"Clatter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... little incident had marked the commencement of the meal. A small still-life picture that hung over the sideboard had snapped its cord and slid down with an alarming clatter on to the crowded board beneath it. The picture itself was scarcely damaged, but its fall had been accompanied by a tinkle of broken glass, and it was found that a liqueur glass, one out of a set of seven that would be impossible ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... past a lighted house that gleamed and vanished. With a clink and clatter, a flirt of dust and pebbles, and the side lamps throwing out a frisky orange blink, the carriage dashed down, sinking and rising like a boat crossing billows. The world seemed to rock and sway; to dance up, and be flung flat again. Only ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... disputed like a devil on these two points, on which the bishop was inexorable. To the philosophers he readily yielded all that was proved against religion as the work of men and time; but he would not hear of materialism. One fine night, on deck, amid a clatter of materialism, Bonaparte pointed to the stars, and said, "You may talk as long as you please, gentlemen, but who made all that?" He delighted in the conversation of men of science, particularly of Monge and Berthollet; but the men of letters he slighted; "they were manufacturers of phrases." ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... her weird head and ghastly grin, the lights burn low, the music of the accompanying orchestra moans forth a sinister strain given by the flutes, mingled with a rattling tremolo which sounds like the clatter of bones. This creature evidently plays an ugly part in the piece,—that of a horrible old ghoul, spiteful and famished. Still more appalling than her person is her shadow, which, projected upon a white screen, is abnormally and vividly distinct; by means of some unknown ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... was so graceful and so gracious. She took time enough for all her motions, noticing all properly, from "my dear uncle"—words I distinctly heard as she passed the Duke of Cambridge—to the last expectant fair one at the doorway. The Queen vanished: buzz, noise, the clatter rose, and all were in commotion, and the tide of scarlet and ermine flowed and ebbed; and after an immense time the throngs of people bonneted and shawled, came forth from all the side niches and windows, and down from the upper galleries, and then places unknown gave up ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... ground was more open. Frequently, although the tracks show that old tahr must be near, and in spite of the utmost care and caution, the first intimation one has of the presence of the game is a rush through the bushes, a clatter of falling stones, and perhaps a glimpse of the shaggy hind-quarters of the last of the herd as he vanishes over some precipice where it is perfectly ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... pounded out of the room and there was a clatter of dishes that ably expressed her frame of mind. Above the clatter and down from the children's bedroom floated ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... in frightening both birds and animals is a bamboo pole cut into strips at the top, so that, as it is shaken, these strike together, producing a great clatter. Many of these poles are planted, and then all are connected by means of rattan lines which finally lead to the little watch house. Here a man or boy sits and occasionally gives the lines a sudden jerk, which sets up a clapping over the whole field ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... depth multiplied the sounds so powerfully, the echoes were so fantastic, that folk believed them the roarings of fiendish spirits. If a mounted guard hurried through, the reverberation of the drum-beats and the clatter of hoofs were so uncouth that children stopped their ears and fled in terror. To the ignorant populace the Vier Prison was the home of noisome serpents and the rendezvous of the devil and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... sounds and the whole camp is astir. Outside there is the clatter of feet as the men fall in after a hasty breakfast. The shrapnel-proof steel helmets are donned, the heavy seventy-pound kits and rifles are swung to the broad backs, the band strikes up "Pack Up Your Troubles," ...
— With Our Soldiers in France • Sherwood Eddy
... pulque, aims to dispose of it two glasses at a clatter. It gives their conceit a chance to spread itse'f an' show. The pulque is in a tub down back of the bar. This yere vain Mexican seizes two glasses between his first an' second fingers, an' with a finger in each glass. Then he dips 'em full back-handed; ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... wilted in anticipation. But before he spoke again the door opened and they rose thankfully with a shuffle of feet and surreptitious clatter of desks. The clergyman waved to them. If the little dark man was like a blackbird, captive and resentful, the newcomer was like a meagre and somewhat fluttered hen. His hands and wrists were long ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... beating one of those woven wire mattress pianos with a couple of sticks, was whooping it up for all they were worth; the loud shrill voices of the women and the hoarse voices of the men, the shouts of the waiters and the clatter of dishes made ...
— Continuous Vaudeville • Will M. Cressy
... and nearer, for a fortnight, were now beyond the outer line of forts and within striking distance of the town. That night, an hour or two after midnight, in my hotel by the water-front, I awoke to the steady clatter of hoofs on cobblestones and the rumble of wheels. I went to the window, on the narrow side street, black as all streets had been in Antwerp since the night that the Zeppelin threw its first bombs, and looked out. It was a moonlight night, clear and cold, and there along the ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... bare, sun-baked rock, has lost much of its poetry and romance. The stream flows clear as in the poet's time, but the solitude he loved so well is invaded. Of his garden not a trace remains. The perpetually whirring wheels of a water-mill, the clatter of washerwomen beating clothes on the bank, now drown the murmur of the waves, whilst at every turn the traveller is beset by vendors of immortelles and photographs. Truth to tell, an element of vulgarity has found ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... its willows. In the middle of the valley stood the impressive yellow church, with its Roman tower and rose-window; about it were the crumbling brown hovels of the deserted Mission. Once as they rode Estenega thought he heard voices, but could not be sure, so loud was the clatter of the horses' hoofs. As they reached the square they drew rein swiftly, the horses standing upright at the sudden halt. Then strange sounds came to them through the open doors of the church: ribald shouts and loud laughter, curses and ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... respectable people.... That was the world that made us what we are. That was the sheltering and friendly greenhouse in which we grew. We fitted our minds to that.... And here we are with the greenhouse falling in upon us lump by lump, smash and clatter, the wild winds of heaven ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... accompanied by a terrific clatter of old iron and the crunching of road-mendings, had been steadily growing from distant to near, and from loud to deafening, now reached a pitch of utter indescribability; and as a large splay-wheeled, tall-funneled, plowing engine rolled off the Bensley ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... saw her. She heard men's voices talking loudly and gayly, the clatter of plates, the clink of knives and forks. She looked round for the visitors' book. If it were lying near she thought she would open it, search for what Emile had written, and then ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... lane! She sprang to her feet, ran into the back kitchen, tied on her apron, hastily filled an earthenware bowl with water from the pump, and, carrying it back to the front kitchen, began to wash up the tea-things, making a busy household clatter as she slid them ...
— Bessie Costrell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... it never come back? But while yet he recalled the words, another sound mingled again with the stream-clac-clac! clac-clac! Suddenly it came to him who was the wearer of the sabots making this peculiar clatter in the night. It was Dormy Jamais, the man who never slept. For two years the clac-clac of Dormy Jamais's sabots had not been heard in the streets of St. Heliers—he had been wandering in France, a daft pilgrim. Ranulph remembered how ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... appeared to know his business, came forward with the coupling which fed compressed air to the machine, the runner gave a last inspection of his drill, turned his chuck screw, setting it against the rocky face, and signaled for the air. With a clatter like the discharge of a rapid-fire gun, the steel bit into the rock, and the Cross was really a mine again. Spattered with mud, and satisfied that the new drift was working in pay, ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... haven't, Jim. If it wasn't for you and father and mother and—" he diverted with a redoubled clatter of ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... was maintained over the low kopjes, until by evening we were faced by the more serious line of the Pieter's Hills. The operations had been carried out with a monotony of gallantry. Always the same extended advance, always the same rattle of Mausers and clatter of pom-poms from a ridge, always the same victorious soldiers on the barren crest, with a few crippled Boers before them and many crippled comrades behind. They were expensive triumphs, and yet every one brought them nearer to their goal. ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... he became as excited as when the incident occurred, and he took hold of a dinner-knife on the table between us, and brandished it. He lifted his arm as though to strike, and then, opening his hand, let it fall with a clatter to the ground. He looked at me with a tremulous smile. He did ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... that," Braceway raised his voice above the clatter of the typewriter. "Get down to ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... they buried their father, Ivan returned to the grave in the evening to read prayers over it. He had done so, and was making his way homeward, when there was a great clatter of hoofs behind him; then, as he reached the village square, the horseman pulled up and dismounted quite near to him. After blowing a loud blast on his silver trumpet—for he was the King's messenger—he ...
— Edmund Dulac's Fairy-Book - Fairy Tales of the Allied Nations • Edmund Dulac
... stores and markets closed early. The clatter of business ceased, the dust of worry was laid, and the Sabbath peace flooded the quiet streets. No hovel so mean but what its casement sent out its consecrated ray, so that a wayfarer passing in the twilight saw the spirit of God ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... heard him exclaim, and then there was a silence. As quietly as a cat Howland worked himself to the entrance and made a clatter among the rocks. It was he who ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... mild night, and we had plenty of time; so we talked and laughed our way through the bush—our voices the only sounds to be heard, except it might be the noise of a bird rising on the wing, startled from its perch by our merry laughter or the clatter of our horses' hoofs on the hard ground as ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... into the yard first and put them under the shed," said the father to the unknown outside in the rain and darkness. Clatter of sliprails let down and tired hoofs over them, and sliprails put up again; then ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... and nuts, and projections at the joints. In this shaft the kibbles were worked. These kibbles are iron buckets by which ore is conveyed to the surface. Two are worked together by a chain—one going up full while the other comes down empty. Both are free to clatter about the shaft and bang against each other in passing, but they are prevented from damaging the pump-rod by a wooden partition. Between this partition and the pump was the ladder we had now to descend, with just space ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... around one ankle and threw him hard. His gun flew from his hand. As he fell a tiny whispering sound flitted past, followed by a small blow somewhere behind him. Ensued a gruff grunt from Tim and the swift clatter of a breech bolt. ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... instantaneous. The four-footed kick did not come off. Clapperton's poker fell with a clatter on the floor, and a howl went up which ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... have turned black and the sky has faded. It grows so still on the water that the tinkle of a little Italian band reaches across the lake to Cadenabbia, a laugh rings out into the quiet air from one of the merry little rowboats, and even the slight clatter made by the fishermen, in putting their boats to rights for the night and in carrying their nets indoors, can be distinguished as one of many indications ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various
... through the forest had brought new color to the faces of the men, and a light into their eyes, such as I had not seen there for many days. While we waited, the pieces were newly charged and primed, and the clatter of the cartouch boxes, as they were thrown back into place, ran ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... country landlady at an unexpected arrival; for ever giving the young girls tasks to perform, which the little hussies as often neglected; poking into every corner, and rummaging over bundles of old tappa, or making a prodigious clatter among the calabashes. Sometimes she might have been seen squatting upon her haunches in front of a huge wooden basin, and kneading poee-poee with terrific vehemence, dashing the stone pestle about as if she would shiver the vessel into fragments; on other occasions, galloping about the valley ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... in consequence. They had no opportunity, during the forenoon, to converse with each other concerning the manner of their having entered the factory. But as soon as the rattling machinery silenced its clatter for the dinner hour, the subject was talked over until ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... the Irish Grenadier who had a bullet in a humiliating situation. Here's Rendon, and through it we go with a spanking clatter. Here's Doctor Corney's dog-cart post-haste again. For there's no dying without him now, and Repentance is on the death-bed for not calling him in before. Half a charge of humbug hurts no son of a gun, friend Vernon, if he'd have his firing take effect. Be tender to't ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Such a clatter as there was when they came to the barnyard; for every thing was just awake, and in the best spirits. Ducks were paddling off to the pond; geese to the meadow; and meek gray guinea-hens tripping away to hunt bugs in the garden. ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... are the two poles upon which revolves the credit of our country abroad. But the growing value of the West to the economic and national life of Canada is a mere shadow of its increasing importance in the religious world. Above the hum of the binders and loud clatter of the threshing machines, above the sharp voice of the shrieking steel rail, counting, as it were, one by one, the freighted cars on their way to the Eastern ports, above the clamor of commerce and industry, ring out the voices of immortal souls. The West, ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... care availed him nothing. A lifted foot struck an empty soap box with a clatter to wake the seven sleepers. Instantly he knew it had been put there for him to stumble over. A strong searchlight flooded the stairs and focused on him. He caught a momentary glimpse of a featureless face standing ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... Man; indeed, they came no nearer the subject than to ask Weary if he were going to drive the team in to Dry Lake. They did not talk much about anything, for that matter; even the knives and forks seemed to share the general depression of spirits, and failed to give forth the cheerful clatter which was a daily accompaniment ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... follows the Thunder Moon, and in the early part of its second week Rolf and Van, hauling in the barley and discussing the fitness of the oats, were startled by a most outrageous clatter among the hens. Horrid murder evidently was stalking abroad, and, hastening to the rescue, Rolf heard loud, angry barks; then a savage beast with a defunct "cackle party" appeared, but dropped the victim to bark and bound upon the "relief party" with ecstatic expressions ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... The clatter of a horse's hoofs in the courtyard put a period to our festivities. Presently rug-headed Hamish Gorm entered, a splash of mud ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... three minutes when the quick clatter of a pair of horses fell on his ears, and presently the lights of a carriage and pair, driving swiftly away from Clankwood, raked the drive on either side. As they rattled up to him he gave a shout to the coachman to stop, and stepped right in front of the horses. With something that sounded unlike ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... eager, stumbling haste. In Bad-Weather Tom West's kitchen, somewhat after ten o'clock in the morning, in the midst of this hilarious scramble to be off to the floe, there was a flash and spit of fire, and the clap of an explosion, and the clatter of a sealing-gun on the bare floor; and in the breathless, dead little interval between the appalling detonation and a man's groan of dismay followed by a woman's choke and scream of terror, Dolly ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... subsided, he went across the street and on to the bridge to look at the river that flowed past the station. It was narrow and filled with ships, and the water looked gray and dirty. A pall of black smoke covered the sky. From all sides of him and even in the air above his head a great clatter and roar of bells and ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... a roundin' on 'im, like, don't it a'most, sir?" said Tommy, with too evident symptoms of yielding in his voice. Paul shook so in his terror that he knocked down a broom or two with a clatter which froze his blood. ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... quick thrust of the arm for a platter of beef and potatoes, that stood, untouched, on the table ... someone coughed. We had thought we were alone. Nippers jerked back. The tin came down with a clatter, first to the bench, then to the floor. A big friendly potato rolled under to where we were. We seized on it, ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... With a clatter of wheels and cans and hoofs a milkman's wagon and team came out of the hills. Davidge stepped down from the car and stopped the loud-voiced, wide-mouthed driver with a gesture. He spoke in a low voice which the ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... hall takes up most of the ground floor of Warren Hall. Eight long, roomy tables are arranged at intervals, with broad aisles between, through which the white-aproned waiters hurry noiselessly about. To-night there was a cheerful clatter of spoons and forks and a loud babel of voices, and Joel found himself hugely enjoying the novelty of eating in the presence of more than a hundred and fifty other lads. Outfield West and his neighbors in Hampton House occupied a far table, and there the noise was loudest. West ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... yet this might be only a blind. He would have an eye to that cousin. The buried treasure he hadn't taken very seriously. In spite of all the remarkable things that had happened to him he still had moments of incredulity, and in the midst of an Ohio wheatfield, with the click and clatter of the reapers in his ears and the dry scent of the wheat in his nostrils, to dream of buried gold was ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... make a noise. The father scolded it, while the baby continued crying. By-and-by the whole family went back to bed and fell asleep. The patter of a mouse was heard. It climbed up some vase and upset it. We heard the clatter of the vase as it fell. The woman coughed in her sleep. Then cries of "Fire! fire!" were heard. The mouse had upset the lamp; the bed curtains were on fire. The husband and wife waked up, shouted, and screamed, the children cried, people came ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... you,' and then that confounded brute bolted. I didn't dare turn round. I had all my work to do to save myself being turned over, as it was—so long as I did, I mean. I just shouted, 'Return to your friends. All will be forgiven.' And off I came, clatter, clatter. Whether they heard—" ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... of the piers I heard the sleepy watchman growl, "Steerage passengers over there." I saw the dawn break slowly and everything around me grow bluish and unreal. I watched the teamsters come tramping along leading horses, and harness them to the trucks. I heard the first clatter of the day. I saw the figures of dockers appear, more and more, I saw some of them drift to the docks. Soon there were crowds of thousands, and as stevedores there began bawling out names, gang after gang of men stepped forward, until at last the chosen throngs went marching in past the timekeepers. ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... seemed to smell of nothing but ale and coarse tobacco. And then the noise! The ceaseless clatter of carts, the clang of electric cars, the piercing shrieks of the Underground Railway coming at intervals out of the bowels of the earth like explosions out of a volcano, and, above all, the raucous, rasping, high-pitched voices of the people, often foul-mouthed, ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... wildly on the wall, till its dusky forms seemed to become animated. The hunters blew their hornsthe stag seemed to fly, the boar to resist, and the hounds to assail the one and pursue the other; the cry of deer, mangled by throttling dogsthe shouts of men, and the clatter of horses' hoofs, seemed at once to surround himwhile every group pursued, with all the fury of the chase, the employment in which the artist had represented them as engaged. Lovel looked on this strange scene devoid of wonder (which seldom intrudes itself upon the sleeping fancy), but with ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... up any words that fall in their way; it is natural for them to pick up big and little ones indiscriminately; it is natural for them to use without fear any word that comes to their net, no matter how formidable it may be as to size. As a result, their talk is a curious and funny musketry clatter of little words, interrupted at intervals by the heavy artillery crash of a word of such imposing sound and size that it seems to shake the ground and rattle the windows. Sometimes the child gets a wrong idea of a word which ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... into a perfect clamor, for the more commonplace the event of a new-born egg became, the greater attention the hens inclined to call to it. Possibly they also felt the spring-time impulse of all the feathered tribes to use their voice to the extent of its compass. The clatter was music to Alf and Johnnie, however, for gathering the eggs was one of their chief sources of revenue, and the hunting of nests—stolen so cunningly and cackled over so sillily—with their accumulated treasures was like prospecting for mines. The great basketful they brought in ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... surprise and curiosity followed. Kells and his men looked attentively, but no one spoke. The clatter of hoofs on the stony road told of a horse swiftly approaching—pounding to a halt ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... the darkness and at that instant I made a discovery. Leith was not alone. Keeping time with the clatter of the shoes was a softer tattoo that told me that a barefooted runner was racing beside the man ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... this double clatter of hoofs became bewildered, and stood still in the midroad, or, if anything, inclined toward the thundering danger. The cavalry chargers, trained to avoid hurting men—for a rider might be thrown—eluded contact, and the coachman neatly pulled aside. In the next moment, ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... shet up yer clatter, Jim, lest ye know what yer talkin' erbout," retorted Mandy Calline, with a pout, making a dash at him ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... an experience of Lieut. G. A. F. Smith, who, whilst sitting in a newly constructed "safe" dugout, and enjoying a meal, was startled by a sudden clatter and almost blinded by an upheaval of earth and dust. Clearing his eyes he discovered the ruined remains of his repast, and, lying between his legs, an unexploded broomstick bomb that had glanced off the opposite ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... This is no mean task as western experience during recent centuries has so clearly demonstrated. Power elites of feudal Europe neither anticipated nor prepared for the consequences of the industrial revolution. The result was the smash and clatter of the American and French Revolutions (1776 and 1789) and minor revolutionary shocks through the nineteenth century. Power elites in western Europe dealt with mass production and its consequent abundance of goods and services ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing
... night, a night issue, and a strained waiting for something to be telegraphed from the other side of the world, exactly as had happened before. A few great men had died in the past two years, the machines worked with more clatter, and some of the trees in the office garden were a few feet taller. But ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... me. Drive on, coachman, and drown her replies in the clatter of hoofs. Round by the Stag, Zoe. I am uneasy till I have locked Fair Science up. I own it is a mean way of getting rid ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... Stephen's arm, and tottered. The big Louisiana, Captain Brent's boat, just in from New Orleans, was blowing off her steam as with slow steps they climbed the levee and the steep pitch of the street beyond it. The clatter of hooves and the crack of whips reached their ears, and, like many others before them and since, they stepped into Carvel & Company's. On the inside of the glass partition of the private office, a voice of great suavity was heard. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... with a lingering accent on the second word, as she caught the sound of a distant clatter of dishes and breathed in a ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... red-liveried footmen and footmen in plumed hats. From the carriages emerged men wearing uniforms, stars, and ribbons, while ladies in satin and ermine cautiously descended the carriage steps which were let down for them with a clatter, and then walked hurriedly and noiselessly over the baize ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... on the steps of the altar, but he spoke no word. Silently the moments passed, and then, suddenly, a sound broke the stillness that sent a cold shiver through St. Humbert. Wild shouts, coarse laughter, the clash and clatter of armed men rushing in wild triumph through the fortress. It was the King they were seeking. Where was he? They cared for nothing but to find him and ...
— Stories of the Saints by Candle-Light • Vera C. Barclay
... back. With an oath, a bound, and clatter, Jack was into the road. In another moment, to the man's half-awakened eyes, he was but a moving cloud of dust in the distance, toward which a star just loosed from its brethren was trailing ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... did a singular thing. He galloped towards the two officers almost as if to bear them down, and, steering much too close, flashed by yelling, amid a clatter of gravel. ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... sorrowful circumstances and this hurricane of yells and screams and satanic clatter of desk-boards, Representative Dr. Kronawetter unfeelingly reminds the Chair that a motion has been offered, and adds: 'Say yes, or no! What do you sit there for, and give ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... and blood could endure no more, and Bruno flung the snake violently off, striking forcibly against that mass of dry bones as he did so. With a rattling clatter, the skeleton lost its frail coherence and tumbled outward, leaving Bruno ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... howl as if its tail had been trod on. Dead stop,—so still you could hear your hair growing. Then another jump, and another howl, as if the piano had two tails and you had trod on both of 'em at once, and, then a grand clatter and scramble and string of jumps, up and down, back and forward, one hand over the other, like a stampede of rats and mice more than like anything I call music. I like to hear a woman sing, and I like to hear a fiddle sing, but these noises they hammer out of ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... of terrified obedience, rose on tiptoe, and struck a pane with her fist. The glass broke and fell with a loud clatter. ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... Bay line? What should I do in the morning? Ah, never mind that. Sufficient for the day was the luck thereof. Fresh plans for fresh contingencies. I resolved to sleep, nor can I imagine a more pleasing lullaby than the clatter of the train that carries you at twenty miles an hour away from ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... plates and knives and spoons, and, worse, the sickening smell of victuals. How can they laugh and joke when he, a man and a brother, lies sick of a fever? Ah! my friend, it would not be so were you the head of the house. All would be changed. The supper-hour would come with a hush instead of a clatter. The light stol'n forth o' the building would leave the whole house in gloom. And in your selfish soul you would be glad, for God so made all of us! Now you turn yourself to the wall, and marvel at the lightness ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... frightening. I shouted above its whine and the clatter of the pebbles: "Hold onto me! We'll get ...
— Wandl the Invader • Raymond King Cummings
... use the voice where there is loud noise by way of opposition. Many a good voice has been ruined due to the habit of continuous talking on the street or elsewhere amid clatter and hubbub. Under such circumstances it is better to rest the voice, since in any contest of the kind the voice will almost ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... of the city," nor was it in the suburbs. Carpenters and masons, both black and white, were busily employed in their avocations, and from the distance all seemed fair and moving with despatch. As they approached nearer, cries and moans sounded upon the air, and rose high above the clatter of the artisans' work. The Captain quickened his pace, but the colonel, as if from a consciousness of the effect, halted, and would fain have retraced his steps. "Come!" said the Captain, "let us hasten-they ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... Gallic cavalry to give way. At the second charge, when they advanced farther and were briskly engaged in the midst of the enemy's squadrons, by a method of fighting new to them, they were thrown into dismay. A number of the enemy, mounted on chariots and cars, made towards them with such a prodigious clatter from the trampling of the cattle and rolling of wheels, as affrighted the horses of the Romans, unaccustomed to such tumultuous operations. By this means the victorious cavalry were dispersed, through a panic, and men and horses, in their headlong flight, were tumbled promiscuously ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... in hand, approached the house, his stepfather-in-law, with considerable clatter, was hanging the horn on ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... was followed by a faint clatter, and all was black darkness again, for raging with hunger and annoyance as the boy was, tightly held, the light down just in front of him, without any warning Archy drew back slightly, delivered one quick, ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... when the clatter of arms and the clatter of raiders were ended; railroads were built, and emigration poured in from all States and nations, among which were many Disciples of Christ, who should have been builded into existing churches, or collected into new ones; but many were permitted ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... I whisked out into the blackness of a boisterous, windy night. A moment later, our horses were dashing over iced cobble-stones with the clatter of pistol-shots. ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... a word did the rider answer. Children, who, following the good example of the early bird, were already abroad, scurried out of his way, making a great clatter in their wooden shoes, and gaping until he passed beyond ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... people were preparing for their festivities, when suddenly from the mountains came the warning sounds. "In a second the air became black, peals of thunder echoed among the hills, lightning danced about the buildings, and the inhabitants in the darkened rooms heard the clatter of hoofs and the weird shrieks of the hosts ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... angry twice or thrice at finding his wife up on his return from the parties which he frequented: so she went straight to bed now; but although she did not sleep, and although the din and clatter, and the galloping of horsemen were incessant, she never heard any of these noises, having quite other disturbances ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... before Atlanta was healthy, with ample supply of wood, water, and provisions. The troops had become habituated to the slow and steady progress of the siege; the skirmish-lines were held close up to the enemy, were covered by rifle-trenches or logs, and kept up a continuous clatter of musketry. The mainlines were held farther back, adapted to the shape of the ground, with muskets loaded and stacked for instant use. The field-batteries were in select positions, covered by handsome parapets, and occasional shots from them gave life and animation to the scene. The men loitered ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... appointed place of rendezvous. The little band, thus assembled, turned the heads of their horses toward Navarre. They drove with the utmost speed day and night, furnishing themselves with fresh relays of horses, and rested not till the clatter of the iron hoofs of the steeds were heard among the mountains of Navarre. Jeanne left a very polite note upon her table in the palace of St. Cloud, thanking Queen Catharine for all her kindness, and ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... present writer by Mr. Matthias Fitzgerald, coachman to Miss Cooke, of Cappagh House, Co. Limerick. He stated that one moonlight night he was driving along the road from Askeaton to Limerick when he heard coming up behind him the roll of wheels, the clatter of horses' hoofs, and the jingling of the bits. He drew over to his own side to let this carriage pass, but nothing passed. He then looked back, but could see nothing, the road was perfectly bare and empty, though the sounds were perfectly audible. This continued for about a quarter of an ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour
... correspondents, who all talk of finding its nest in holes of trees.' On the 29th June last year I was at the Anniversary Meeting of the Medical College, and the proceedings were disturbed by the incessant clatter of two broods of young of this species. The nests were in holes in the wall near the roof, and the two pairs of old birds, which were feeding their young, kept coming and going the whole time, flying in at the windows and popping into ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... enter the Casino at Cannes. The coin had been flipped to decide which of us should pay, and we were starting up the steps when a yell and a clatter of horses' hoofs made us look around. A victoria was bearing down upon us. The cocher was waving his whip in our direction. We recognized the man who had driven ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... comparatively easy, later on, to go into particulars with Isa. With the roar and clatter growing hourly more deafening in the tavern, Isa and Joyce, sitting on the back porch under the calm stars, ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... ex-guardians. "I am importing forty Shire mares. I'll write off half his price the first twelvemonth. He will be the sire and grandsire of many sons and grandsons for which the Californians will fall over themselves to buy of me at from three to five thousand dollars a clatter." ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... a quiet face, was, from time to time, giving his sister Mary's hair a violent pull, causing her to scream and look about her for her tormenter each time; and Elizabeth was balancing a spoon on the edge of her cup, and letting it fall with a clatter every moment. Children never mind noise—indeed, they rather like it; and, if the truth must be told, Henry was beginning to think that it would not be unpleasant if his father would let him and his sisters have their own ways, as these children of Mr. Burke seemed to have, ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... did not want to study the tourist. They wanted to be just a little off the beaten track of travel, away from the screech of the locomotive, where they could listen and hear the echoes of a tallyho horn, the crack of the driver's whip, and the clatter ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... in search of the musket; but in his haste tumbled down the attic stairs, losing his grasp of the musket, which fell down with a clatter. ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... chosen was only a few hundred yards away, its white walls visible among trees, and the clatter of his horse's hoofs brought a man from a barn in the rear. Harry noted him keenly. He was youngish, stalwart and the look out of his blue eyes was fearless. He came forward slowly, examining his visitor, and his manner was ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... as he heard the quickening clatter of the horse's heels, and waited for the horseman, lifting his paper cap from his head with a bright smile of recognition. Next to his own brother Seth, Adam would have done more for Arthur Donnithorne than for any other young man in ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... are still; April's coming up the hill! All the spring is in her train, Led by shining ranks of rain; Pit, pat, patter, clatter, Sudden sun, and clatter, patter!— First the blue, and then the shower; Bursting bud, and smiling flower; Brooks set free with tinkling ring; Birds too full of song to sing; Crisp old leaves astir with pride, Where the timid violets hide,— ...
— The Posy Ring - A Book of Verse for Children • Various
... him cross the fence in the heavy shadow, hardly discernible even to her straining eyes that had grown accustomed to the dark. She heard the light clatter of his feet and knew that he was running, with the speed and desperation of a hounded deer, then she straightened and lifted her eyes to the rustling masses of ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck |
