pacifist during the war and that you sympathized with Prussia in her humiliation. I am a Prussian, why should I deny ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... making for the communications of the boaster Pope, the regiments stepped out with renewed energy. "There was no need for speech, no breath to spare if there had been—only the shuffling tramp of marching feet, the rumbling of wheels, the creak and clank of harness and accoutrements, with an occasional order, uttered under the breath, and always the same: "Close up, men! Close up!""* (* "Battles and Leaders volume 2 ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... from the falling in of the officers with their respective companies, the clank of irons was heard in the direction of the guard-room, and several forms were seen slowly advancing into the area already occupied as we have described. This party was preceded by the Adjutant Lawson, who, advancing towards Major Blackwater, ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... power do roll, And put the hosts of Wrong to rout. Let others tune their lyres, and sing Illusive dreams of fancied joy; But, my own harp,—its every string Shall find in Truth enough employ. It shall not breathe of Freedom here, While millions clank the galling chain; Or e'en one slave doth bow in fear, Within our country's broad domain. Go where the slave-gang trembling stands, Herded with every stable stock,— Woman with fetters on her hands, And infants on the auction-block! See, as she bends, how flow her tears! Hark! hear ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... great gates closed behind her with a heavy clank. It seemed to shut out even the memory of this happy day, which for a brief space had ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... make inquiries; he stood long on the road, and shouted vainly, but could stop no one, nor even recognise any one in the fog. The riders flashed by like spirits; there could only be heard from time to time the dull sound of hoofs, and, what was stranger yet, the clank of sabres; this greatly rejoiced the Steward and yet it terrified him: for, though at that time there was peace in Lithuania, dull rumours of war had long been current, of the French, Dombrowski, and ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... required of him. Even the comfort of his companions' presence was now denied him, and in his wretched cell he lay patiently through the stifling days, counting the hours until the tramp of feet and clank of chains told of the return of his friends from their ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... The clank of wheels sounded on the road, and he put the pistol quickly down. Dreaminess vanished from his face. He looked around alertly, but no one had seen him. The clanking was still among the trees a little distance up Box Elder. It approached deliberately, while he watched ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... his thunderbox, yelled, shouted, raved, roared, stamped, and danced corrobory like any black fellow; and then he touched a spring in the thunderbox, and out popped turnip-ghosts and magic-lanthorns and pasteboard bogies and spring-heeled Jacks, and sallaballas, with such a horrid din, clatter, clank, roll, rattle, and roar, that the little boy turned up the whites of his eyes, ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... I acknowledged the benevolent intention, with an inward quailing at the clank of fetters suggested. "Was there something ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... away, a magic vista with a thousand mystic shapes springing out of the charmed darkness, made and unmade as overwrought fancy summoned them. As from an unreal world Glaucon—whilst he lay—saw the lights of the scattered ships, heard the clank of chains, the rattling of tacklings. Nature slept. Only ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... at the same moment the musical "Cling-clank" of a sweetmeat-seller's bell turned the game into a race. The way was clear, also, for a tiny, aged collector of paper, flying the gay flag of an "Exalted Literary Society," and plodding, between two ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... more delicious sense of repose than when crossing the ocean during the summer months I sought a place where I could lie alone on the deck, look up at the constellations, with Lyra near the zenith, and, while listening to the clank of the engine, try to calculate the hundreds of millions of years which would be required by our ship to reach the star a Lyrae, if she could continue her course in that direction without ever stopping. ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... I had occasion, a few weeks since, to take the early train from Providence to Boston; and for this purpose rose at two o'clock in the morning. Everything around was wrapt in darkness and hushed in silence, broken only by what seemed at that hour the unearthly clank and rush of the train. It was a mild, serene, midsummer's night,—the sky was without a cloud,—the winds were whist. The moon, then in the last quarter, had just risen, and the stars shone with a spectral lustre, but little affected by her presence. Jupiter, ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... dusky humanity enchanted her; she delighted in the glaring colouring, the clank of the holy man's chains, the incessant call of the water carrier and sweetmeat vendor, and the clang of iron on iron which announces ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... or ill as the sergeant in charge takes an interest in it or not. Here the sergeant and a dozen young soldiers are constant at prayers. The responses are given by all that can read, our blessed societies having furnished Bibles and Prayer-books for all. Every change of position is attended with the clank of chains, which at first harrows your soul: but time does wonders, you know; you forget the irons after a while. A full service and a sermon. You hear an application or two from prisoners about their worldly matters,—chiefly from the craftiest, oldest ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... instant there came a sudden commotion from the interior of the room in the window of which Barney still stood waiting for Joseph to remove the rope from about the princess and lower it for him. Barney heard the heavy feet of men, the clank of arms, and muttered oaths as the searchers stumbled against ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... inhospitable, the same distress that the ancient navigators suffered before the hell of slaves mentioned by Plautus, islands of creaking chains, ferricrepiditae insulae, when they passed near enough to hear the clank of ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... halt; and the endless strip of white road again unrolled before him, while the never-ceasing clank of the iron-shod bar coupling the ponies maddened his aching head with its ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... for Philip, and a restless one. At any other time the swing of the cars would have lulled him to sleep, and the rattle and clank of wheels and rails, the roar of the whirling iron would have only been cheerful reminders of swift and safe travel. Now they were voices of warning and taunting; and instead of going rapidly the train seemed to crawl at a snail's pace. And it not only crawled, but it frequently stopped; and ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 7. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... rank the summons ran, Bayonets rattle and clank of sabres began. With whetted steel the sturdy axe-men, Capless riflemen, horseless cavalry men. Formed on that plain in battle array, Butler leads to New ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... in a plea here for demons and fairies, as Voltaire does in the above exquisite lines; nor about to expatiate on the beauties of error, for it has none; but the clank of steam-engines, and the shouts of politicians, and the struggle for gain or bread, and the loud denunciations of stupid bigots, have wellnigh smothered poor Fancy among us. We boast of our science, and vaunt our superior morality. Does the latter exist? In spite of all the forms which our ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... earth was shovelled in, and soon two mounds showed on the sward. Then came the clank of arms, and the mourners were again surrounded by their ...
— A Memory Of The Southern Seas - 1904 • Louis Becke
... reflection along the bright row of utensils hanging from the wall, and even sought out the brass plate on the cream separator at the far end of the big room. Through the screen door came the monotonously redundant clic...a...clank of the windmill, and a keen ear might have caught the light splash of water as it fell in the wooden horse-troughs from the iron nozzle ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... creak of the rings on the mast as the sail was being raised. The boat got under way quickly and with very little disturbance, swung to the breeze, the boom lurching to the leeward side of the boat with a "clank." Then the sailboat began moving slowly from the bay. There were no lights to be seen either within or without. The boat was in darkness. Harriet gazed with straining eyes until the boat had finally merged with the sea and was lost to ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... was not a sound in the house; it might have been midnight for the stillness if the drawling cry of the Sunday paper had not suddenly echoed round the corner of Edna Road, and with it came the warning clank and shriek of the milkman ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... the lines of invasion had tightened about the old city of Louisburg, and Louisburg grew weaker in the coil. When the clank of the Southern cavalry advancing to the front rang in the streets, many were the men swept away with the troops asked to go forward to silence the eternally throbbing guns. Only the very old and the very young were left to care for the ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... newly trodden road into Chastel, and then he darted back again to cover. He saw the gleam of many gray uniforms and he heard a clank which he knew could be made only by the wheels of cannon. The new forces of the enemy were coming and evidently they were now in great strength in Chastel and beyond it. John's heart leaped in alarm. It was a powerful flank movement, a daring and successful attempt under cover ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler
... ascended, and replacing the trap-door, restored the tomb to its former condition. Then we resumed to the palace, but hardly had we sat down when we heard a noise of drums and trumpets and cymbals and galloping of cavalry and clamour of men and clash of arms and clank of bridles and neighing of horses, and the world was filled with clouds of dust raised by the horses' hoofs. At this we were amazed and knew not what could be the matter so we enquired and were told that the Vizier, who had ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... in the wilderness. A party of royal surveyors were at this period surveying the unsettled regions bordering the Connecticut river to its source. At fifteen shillings per month, he engaged himself to this party as assistant chain-bearer, little thinking that the day was to come when he should clank the king's chains in a dungeon, even as now he trailed them a free ranger of the woods. It was midwinter; the land was surveyed upon snow-shoes. At the close of the day, fires were kindled with dry hemlock, a hut thrown up, and the party ate ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... tens of thousands—in squadrons, companies, and armies—with the sunlight shining through their hollow ribs. On they rushed across the plain to Kor, their imperial home; I saw the drawbridges fall before them, and heard their bones clank through the brazen gates. On they went, up the splendid streets, on past fountains, palaces, and temples such as the eye of man never saw. But there was no man to greet them in the market-place, and no woman's face appeared at the windows—only ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... dwindle The clank of chain and crane, The whirr of crank and spindle Bewilder heart and brain; The ends of our endeavor Are wealth and fame, Yet in the still Forever We're one and ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... in upon by a heavy knocking that came from the common room, from which my room was separated by a deal partition. This sound was accompanied by an intermittent metallic jingle, like the clank of chains, and a coarse male voice boomed out suddenly: 'The blessing of God on all within this house. The blessing of God! the blessing of God! Amen, amen! Scatter His enemies!' repeated the voice, with a sort of incongruous and savage drawl on the last syllable of each word.... A noisy ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... word was said either within or without. The lynchers seemed to have drilled for their part; there was no whispering, no deferring to a leader. On they came, so close that Jim and Alida could hear the creaking of their saddles. There was the clank of spurs and the straining of leather as they dismounted, then some one knocked at the door till ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... fortnight of his mother's convalescence Tom slept badly, and his days were as the days of the accused whose sentence has been suspended; jail days, these, with chains to clank when he thought of the promise made in the gray Christmas dawn; with whips to flog him when the respite grew shorter and the time drew near when his continued stay at home must be explained ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... was as pure of mind, But formed to combat with his kind; Strong in his frame, and of a mood Which 'gainst the world in war had stood, And perished in the foremost rank With joy:—but not in chains to pine: His spirit withered with their clank, I saw it silently decline— And so perchance in sooth did mine: 100 But yet I forced it on to cheer Those relics of a home so dear. He was a hunter of the hills, Had followed there the deer and wolf; To him this dungeon was a gulf, And ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... I'm no fool,' said the ploughman sulkily, starting his horses to go up the furrow. In vain the other called out an attempted apology, and tried to delay him; the accustomed shout and clank of the chains was all he got in answer. The birds that had settled upon the field rose again at the return of the horses, and curveted in a long fluttering line above their heads. The man on the road turned reluctantly away, and, too perplexed almost ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... point about 12:45, on the night of which we write, when two trains from opposite directions were signalled to wait, which they did precisely opposite John Marrot's windows, and there kept up such a riot of sound as feeble language is impotent to convey. To the accustomed ears the whistle and clank of a checked and angry pilot-engine might have been discerned amid the hullabaloo; but to one whose experience in such matters was small, it might have seemed as though six or seven mad engines were sitting up on end, like monster rabbits on a bank, pawing the air and screaming out their ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... from above his copy of Lucretius. He sat in the window-seat of the great stone kitchen. Upon one long iron spit before the fire fourteen trussed capons turned in unison; the wooden shoes of the basting-maid clattered industriously; and from the chimney came the clank of the invisible smoke-vanes and the be-sooted chains. The magister, who loved above all things warmth, a full stomach, a comfortable woman and a good book, had all these things; he was well minded to stay in Paris town for fourteen days, ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... to the door and lifted the curtain, so that through the wooden panels the girl could hear the talking of many voices, and the clank of steel. ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... Mode recurs With clank of sabre and clink of spurs; Once more the long grey cloaks adorn The bellicose backs of the high-well-born; Once more to the click of martial boots Junkers exchange their grave salutes, Taking ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 24, 1920. • Various
... are ever ready to transfer to any who offend them. No man is ignorant of his possessing the lower qualities; and no one, not even he who suffers from their action, can so intensely hate and despise them as their possessor. They are the chains on the galley-slaves, which clank at every step, but which they cannot shake off, allowing them only that amount of liberty of action ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... along at the trot to the cadence of the trumpets and to the clink-clank and glitter of steel. The beautiful, high-stepping barbs; the trembling of the earth beneath their hoofs; the banner streaming; the swordsmen of France sweeping past the saluting base; breaking into the gallop; sounding the charge; charging; ventre a terre; ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... perhaps, I ought not to understand in what sense it was meant," replied Miss Vernon; "but you will see a better apology for a little negligence, when you meet the Orsons you are to live amongst, whose forms no toilette could improve. But, as I said before, the old dinner-bell will clang, or rather clank, in a few minutes—it cracked of its own accord on the day of the landing of King Willie, and my uncle, respecting its prophetic talent, would never permit it to be mended. So do you hold my palfrey, like a duteous knight, until I send some more humble ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... way along the trench until they reached the entrance. No sound came from the interior. They listened for the murmur of conversation, the scraping of feet, the clank of a weapon. They looked down its length for a ray of light. Not a gleam or a ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall
... collection of old songs and tunes, Neder-Landtsche Gedenck-clank door Adrianum Valerium, printed at Haerlem in 1626, is preserved a tune called "Sweet Margaret," which, upon examination, proves to be the same as the Cushion Dance. This favourite dance was well known in Holland in the early part of the seventeenth century, and an interesting engraving ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 68, February 15, 1851 • Various
... to that fire-rotted, smoke-stained, dirty mantle of a Black Country. In the extreme stillness of the summer fields, and more especially, as I seem to remember, in a certain memorable hush which came when afternoon was shading into evening, you could hear the clank of pig-iron which was being loaded into the boats on the canal at Bromford, quite two miles away, and the thump of a ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... Canterville alluded to in any way. At eleven o'clock the family retired, and by half-past all the lights were out. Some time after, Mr. Otis was awakened by a curious noise in the corridor, outside his room. It sounded like the clank of metal, and seemed to be coming nearer every moment. He got up at once, struck a match, and looked at the time. It was exactly one o'clock. He was quite calm, and felt his pulse, which was not at all feverish. ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... almost made it seem like my own execution. My whole body turned cold in company with the prisoner's, and as if with a clank the situation tightened ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... can imagine yourself going to sleep in the state-room of this great steamer, and away we go. The anchor comes up clank, clank, as the great chain cable is wound up by the donkey engine, and now we move off silently and smoothly. In about five hours we have made the fifty miles, and down goes the anchor again in Tripoli harbor. At sunrise the Tripoli ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... safe to approach them, if disturbed in their pasture or alarmed from their repose in the shallow lakes. On such occasions they hurry into line, draw up in defensive array, with a few of the oldest bulls in advance; and, wheeling in circles, their horns clashing with a loud sound as they clank them together in their rapid evolutions, the herd betakes itself to flight. Then forming again at a safer distance, they halt as before, elevating their nostrils, and throwing back their heads to ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... like ants over a crust of bread; up and round the final, great sweeping bend of the river, the Alethea made her sober way, ever with greater slowness; until at length, in the rose glow of a flawless evening, her windlass began to clank like a mad thing and her anchor bit the riverbed, near the left bank, between old Forts Isabelle and Tete de Flandre, frowned upon from the right by the grim pile ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... again, and the brains of his army were also intact. The war had brought to light no military genius among the Russians; and all his past experience of the "old coalition machines" warranted the belief that their rusty cogwheels, even if oiled by English subsidies, would clank slowly along and break down at the first exceptional strain. Such had been the case at Marengo, at Austerlitz, at Friedland. Why ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... marvellous change had come upon it! It began in the quiet little valley of Kunwald: it ended in the noisy streets of Prague. It began in peace and brotherly love: it ended amid the tramp of horses, the clank of armour, the swish of swords, the growl of artillery, the whistle of bullets, the blare of trumpets, the roll of drums, and the moans of the wounded and the dying. It began in the teaching of the ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... toiled at fishing; the woods echoed with the ring of their axes and the thin twanging of their saws; there would be the clank of machinery and the hiss of steam. But it was all hidden and muffled in those vast distances. He swung on his heel. Far below, the houses of the settlement in the lower Toba sent up blue wisps of smoke. To his right ran with many a twist ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... suspense. Mr. Henderson threw over the steering wheel. The Annihilator moved more slowly. Then came a gentle shock. The dishes in the galley rattled, and there was the clank of machinery. ...
— Lost on the Moon - or In Quest Of The Field of Diamonds • Roy Rockwood
... that morning to whisper amongst the rich foliage, and the shadows of the branches lay so distinct and motionless upon the ground that they might themselves have been branches strewn there on some past day by a storm. The only sounds that were audible were the sharp clank of weapons, the soft ceaseless padding of the camels' feet, and at times the whirr of a flight of pigeons disturbed by the approaching cavalcade. Yet there was life on the plateau, though of a noiseless kind. For as the leaders rode along the curves of sand, trim and smooth ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... foremost pursuers swept by. The great noises they made and the resounding echoes effectually prevented their notice of a cessation of sounds from us. Nor did they pause to listen. Crushing through the narrow passage their pressure slammed the door behind us. I heard the clank of a heavy bolt as it dropped into place. Thinking Broussard had sought some secret means of escape known to himself, and fearing he would get away, I dashed madly on, only to fetch up with a terrific thump ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson |
