"Drumming" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... some ivory statue?" he thought sometimes, "instead of like a human being, with drumming pulses, and dancing longings, and voices calling forever in my ears, like voices of sirens, 'Come, come, rest in our arms, sleep on our bosoms, for we are they who have given joy to all men from the beginning of time. We are they who have drawn good men from ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... and stiff," said Dessauer, shaking his head mournfully, yet with obvious desire in the itching fingers of his sword-hand; "let him seek out one of the brisk young kerls that are drumming at the blade-play all the time down there in the square by ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... from left to right. 'In the first place,' she began in deliberate tones, drumming with the tips of her fingers on the cuff of Sanin's coat, 'I am not in the habit of consulting my husband, except about matters of dress—he's my right hand in that; and in the second place, why do you say that you will fix a low price? ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... when she came home from her work in the evening. It was not often that Lily went to South End; the old people were delighted to see her, and detained her for some time by a long story about their daughter at service, while Reginald looked the picture of impatience, drumming on his knee, switching the leg of the table, and tickling Neptune's ears. When they left the cottage it was much later and darker than they had expected; but Lily was unwilling again to encounter the perils of the lane, and consulted her brother whether there ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... family, however, where Mr. and Mrs. Toomey chattered in gay excitement, the like of which they had not experienced since their memorable trip to Chicago. With his hands thrust deep in his trousers pockets, Toomey swaggered, resembling nothing so much as a pheasant strutting and drumming on a log for his mate's edification, and, not unlike the female bird of sober coloring, Mrs. Toomey looked and listened with a return of much of her old-time admiration, though the cause for Toomey's present state of exultation was, in its inception, due to ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... was drumming on the edge of the open door. "You are right, young man," he said, "a woman's ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... the tom-tom, a primitive Arab drum, seemed to us never to cease at Biskra. At night, when we retired to rest, it was drumming in our ears, and in the morning, when we awoke, its monotonous tones still floated on the air. At all hours of the day and night the cafes are frequented by pleasure-seekers. Hence the incessant drumming, as the music of the tom-tom seems ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... out of the high chair, where he had been sitting drumming on the table with a spoon and eating sugar ...
— Seven Little Australians • Ethel Sybil Turner
... it when Wily had stopped panting and turned to drumming his fingers on the desk. "Unless your record of achievement is better this year than it has been in recent years, Great Eastern may not get any allotment at all next ...
— The Great Gray Plague • Raymond F. Jones
... their teeth set. They know perfectly well that they are fighting for their existence. All this talk of the necessity of drumming up patriotism in England is bosh. England has no organized publicity bureau such as Germany, and in contrast she may have seemed quiet to the point of apathy. But don't fancy that Englishmen are apathetic. They are slow and they are sure. They are just beginning to realize ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... side of the creeke." For aiding and abetting this noisy and disgraceful spree, and also for partaking in it, Drummer Basset was fined L5, which must have been more than his yearly salary, and in disgrace, and possibly in disgust, quitted drumming the New Haven good people to meeting and moved his residence to Stamford, doubtless to the relief and delight of both magistrates and people of the ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... reply, fetched a copper poker, and, while beating on the hand-stove, she laughingly said: "I shall go on tattooing. Now mind if when the drumming ceases, you haven't accomplished your task, you'll have to ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... the delightful Mr. Good Indian off to?" Evadna stopped drumming upon the gatepost and turned toward the person she heard coming up behind her, who happened to be Gene. He stopped to light a match upon the gate and put his cigarette to work before he answered her; and Evadna touched tentatively the wide, blue ribbon wound round her arm and tied in a bow at ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... and wandered unsteadily about, but Elim sat motionless, silent, drinking. He was conscious now of a drumming in his ears like distant martial music, a confused echo like the beat of countless feet. He tilted his glass and was surprised ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... sky was a great, round, mellow searchlight which we knew to be no moon, but the dark lantern of summer, who came to hunt northward the cowering spring. In the nearest corral a flock of sheep lay silent until a groundless panic would send a squad of them huddling together with a drumming rush. For other sounds a shrill family of coyotes yapped beyond the shearing-pen, and whippoorwills twittered in the long grass. But even these dissonances hardly rippled the clear torrent of the mocking-birds' notes that fell from a dozen neighbouring shrubs and trees. It would ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... think, to be made on the rarer form of your Cicada. Could you not get some observer, such as Dr. Hartman (453/2. Mr. Walsh sent Mr. Darwin an extract from Dr. Hartman's "Journal of the doings of a Cicada septendecim," in which the females are described as flocking round the drumming males. "Descent of Man" (1901), page 433.), to note whether the females flocked in equal numbers to the "drumming" of the rarer form as to the common form? You have a very curious and perplexing subject of investigation, and I wish you ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... stole a happy boat To hear the ringdoves coo, To mark again the drumming snipe Zigzag the ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... windows. Laura had gone out; Mrs. Madison was with her husband, whom she seldom left; Hedrick had departed ostensibly for school; and the house was as still as a farm in winter—an intolerable condition of things for an effervescent young woman whose diet was excitement. Cora, drumming with her fingers upon a window in the owl-haunted cell, made noises with her throat, her breath and her lips not unsuggestive of a sputtering fuse. ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... his uniform coat reluctantly, for he was engaged in an interesting bout with a professor, who was an old friend of the maitre d'armes. As he entered his room, a young man, who had been staring out of the window, and drumming impatiently with his fingers, turned. He was a stranger ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... man, the working and warfaring Denis Diderot; how he looked and lived, what he did, what he said." Instead of which, nothing but "a dull, sulky, snuffling, droning, interminable lecture on Atheistic Philosophy," delivered with the vehemence of some pulpit-drumming Gowkthrapple, or "precious Mr. Jabesh Rentowel." Naigeon belonged to the too numerous class of men and women overabundantly endowed with unwise intellect. He was acute, diligent, and tenacious; fond of books, especially when they had handsome margins ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... the mesa. They separated as the rider swept up. One terror-stricken lamb, bleating piteously, hesitated on the very edge of the chasm. Fadeaway swung his hat and laughed as the little creature reared and leaped out into space. There had been but little noise—an occasional frightened bleat, a drumming of hoofs on the mesa, and they were swept ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... timid," broke in the good woman, eagerly. "And she's had enough to make her so! What with policemen drumming her up at night, and innocent-looking girls and boys luring her into corners to tell them what she saw in that grand house where the murder took place, she's grown that feared of her shadow you can hardly get her out ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... "Rise up straightway, O my daughter, and banish from thy thoughts such fancies as these; and robe thyself and come forth to glance at the bridal feasts and festivities they are making in the city for the sake of thee and thy nuptials; and listen to the drumming and the singing and look at the decorations all intended to honour thy marriage, O my daughter." So saying, the Queen at once summoned the tirewomen who dressed and prepared the Lady Badr al- Budur; and presently she went in to the Sultan and assured him that their daughter had ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... January. All the winter birds are doing their share in the chorus and orchestra; crows, jays, woodpeckers, nut-hatches, juncos, tree-sparrows. But suddenly a woodpecker begins a new sound,—his vernal drumming! Not the mere tap, tap, tap, in quest of insects, but the love-call drumming of the nidification season, nearly ...
— Some Winter Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... drumming wafts from the shore-line. "Pa-pas-ku," says one of the Cree lads, pulling his pipe from his mouth and listening. Young Hudson's Bay to my enquiring look returns, "The Canadian ruffed grouse," which Sussex elucidated, "Bonasa umbellus logata," at ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... blundered into our net, a smile a foot wide and six feet long, and even as he lay quietly awaiting what fate brought to great catfish, he sang, both theme and accompaniment. His whole being throbbed with the continuous deep drumming as the thin, silky walls of his swim-bladder vibrated in the depths of his body. The oxygen in the air was slowly killing him, and yet his swan song was possible because of an inner atmosphere so rich in this gas that it would be unbreathable by a creature ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... the drummer's apprehension, Mr. Mompesson's family were sadly annoyed by violent knocking and drumming—at times apparently in the house, and at other times seemingly on the house-top. This disturbance continued for weeks without much change, but then the annoyance became unbearable. An offensive smell pervaded the house; boards danced through rooms ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... learned to avoid these. So close the night hung around me that even on the sky-line I had no fear of being spied. I crossed the ridge and tore down the farther slope; stumbled through a muddy brook and mounted another hillside. My heart was drumming now, but terror held me to it—over this ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... like that in the Grand Choir, the first day you land here, but you hardly ever see it again. There were billions of people; when they were singing or hosannahing, the noise was wonderful; and even when their tongues were still the drumming of the wings was nearly enough to burst your head, for all the sky was as thick as if it was snowing angels. Although Adam was not there, it was a great time anyway, because we had three archangels on the Grand Stand—it is a seldom thing that ...
— Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven • Mark Twain
... in his blankets. When his eyes opened, the sun was beating down from high in the heavens. He had slept from one day into the next. Even in his sleep he had been conscious of some sound drumming at his ears. It was the voice ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... hills, no marks of time or change cling to them; and when you walk out to the strange woods, there they are, mocking you with their ever-renewed and joyous youth. The call of the high-holes, the whistle of the quail, the strong piercing note of the meadowlark, the drumming of the grouse,—how these sounds ignore the years, and strike on the ear with the melody of that springtime when the world was young, and life was all holiday ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... luxurious rites of the women glittered Their libertine show, their drumming tapped out crowds, The Sabazian Mysteries summoned their mob, Adonis been wept to death on the terraces, As I could hear the last day in the Assembly? For Demostratus—let bad luck befoul him— Was roaring, "We must ...
— Lysistrata • Aristophanes
... immediately after receipt of my telegraphed report of his prompt action against Malabanan's brigands." As the Major did not take it but continued to regard him steadily out of brooding eyes, the Governor returned the commission to the basket and fell to drumming his desk. ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... weird tramp along the deserted road, for not a soul was encountered; but as we drew nearer, the lights in the city were many, and from the noise and drumming it was evident that there were festivities in progress, possibly rejoicings among the natives at the fall of ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... MRS. ALVING. [Drumming on the window frame.] I ought never to have concealed the facts of Alving's life. But at that time I dared not do anything else-I was afraid, partly on my own account. I was such ...
— Ghosts • Henrik Ibsen
... 23d. Truly, the presence of Miss Flora Cooper makes Willow Valley a new place. At least six hours are taken from the length of the days, though I have given up my afternoon slumber, and play chess and backgammon instead of drumming on the table or piano. Now am I relieved from that tedious companion, my own self. I never liked him very well; I had rather do any thing than have a sober talk with a serious personage, who always takes me to do for not making more of him. He scolds me, just as a stay-at-home wife ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... Steve, once more seated beside her, the engine drumming, the wheels spinning. "You don't know what a speed ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... glanced at was but a final tag to a day of much brighter curiosity, and which seemed to take its baptism, as we passed through prodigious perched and huddled, adorably scattered and animated and even crowded Tivoli, from the universal happy spray of the drumming Anio waterfalls, all set in their permanent rainbows and Sibylline temples and classic allusions and Byronic quotations; a wondrous romantic jumble of such things and quite others—heterogeneous inns and clamorous ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... midst of a thicket of low black alders, surrounded by a perfect hedge of bushes, I found him at last. He was on the lower end of a fallen log, gliding rapidly up and down, spreading wings and tail and budding ruff, as if he were drumming, and sending out his peculiar call at every pause. Above him, in a long line on the same log, five other partridges were sitting perfectly quiet, save now and then, when an answer came to the leader's call, they would turn their heads and listen intently till the underbrush ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... loud and clear, answered "yes." A drumming on the cone followed, and Mrs. Lambert, her voice full of maternal pride, remarked: "Waltie is the life of our sittings—he's such a rogue! You must be a nice boy to-night—on account of these very ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... and leaving their horses tied to the trees, the three boys crept forward to the spot from which the drumming proceeded. They came up abreast, and soon all caught sight of a number of grouse of the sharp-tailed variety, huddled in a little opening among ...
— Dave Porter at Star Ranch - Or, The Cowboy's Secret • Edward Stratemeyer
... disturb them; most of them are probably sound asleep, when suddenly like a shot they, the whole herd, are on their feet and gone—gone off at a more or less furious gallop. All go together. The guard are of course at once all action; the men asleep in camp are waked by the loud drumming of the thousands of hoofs on the hard ground and at once rush for their horses to assist. The stampede must be stopped and there is only one way to do it—to get up to the lead animals and try to swing them round with the object of getting them to move in a circle, to "mill" ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... a steady old fellow. He never jumped nor shied. He preferred walking to any other gait. Without a whip Johnnie Green had hard work to make him trot. It took a great deal of drumming against his ribs by Johnnie Green's heels to induce ...
— The Tale of Pony Twinkleheels • Arthur Scott Bailey
... railway, tethering our horses to the wire fence that runs down it. Rain fell heavily all night. Most of us had no blankets, and we lay bundled up, shivering under our greatcoats on the sopping ground. Unable to sleep well, I heard, just about or before dawn, a distant drumming, like the noise of rain on the window, but recognised immediately as distant rifle-fire. Morning broke, cheerless and wet. I asked if any one had heard firing during the night, but no one near me had. Shivering and breakfastless, save for a morsel of biscuit and ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... strange invisible insect is making uncanny noises in the underbrush. One of my recollections of the railway woods at St. Augustine is of a cricket, or locust, or something else,—I never saw it,—that amused me often with a formless rattling or drumming sound. I could think of nothing but a boy's first lesson upon the bones, the rhythm of the beats was so comically mistimed ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... deer and bear before his coming, The wild-cat glared, the viper hissed; And died the long day's insect-drumming. Where things of night began their humming, And witchly phantoms went ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... in a hurry. The bullets from the Indians pattered like hail, sending the bark flying, and drumming upon the bare trunks of the breastworks. The heavy carbines stanchly replied. Horses reared again, and screamed and fell, kicking. The Indians were making certain of the cavalry mounts. That was the first ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... wall with the obvious purpose of finding a spot whence she could see the plain. It seemed to him that he ought to stop her, and then it seemed to him that he had better not. With such a horrible drumming in his ears how could he think clearly ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... No sounds of drumming, No flying flags, no heralds do appear; No Wise Men of the East proclaim His coming; Yet He is coming—nay, our Christ is here! And man shall leave his fever dreams behind him; Those dreams of avarice, and lust, and sin, And seek his Lord; yea, he shall ...
— The Englishman and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... 'em it belong to," he continued, thrusting it into another pocket and drumming loudly on the counter for more beer, "I can't say, 'cos I don't know. But that ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... dreaming world to love. Song and dance and hands that sway The passion of a thousand lyres Ever through the live-long day, And the monarch never tires. Sudden comes the answer curt, Loud the fish-skin war-drums roar; Cease the plaintive "rainbow skirt": Death is drumming ...
— A Lute of Jade/Being Selections from the Classical Poets of China • L. Cranmer-Byng
... for his nightly sitting with Bob Donkin. He could see Bob Donkin there now; and he could hear the big dispatcher growl at him in his bluff way: "Use your head—use your head—Hoogan!" It was always "Hoogan," never "Toddles." "Use your head"—Donkin was everlastingly drumming that into him; for the dispatcher used to confront him suddenly with imaginary and hair-raising emergencies, and demand Toddles' instant solution. Toddles realized that Donkin was getting to the heart of things, and that some day he, Toddles, would be a great dispatcher—like Donkin. "Use your ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... was coming to him out of the night; his knowledge of the desert enabled him, by the drumming sound of the hoofs upon the sand—a sound which has not its semblance in the world—to know to a second when the mare would stop ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... in an old Roman triumph, or like that of actual convicts taken to Tyburn. They were marched in procession from Highgate through London, each man sitting on a horse, having his arms tied with cords behind his back, the horses led by soldiers, with a military escort drumming and fifing a march of triumph. The men of noble rank were confined in the Tower; others, many of them men of position, such as Mr. Thomas Forster, a Northumberland gentleman, and member for his county, were thrust into Newgate, ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... head buried in the shawl, close to the wood panelling. There was no answer; she could only hear the drumming of her heart. ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... Stanley was darning socks over a mending-gourd, and the two young Stanleys were whispering and giggling about some matter of supreme consequence to youth. The windows were open, and we could smell the sweet scent of the lilacs from the yard and hear the drumming of the rain as it fell on the roof of ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... furnished room, heated by an open stove and lighted by a single jet of gas, which flickered in a thin greenish flame. In the centre of the room a pine table, without a cloth, was laid for supper, and three small children, in chairs drawn close together, were impatiently drumming with tin spoons on the wood. A haggard woman, in a soiled blue gingham dress, was bringing a pot of coffee from the adjoining room; and in one corner, on a sofa from which the stuffing sagged in bunches, a man sat staring ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... songless group, but have several ways of calling and signalling to each other. One of these is to beat rapidly on a tree with the beak, which makes a rolling noise, each different species doing his drumming in his own way. Besides this, they all have jolly laughing notes, in spite of the fact that most of them are rather shy birds. Hence they are often called ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... the three young men—the one looking out of the window, drumming idly on the glass, and continually tossing back his head to clear the long black hair from his brow, over which it hung in an incurable cowlick—was a short, compact, nervous person, twenty-five years old. Mr. Overtop ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... indicating that this is the proudest day of his life. Every time the drum begins to rattle he flourishes his tail, and when each little ceremony is over he moves on to a fresh place with a jaunty air, as if he were aware that all this drumming and fuss were especially intended for his entertainment. No condemned wretch ever made his last appearance in ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... Malcolm's door with them in it, and me coming out, jealoused what had been done, and told their mistress outright of the marriage, which was to her like a clap of thunder; insomuch that she flung herself back in her settee, and was beating and drumming with her heels on the floor, like a madwoman in Bedlam, when I entered the room. For some time she took no notice of me, but continued her din; but, by-and- by, she began to turn her eyes in fiery glances upon me, till ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt
... Your fears disguise; He is not coming! Sweet lips Let slip no sighs; Cease, heart, your drumming! He is not coming, [A]Lada! He is not coming. Lada ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... Maggie's eyes passionately besought him. What did she want him to do—to say? Mrs. Bolitho could see that the girl's hands were clenched, as though she had reached, at last, the very limits of her endurance. He did not see. His back was half turned to her. He did not speak, but stood there drumming with his hands ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... at the gallop, and the beat of hoofs rose up, dulled a little, in a wild staccato drumming. There was an insistent crunching beneath the runners, and a fine mist of snow beat against the sleigh, but the girl leaning forward, a tense figure, with nerveless hands clenched upon the reins, saw nothing but the blue-grey ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... the car, and told me dull facts about tiresome things called carburettors. It would have been a horrid anticlimax, spoiling all the romance of Sweetheart Abbey, if he had not changed later on. But he did change. There was a little piano in the sitting-room they gave us, and Mrs. James began drumming out a few Scotch airs, warbling the words in a high, thin voice rather like that of an intelligent insect. There was one tune I knew, and I couldn't resist joining in. At the end ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Keeper of the strong rain, Drumming on the mountain; Lord of the small rain That restores the earth in newness; Keeper of the clean rain, Hear a prayer ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... shipping the anchor and scrambling back to the cockpit as the sloop settled down on an even keel again, the squall drumming on the ropes and stays. "You've sailed a ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... hunter, and one little tap of that huge paw crushed his skull like an egg-shell. His companion brought his body home; and now the whole tribe had formally declared war on that bear, and all this dancing and painting and drumming was in preparation for a war party, composed of all the men, dogs and guns in the town. They were going on the warpath to get that bear. Greatly relieved, I gave them my blessing and sped them ...
— Alaska Days with John Muir • Samual Hall Young
... drumming of the distant horses grew louder and louder with inconceivable rapidity, and the cavalcade of police rushed by below them in the lane, almost with the roar and rattle of ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... black one day and the chickens scurried for shelter and you and the wife stood with your noses flattened against the window-pane—unless it was only oiled paper—and watched the big ice-marbles bouncing and heard the hail drumming flat in a few minutes the acres of wheat you had worked so ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... from without. One of them, however, by some artifice, contrived to escape, hid behind a bush, and saw the whole solemnity: the procession of the medicine-men and the bedaubed and befeathered warriors; the drumming, the dancing, the stamping; the wild lamentation of the women, as they gashed the arms of the young girls with sharp mussel-shells and flung the blood into the air with dismal outcries. A scene of ravenous feasting ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Alphabetical Morrison, who happened to be in the office at the time, pawing through the discarded exchanges in the waste-basket, looking for his New York Sun, and, after Colonel Morrison had read the item, he began drumming with his finger-nails on the chair-seat between his knees. His eyes were full of dreams and no one disturbed him as he looked off into space. Finally ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... howls, yelpings, and lugubrious songs that resounded from without. One of them, however, by some artifice, contrived to escape, hid behind a bush, and saw the whole solemnity,—the procession of the medicinemen and the bedaubed and befeathered warriors; the drumming, dancing, and stamping; the wild lamentation of the women as they gashed the arms of the young girls with sharp mussel-shells, and flung the blood into the air with dismal outcries. A scene of ravenous feasting ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... then placed the rope around the neck of the malefactor with many antic gestures and grimaces highly gratifying and amusing to the mob. To signify to the poor fellow under his fangs that he wished to whisper in his ear, to push him off the ladder, and to jump astride his neck with his heels drumming with violence upon his stomach, was but the work of an instant. We could then perceive a rope fast to each leg of the sufferer, which was pulled with violence by people under the gallows, and an additional rope, to use a sea term, a preventer, ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... be seen prodigies of valor, unmatched in history or song. Here was the sturdy Stoffel Brinkerhoff brandishing his quarter-staff like the giant Blanderon his oak tree (for he scorned to carry any other weapon), and drumming a horrific tune upon the hard heads of the Swedish soldiery. There were the Van Kortlandts, posted at a distance, like the Locrian archers of yore, and plying it most potently with the long-bow, for which they were so justly renowned. On a rising knoll were gathered the valiant men of ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... talented coloured gentleman who had been extracted from small-time vaudeville by Mr. Abrahams to do a nightly speciality at the Flower Garden. He was, in fact, a trap-drummer: and it was his amiable practice, after he had done a few minutes trap-drumming, to rise from his seat and make a circular tour of the tables on the edge of the dancing-floor, whimsically pretending to clip the locks of the male patrons with a pair of drumsticks held scissor-wise. And so ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... right," the Lensman pondered, his fingers drumming quietly upon his desk. "And you are not afraid of death—now—even subconsciously. But tell me, Storm, please, that you ...
— The Vortex Blaster • Edward Elmer Smith
... however, to call for Miss Lucy at old Pa's, but waited for her at the corner of the street, patiently drumming on my boot, with a knowing little bit of bamboo; and projecting my left arm to her, off ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 339, Saturday, November 8, 1828. • Various
... had taken some of the game out of me, for when I saw the big dark horse flatten his ears, the wicked eyes rolling, and the great fore-hoofs drumming on the road, ready to leap and batter the woman and her bairn to a bloody pulp fornent me, my stomach turned, as we say, and I felt sick and giddy. Many a morning had I stood at the loose-box door and watched the devil in the horse and the devil in the man battle for mastery, and ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... cigarette away as though the flavour had suddenly become distasteful and sat drumming with his fingers upon the table, his ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... rain all that night, plentiful, persistent, drumming on the tightened canvas over our heads, waking us now and then to pleasant thoughts of a rising stream and good water for the morrow. Breaking clouds rolled before the sunrise, and the lake was all a-glitter when we pushed away in dancing canoes ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... other in rigid angles, and a roar as of the sea came up from the writhing treetops in the sunken valley. There were long weary nights of steady downpour, hammering on the red tiles of the casa, and drumming on the shingles of the new veranda, which was more terrible to be borne. Alone, but for the servants, and an occasional storm-stayed tenant from Fair Plains, Clarence might have, at such times, questioned the effect of this seclusion ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... line, and all round her forehead trimming disorderly hairs. Four women, seated on their heels in front of her, were fidgeting over her face; she, impassive as a log in their hands. A vast deal of singing and drumming went on all the time, a row of musicians keeping it up all round the room. The girl was washed; then her hair, magnificent black hair down to her heels, knotted in two great bows on either side of her head. Over these, gold ornaments like wings were fixed, and a little tower of gold ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... of the hill, I wheeled the animal round, and trotted him towards the house—the horse sped faster than before. Ere he had advanced a hundred yards, I took off my hat, in obedience to the advice which Mr. Petulengro had given me, in his own language, and holding it over the horse's head, commenced drumming on the crown with the knob of the whip; the horse gave a slight start, but instantly recovering himself, continued his trot till he arrived at the door of the public-house, amidst the acclamations of the company, who had all rushed out of the house to be spectators ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... when he was a tow-haired boy as now, a man of forty-five. He touched his hat to them now, and went on, while Blecker leaned on the carriage-doors, his brown face aglow with fun, his uneasy fingers drumming boyishly on the panel. Not knowing that through the changeful face, and fierce, pitiful eyes of the boy, the man Paul Blecker looked coolly out, testing, labelling them. The boy in him, that they saw, Nature had made; but years of a hand-to-hand fight ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... servant, who also cut from their coats every insignia of rank. Then, after there had been read to the command an order from army headquarters dismissing the four from the service, the scene was brought to a close by drumming the cowards out of camp. It was a mortifying spectacle, but from that day no officer in that division ever ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... saw me they would stand erect, shoot up their long cars, and then leisurely lope away. Coyotes trotted out of thickets and watched me suspiciously. I could have shot several, but deemed it wise to be saving of my ammunition. Once I heard a low drumming. I could not imagine what made it. Then a big blue grouse strutted out of a patch of bushes. He spread his wings and tail and neck feathers, after the fashion of a turkey-gobbler. It was a flap or shake of his wings that produced the drumming. I wondered ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey
... thought it a move in the right direction, and vowed he would give the afternoon to drumming up recruits. Miss Moore said she would ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott
... our woodpeckers have that endears them to me, and that has never been pointedly noticed by our ornithologists, is their habit of drumming in the spring. They are songless birds, and yet all are musicians; they make the dry limbs eloquent of the coming change. Did you think that loud, sonorous hammering which proceeded from the orchard or from the near woods on that still March or April morning was only some bird ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... palatable.' 'I found them very good,' says he, 'when eaten after the Arab fashion, stewed with butter. They tasted somewhat like shrimps, but with less flavour.' In the wilderness of Judea, various kinds abound at all seasons, and spring up with a drumming sound, at every step, suddenly spreading their bright hind wings, of scarlet, crimson, blue, yellow, white, green, or brown, according to the species. They were 'clean,' under the Mosaic Law, and hence could be eaten ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... the door open; and Kasper, who was only drumming with his fingers upon the window-panes, seemed very glad to see us. That little man had flaxen hair and a snub nose. Sperver had made him his factotum; it was he who took to pieces and cleaned his guns, mended the riding-horses' harness, fed the dogs in ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... at least of them had some difficulty to render' expressive of calm repose the two American boys marched along with the others. As they advanced the drumming grew louder and they could feel the earth shake as the ponderous beast that caused it went through his ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... sitting in his office, drumming his long fingers against his desk while the name, Atkinson, ticked through his brain like the ...
— Planet of Dreams • James McKimmey
... at the door. The living room was brightly lighted; Uncle John and the Major were playing checkers in a corner and Patsy was softly drumming on the piano. Louise had a book and Beth had been engaged ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... eyes and tried to sleep, but the drumming of the train was in her ears perpetually, and she could not forget it. Present also was the consciousness of her husband's quiet watchfulness. Though he held aloof from her, his care surrounded her ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... the Pharanites were to march forward against the enemy, drumming and trumpeting, and then retreat as far as the watch-tower as the enemy approached over the plain. If the Blemmyes allowed themselves to be tempted thither, a second third of the warriors of the oasis, that could easily be in ambush ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... a lull of consternation round the breakfast-table, for a drumming upon metal was heard! For one instant there was a gaze of doubt round the table. Then they rose en masse; cups were upset, and chairs thrown over; the cabin was crossed at racing speed,—Captain Halpin leading—the stair-case surmounted, and a ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... in their handkerchiefs, or in their caps, if they would take care to have finished before they came within sight of the usher. He then asked the woman to let them out upon the heath through her garden gate; and she said she certainly would when they had paid. She then stood drumming with her fingers upon the table, and looking through the window, as ...
— The Crofton Boys • Harriet Martineau
... the lapping of the tiny waves and the musical trickling of the rivulet amongst the rocks and stones. Then I jumped, for a peculiar cry arose from the forest behind us, and this seemed to be the signal for an outburst of sounds new to me, piping, thrumming, drumming, shrieking, howling, grunting in every variety, and I turned to look in Uncle Dick's face, which was lit up by the glow from our ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn
... knees, and began creeping forward to investigate. When half way a loud creak of the boards brought him to a halt with his heart in his mouth. But the loud conversation below continued, and heartily thanking the drumming rain on the roof overhead, Alex moved on, and finally ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs
... Other pet offenses are drumming on the table with one's fingers, making various clicking, whistling, or humming sounds, massaging one's face, scratching one's chin with the cards, or waving the card one is going to play aloft in the air in Smart Alec fashion as though shouting, "I know what you are going to lead! And my ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... syllables of the marvelous tale. Witness the clear sweet whistle of the gray-crested titmouse,—the soft, nasal piping of the nuthatch,—the amorous, vivacious warble of the bluebird,—the long, rich note of the meadowlark,—the whistle of the quail,—the drumming of the partridge,—the animation and loquacity of the swallows, and the like. Even the hen has a homely, contented carol; and I credit the owls with a desire to fill the night with music. Al birds are incipient or would be songsters in the spring. ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... the table drumming with his fingers in a great agitation. Then his fingers stopped. He had been drumming upon Wogan's sheet of paper, and the writing on the sheet had suddenly attracted his notice. It was writing in unusually regular lines. Gaydon, arrested by Misset's change ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... room, his elbows on his knees, gently tapping the floor with the ferrule of his slim walking-stick; Garlock, the scientist, had dropped into the depths of a huge leather chair and leaned back in it comfortably, his legs crossed, one boot swinging gently; Campbell stood behind this chair, drumming on the back occasionally with the fingers of one hand, speaking to Bennett over Garlock's shoulder, and from time to time turning to Tremlidge for corroboration and support ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... playmates, and teachers by turns. Jeremiah wheeled him in the wheelbarrow, and suffered him to kick his shins, and might often be seen sedately at work hoeing or raking, with the child sitting astride on his shoulders, and drumming with sturdy heels against his breast. One member of the family alone resisted the sovereign charm of childhood; one alone held aloof in cold disdain, refusing to touch the little hand or answer the piping voice. That one was Samuel Johnson. The great Doctor was deeply offended at ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... all that he rose not immediately, for the head of the young man whirled, and little drumming pulses beat in his temples. His heart cried within him like the overword of a song, "Does she hear? Will she care? Will this bring me nearer to her?" So that, in spite of his lord's command, he continued to kneel, till lusty James of Avondale came and caught him by the elbow. "Up, Sir Knight, ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... tables away—and beside him sat a heavy built, clean-shaven man of middle age. That would be Cloran, of course—the man who was to have been lured to his death. And Danglar was nervous and uneasy, she could see. His fingers were drumming a tattoo on the table; his eyes were roving furtively about the room; and he did not seem to be paying any but the most distrait attention to his companion, who was talking ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... now," said Norton, drumming upon his chair. "I want you there. You belong to mamma and me, and to nobody else in the whole world, ...
— The House in Town • Susan Warner
... but a companion, sobbed himself to sleep. The wood birds sang merrily above his head; the squirrels, whisking their bravery of tail, ran barking from tree to tree, unconscious of the pity of it, and somewhere far away was a strange, muffled thunder, as if the partridges were drumming in celebration of nature's victory over the son of her immemorial enslavers. And back at the little plantation, where white men and black were hastily searching the fields and hedges in alarm, a mother's heart was breaking for her ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... Chicory kept the first watch, and then called Mr Rogers, who relieved them, with Peter. But there was nothing to report, only that there had been a great deal of drumming and tomtoming up in the town, and that when the music and singing had ceased, the hippopotami on the river's brink had commenced roaring, snorting, splashing, and making noises that were quite startling in ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... his tribe, and attack me and kill me. I held my head down, and walked straight along. Not many people were about, and no one passed me. Presently I came to a lodge in which a little fire was burning, and not very far away was another lodge, in which people were singing and drumming, as if for a dance. I stopped, and looked into the first lodge. The fire was low, but still it gave some light, and I could see plainly that no one was there. Then suddenly it came to me that I would go into this lodge, and take something out of it, which should show ...
— When Buffalo Ran • George Bird Grinnell
... faltered. The cylinder cocks were drumming wildly. "Which ever way we turn there's danger," he admitted, reluctantly, "a steam pipe might burst. You must cover your face." She drew the high collar of her coat around her neck and buried her face ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... did not resume his work at once. He sat for some time idly drumming with his fingers on ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... with a little accident during the three-quarters of an hour which they allow for the entertainment of us men of fashion on the stage, before the curtain draws up for the bally, while the ladies in the boxes are gaping, and the people in the pit are drumming with their feet and canes in the rudest manner possible, ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray |
