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More "Drumming" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... paused upon the threshold with a little "Oh!" of surprise. There was a reek of cigar smoke; its origin between the lips of a burly young man who stood drumming a tune ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... vulnerable parts, and, exploding inside, killed men and dismounted guns. The groans of the stricken, the crash of steel against steel, the roar of the turret-guns, the rattling chorus of quick-fire rifles, and the drumming of heavy shells against the armor and turrets made an uproarious riot of sound over which no man above the water-line could lift his voice. But there were some there, besides the dead,—men who worked through and survived the action,—who, after the first impact of ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... starting of the game afforded for conversation of a general nature. They had gone on in this manner for some time, and having been tolerably successful in their sport were meditating their return to the party on the beach, when the ear of Gerald was arrested by the drumming of a partridge at a short distance. Glancing his quick eye in the direction whence the sound came, he beheld a remarkably fine bird, which while continuing to beat its wings violently against the fallen tree on which it was perched, ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... awakened by a cessation of the drumming of the wheels. Opening his eyes, he saw that the train was no longer in motion. He also saw—and his consciousness of that fact was much more acute—the rim of a revolver about six inches from his forehead. Behind the revolver was a man, a young Spanish gypsy, ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... talking like old friends, he and I, in the little white bedroom. Through the two curtains of the window high up in the wall a great ray of sunshine falls, a column of dancing light that dies on the table between us. I sit drumming absent-mindedly with my fingers in the shimmering motes. He looks at me and I feel no need to speak or to turn my head. The novelty of his presence makes no impression on me beyond a feeling of surprise that I do not find it strange. When by chance we do not hold ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... are false. Our pride is like that of a partridge drumming on his log in the wood before the fox leaps upon him. Our sight is like that of the mole burrowing under the ground. Our wisdom is like a drop of dew upon the grass. Our ignorance is like the great water which no eye ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... you, Mary," I cried, drumming at the little green table with my fist. "I want you. I want nothing else in all the world unless it has to ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... 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. ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... from heaven to meet me when my breath Chokes, and through drumming shafts of stifling death I stumble toward escape, to find the door Opening on morn where I may breathe once more Clear cock-crow airs across some valley dim With whispering trees. While dawn along the rim Of night's horizon flows in lakes of fire, Come down ...
— Counter-Attack and Other Poems • Siegfried Sassoon
... grew more placid (Optimists should not be acid.) "Come in!" I exclaimed—"confound you! Pray stand drumming there no more." But the donkey still kept tapping. "Dolt!" I muttered, sharply snapping, "Why the deuce do you come rapping, rapping at my Office-door? Yet not 'enter' when you're told to?"—here I opened wide the door— Darkness there, and ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Volume 101, October 31, 1891 • Various
... all sailors lay nigh to them, restless and ravenous, drumming against the cliffs ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... being hearde to the other 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 ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... of shouting, drumming on battledores, and blowing through discordant horns, let them know, as they came up the lane, that the community was in a state of high activity; and when they reached the garden gate they were just in time to see the whole family vanish round a corner, running at full speed after ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... rain are at the pane, Shrilling, drumming without cease; And the breakers' loud refrain Gives the shuddering heart no peace. Lord of all the things that be, Pity Thou ...
— From The Lips of the Sea • Clinton Scollard
... this sounded like a gong," said Johnny, "perhaps we are near some island now; but what could they be drumming for so ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... himself of this bad language, Billy waddled to his master's chair, and climbing up by the aid of his claws and beak, soon established himself in his old position. Slivers, however, was not attending to him, as he was leaning back in his chair drumming in an absent sort of way with his lean fingers on the table. His cork arm hung down limply, and his one eye was fixed on a letter lying in front of him. This was a communication from the manager of the Pactolus Mine requesting Slivers to get him more ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... Zaccarath. Then the King shouted and the warriors sang—almost they remembered then old battle-chants. And, as they sang, the sound of the drums dwindled, and the musicians walked away backwards, and the drumming became fainter and fainter as they walked, and altogether ceased, and they blew no more on their fantastic horns. Then the assemblage beat on the floor with their palms. And afterwards the queens besought the King to send for another prophet. ...
— A Dreamer's Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... forward, idly drumming on the polished desk, and regarded her with a sort of impersonal speculation. A little ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... he declared. "Three times a week for many months I have been drumming the fact into the handful of wooden-headed Englishmen who have deigned to come to our meetings. I have made myself a nuisance to the House of Lords and the Press. It is a terrible thing to realise how hard it is to make an Englishman reflect, so long as he is making money and having a good time.—You ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... there alone in the void, looking not very happy, and looking puzzled, and drumming upon his knee, and staring at the little bent gray woman, who was busied with her children and grandchildren, and had forgotten all about him. "But surely, Lindamira," he hears Steinvor say, "we are not yet in Heaven."—"Ah, my dear mother," replies her ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... of heralding drops, and then a steady, rhythmical drumming on the shake roof. The man smiled, with that ineffable delight in the music which no one really knows but the tiller of ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... 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, ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... hand. When I had thrown yonder stone, I walked quietly down to the Governor's house and looked through the window. The Governor hath the Company's letters, and he and the Council—all save the reprobate Pory—sit there staring at them and drumming with their ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... they would return, and so had patiently waited, crouched in the rock hole, waist deep in water. This, perhaps, did not improve its flavour, but emu meat was worth procuring at the small cost of tainting the water with the taste of clothes. Presently I heard the drumming of the approaching birds, and, cautiously looking up, found them attentively examining the bucket and pannikin, I had left on the rock. They made such a quaint, pretty picture that unless we had really wanted meat, I should not have disturbed ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... this 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 ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... the sitting-room again, where she made a larger fire, and began drying herself. The fire soon flared up the chimney, giving the room an appearance of comfort that was doubled by contrast with the drumming of the storm without, which snapped at the window-panes and breathed into the chimney strange low utterances that seemed to be the prologue to ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... Eggleston began to be nervous. Every now and then he would walk out into the main office, interview one of the clerks as to his knowledge of Phil's whereabouts and return again to his private office, where he occupied himself drumming on the desk with the end of his gold pencil, and watching the clock. The junior had no such misgivings—none of any kind. He had a game of polo that afternoon at three, and was chiefly concerned lest the day's work might intervene. The signing of similar papers had once kept ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... a common, ordinary thing to do," protests Mrs. Garvey. "Drumming! Why, out in Kansas City I remember that the man who played the traps in our Country Club orchestra worked daytimes as a plumber. He was a ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford
... 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 her ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... short time the scouts knew they were in for a real drenching. The patter of the rain came heavier and thicker, until it was drumming on the fir-branches in steady streams. Soon great spots began to fall from the lower branches of the ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... the little letter when Dr. Van Buren, his classmate at the Point, his one intimate since then, and his physician now, entered the room, greeted him curtly, and stood at the window for a moment, drumming his fingers fiercely against the pane. Hamilton knew the symptoms; Van Buren was nervous and worried about something. He dropped the small envelope into his ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... "What?" I queried, still drumming away at my typewriter, copying the list of incendiary fires against the moment when the case should be complete and the story released ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... the window, where he stood looking out, idly drumming his fingers on the pane. How was it possible to break such fearful tidings as that? What a horrible calamity! He wished himself a hundred miles away, yet some one must tell her. At that moment shrill cries arose in the street outside—the familiar, distressing, almost exultant cries ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... haunts defiance; yet so bold in his indignation, he scarcely condescended to ascend beyond their reach. The long-continued, hollow tapping of the large red-headed woodpecker, or the singular subterranean sound caused by the drumming of the partridge striking his wings upon his breast to woo his gentle mate, and the soft whispering note of the little tree-creeper, as it flitted from one hemlock to another, collecting its food between the fissures ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... bringing in Zelter's little tune again and again, and then Zelter in a voice of pretended wrath cried, "Cease that tin-pan drumming and play something ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... slouching away. Presently there came the sound of a furiously galloping horse. The drumming of the hoofbeats died in ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... How is your paper coming out? I read it daily. By the way, you are getting up a report of this grand assembly, I suppose?" Editor—"No. By the way, how is your store coming on? My cook buys a good deal of you. You are here drumming ...
— The Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56, No. 2, January 12, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... Williams was the 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 it came about that, just as Mr. Carmyle was bending towards ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... their mouths get very red. In connection with personal ceremonies upon assumption of the perineal band, admission to the emone (excepting, as regards this, the case of a child of very tender years), qualifying for drumming and dancing, devolution of chieftainship and nose-piercing, the person concerned, male or female, is under the same food restriction for a day prior to that of the ceremony, and as regards nose-piercing this taboo is prior ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... I had suffered from Mrs Beaufort, was very zealous that I should punish her to the utmost rigour of the law, even to drumming her out of the town; but forbearance was my best policy, so I only persuaded my colleagues to order the players to decamp, and to give the Tappit-hen notice, that it would be expedient for the future sale of her pies and porter, at untimeous ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... rose from his chair. With thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat and fingers drumming loudly on his breast he stood over the secretary, ...
— The Human Chord • Algernon Blackwood
... faces of the four men who were gathered around the table. He knew them all. The stocky, grizzle-haired man in the centre was a plain-clothes man from headquarters, named Barlow; at the lower end of the table Reddy Curley and Haines, his partner, faced each other, Curley drumming indifferently with his fingers on the table-top, Haines scowling and chewing his lower lip, a certain coarse brutality in both their faces that was neither pleasant nor inviting; but it was the white-haired ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... blast off?" asked Tom, a note of rising hope in his voice. While the black ship had made it to Ganymede under full power without refueling, the strain might have damaged her seriously. Tom waited patiently for the reply, drumming his fingers on ...
— Treachery in Outer Space • Carey Rockwell and Louis Glanzman
... Omnibuses careered along, every window rattling loudly; drays creaked and strained; non-descript delivery wagons tried to outrattle the omnibuses; horsemen picked their way amid the melee. The din was described as something extraordinary—hoofs drumming, wheels rumbling, oaths and shouts, and from the sidewalk the blare and bray of brass bands before the various auction shops. Newsboys and bootblacks darted in all directions. Cigar boys, a peculiar product ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... one bright evening after an exciting day, during which the prisoners, shut up as they were within the walls of the Emir's so-called palace, had gone through hours of feverish impatience, listening to the trumpeting and drumming outside accompanying the marching of the troops, but knowing nothing of what was going on save that the Egyptian army was approaching. That they had learned through Ibrahim, and it was endorsed by the officer ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... young man approached the back of the shop the general effect became more and more fantastic. On some skylight far overhead he could hear the rain drumming; but otherwise the place was completely silent, peopled only (so it seemed) by the gurgitating whorls of smoke and the bright profile of the essay reader. It seemed like a secret fane, some shrine of curious rites, and the young man's throat was tightened by a stricture which was half ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... in a groping way, to the bed, and stooped over it. Nearly at the same moment there came a scrunching blow; an unnatural shriek, accompanied by a convulsive sound, as of the motion of running, and the arms drumming on the bed, and then another blow—and silence. The diabolical surgery was over. There came a little ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... and from clime to clime, Like the roll of the wheels of the coming of time;— A sound as of cities, and sound as of swords Sharpening, and solemn and terrible words, And laughter as solemn, and thunderous drumming, A tread as if all the world were coming. And then was a lull, and soft voices sweet Call'd into music those terrible feet, Which rising on wings, lo! the earth went round To the burn of their speed with a golden sound; With a golden sound, ...
— Captain Sword and Captain Pen - A Poem • Leigh Hunt
... had broken now into a wild spring storm and the rain was drumming like canister on the roof of Stuart's cottage, so they did not hear the purr of a motor which stopped outside. They were without warning when the door suddenly burst open, and across the bare shoulder ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... their way to the barbarian camp. A strong gale was blowing at the time. Pan Ch'ao ordered ten of the party to take drums and hide behind the enemy's barracks, it being arranged that when they saw flames shoot up, they should begin drumming and yelling with all their might. The rest of his men, armed with bows and crossbows, he posted in ambuscade at the gate of the camp. He then set fire to the place from the windward side, whereupon a deafening noise of drums and shouting arose on the ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... uneasily at each other. Only Grimswitch continued to smile vacantly at the little old man up front, drumming his fingers on the glass table top. When the President's machine-gunning glance caught his eyes, Colihan went white. Does he know ...
— The Success Machine • Henry Slesar
... the grass leading up the mill-race, and on the pond a little scow floated in pond-lilies. All around were chestnut trees, their burrs full of fruit. Across the lane, only a few feet from the house, the ancient mill gave forth a snoring and drumming together as if the spirit of solitude was having a dance all to itself and only breathing hard. Then the crystal water, shooting the old black mill-wheel, fell off it like the beard from Duff Salter's face, and went away in pools ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... haunted Montgomery, and on this day when it seemed that things must culminate or he would go mad, he hastened again down to the Planters' Hotel and was quickly ushered to John Taylor's room. The place was filled with tobacco smoke. An electric ticker was drumming away in one corner, a telephone ringing on the desk, and messenger boys hovered outside the door ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... troops of children and old women, and they beat the drum-taps and the reveille. That fetches the pennies. Then when the New Year is well drummed in the city, they go into the country and drum for meat and porridge. The drumming in of the New ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... placard outside one said, "St. Saviour's chapel. For those who wish to rest and pray." All white marble, this little nook, gleaming softly in the gray half-light. Fanny entered, and sat down. She was quite alone. The roar and crash of the Eighth avenue L, the Amsterdam cars, the motors drumming up Morningside hill, were softened here ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... said, her little hands closing softly over the restless brown one drumming a tattoo on the window-sill, and her golden head drooping so close to Eve's, her curls mingled with her dark locks, "I could never love any one in this world again. I loved once—it was the sweetest, yet the most bitter, experience of my life. The same voice that spoke tender words to me cruelly ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... 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
... the state of affairs when I began to interest myself in the state of Genoa. Seeing the populace in large numbers armed and giving up their work, the National Guard assuming an air of more importance, and constant drumming and parading and reviewing going on, I saw clearly what all this was fast coming to. And on calling on La Palavacini I seriously spoke of the prospects of Genoa, she laughed and called it Buffonata; but as you will see in the ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... the pavement, the high note of the forged steel lock-opener as it hammered the foot-board, the mellow ding-dong of the bell, the creak of the forty-and fifty-foot extensions, the rattle of the iron-shod hooks, the rat-tat-tat of the scaling ladders on the bridge and the muffled drumming of the leather helmets as they ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... nothing further, but called from the open door, "Sukey, Sukey! Suk, Suk, Suk!" A plaintive lowing responded; then the snapping sound of a cow's eager hoofs; the hoarse drumming of the milk in the bucket followed, subduing itself to the soft final murmur of the strippings in the foam. Jane carried the milk to the spring house before she reappeared in the cabin with a cup of it for ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... sight of a village, shall seat themselves under a tree, and send forward a messenger to announce their arrival and state their object. The chief then gives them a ceremonious reception, with abundance of speech-making and drumming. It is no easy matter to get away from these villages, for the chiefs esteem it an honor to have strangers with them. These delays, and the frequent heavy rains, greatly retarded ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... a thousand miles to Vyazma . . . my boy," sighed Brama-Glinsky, drumming on the window-pane. "And what do you want to ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... that the chief of the clerks has left this morning for a holiday, on the ground of his health. He is to be away a month. Now, we all know what waiting for a month means. You deliver me over to the mockery of my enemies, and it is bad enough to be drummed upon one side; drumming on both at once, monsieur, is ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... finish of the president's speech, and Preston's health was drunk amid a scene of the wildest enthusiasm. Cries of "On your pins, Preston!"—"Well bowled, sir!"—"Order!"—"Speak up!" etc., rent the air; while the pounding of fists and drumming of feet were continued until a game leg of one of the forms suddenly gave way, causing a temporary disappearance of half ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... c'est la gloire—au grabat!" said Cigarette, now grinding her pretty teeth. She was in her most revolutionary and reckless mood, drumming the rataplan with her spurred heels, and sitting smoking on the corner of old Miou-Matou's mattress. Miou-Matou, who had acquired that title among the joyeux for his scientific powers of making a tomcat into a stew so divine that you could not tell it from ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... made no reply. His thoughtful air, however, as he stood absently drumming on the window-pane, showed that the mischief-maker had not spoken in vain. By way of striking while the iron was hot, Juechziger continued: 'As I was on my way to your worship's house this morning, I saw the Herr Burgomaster Richzenhayn going to call on the commandant, no doubt meaning to offer ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous
... in the midst of the drumming and piping and chanting and firing of guns and pistols and scampering of horses which constitute a religious festival in Egypt. The last day of the moolid of Abu-l-Hajjaj fell on the 1st January so you came to wish me 'May all the year be good to thee' ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... nevertheless, tolerably well, and for an hour or two was very hardly used and roughly handled by the young MacStingers: who in their childish frolics, did a little damage also to the glazed hat, by sitting in it, two at a time, as in a nest, and drumming on the inside of the crown with their shoes. At length the Captain sorrowfully dismissed them: taking leave of these cherubs with the poignant remorse and grief of a man who was ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... the Mataafa camp, which stood on a high plateau overlooking Apia. Below them the search-lights of the men-of-war moved restlessly about, shining at times with a bewildering brilliancy into their very faces; and from the little war-encompassed capital there rose a distant drumming and bugling as the missionary boy king, unsafe even under the guns of Britain and America, took his precautions against a night attack. After the stillness of Oa there was something confusing in the stir and bustle of Mataafa's big camp—in the constant passing of armed men, the change of ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... hues, of music, and ceaseless hum of human enjoyment! For miles around, the wandering peasants beheld the wide, misty, prismatic circle that overarched the enchanted ground, and heard the silver harmonies and drumming thunders of the orchestras floating over the woods, and filling the void darkness with sounds of unseen festivities. In such a scene all are in good-humor—all wear their best looks. Each finds his appropriate amusement. ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... find out! I shall find out!" was drumming in his temples when the council rose; and, without a word or a backward glance, he was the first to ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... these words I cast aside my pen, and, throwing myself upon the bed, buried my face in the pillow. I could feel the drumming pulses in my ears, and my heart swelled till it was like to burst within my bosom. Though I pressed my hot fingers against my close-shut eyes, I still could see my poor love's white, set face, the great hollows in his bearded cheeks, the ...
— Margaret Tudor - A Romance of Old St. Augustine • Annie T. Colcock
... 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
... like that in this town," he reflected, drumming idly on the table with his pencil. "Who is she? I've seen her there for months, and I ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... she sat forward in the cab drumming idly with her forefingers upon the apron. In a few minutes he came back. His appearance was quite sufficient. He was very pale. The change in him was so ludicrous ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... cleanness. 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 ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... frequently. He drank large quantities of tea, he walked about aimlessly, and when he sat down he did not budge for a long time. He spent some time drumming on the window with his finger-tips quietly. In his listless wanderings round about the table he caught sight of his own face in the looking-glass and that arrested him. The eyes which returned his stare were the most unhappy eyes ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... farmer. 'Ay, it is a pleasant bit. It is pleasant even here, if one had time, with the brook drumming in that black pool, and the green things hanging all about the rocks, and, dear heart, to see the very pebbles! all turned to gold and precious stones! But you have come to that time of life, sir, when, if you will excuse me, you must look to have the rheumatism ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... however, put on Limby's plate, but he kept on drumming as before. At last he drummed the bottom of the mug into the soft pudding, to which it stuck, and by which means it was scattered ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... take his cue immediately. He sat drumming a heavy tattoo on the tabletop, forehead corrugated in a frown of intensive thought. When he did speak it was in a manner ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen
... sure. Don't stop me, old fellow; good-bye,' and Johnnie ran off and up to his room as fast as he could go. He had not been there more than five minutes, when there was a sound of little toddling steps along the passage, and two fat hands came drumming on the door. 'What do you want, baby?' said Johnnie, rising ...
— Holiday Tales • Florence Wilford
... seaman's hospital in Liverpool, that well-known convention of ocean-travel, which is sure at some time or other, to enlist all the talent on board every English steamer in some sort of public appeal. He was not very clear how he came to be on the committee for drumming up talent for the occasion; his distinction seemed to have been conferred by a popular vote in the smoking room, as nearly as he could make out; but here he was, and he was counting upon Miss Claxon to help him out. He said Mrs. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... ship was only a shower, compared with this storm in the tropical jungle. The rain was falling in a solid mass as if poured from a gigantic bucket, while the red lightning blazed without a pause. There was no wind; it was the weight of the water that made the hut tremble—of rain drumming so steadily that even the thunder ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... symbolized something which the thought of war had stirred awake in his heart. He had a hot sense of love and pride and pity all mingled, he felt somehow as if the city were his, and as if an enemy's hand had been stretched out to spoil it. The drumming, the flag-waving, and the noise of bugles were still astir in his imagination, but the river had called something else to life behind their glamour. It did not occur to him to call it love of country, yet ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... He sat silent, drumming a tattoo on his chair-arm with long, strong fingers; and when he resumed his argument, it was with an entire absence of ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... say? My drumming says quite enough. You have known for over a year what I think about it. At the time when Innstetten's letter came, a flash from a clear sky, I was of your opinion. But that was half an eternity ago. Am I to play the grand inquisitor ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... that the lady does not command our favor," declared the spokesman, very pale now and drumming nervously with his fingers on the edge of a blotting pad. "Those of us who have met her are charmed with her manners and appearance, and our only regret is that Providence did not ordain that her birthplace should be on the right side of ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... the 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 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 followed, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... a mighty hour. 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 seek and find Him, In his own ...
— The Englishman and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... imperiously toward the door and turned his back to them. With drooping heads, pale and trembling, MM. de Lepel and de Malsburg left the room. Napoleon stepped to the window, and was vigorously drumming a ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... his caftan, and betook himself—looking, in his shoes and stockings, very like a lean chicken—with his wife, to something resembling a cupboard. Two little Jews lay down on the floor beside the cupboard, like a couple of dogs. But Taras did not sleep; he sat motionless, drumming on the table with his fingers. He kept his pipe in his mouth, and puffed out smoke, which made the Jew sneeze in his sleep and pull his coverlet over his nose. Scarcely was the sky touched with the first faint gleams of dawn than he pushed ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... same story!" said the judge, angrily drumming his fingers on the desk. "You refuse to answer. But even in your own interests you must have the courage to adopt some definite theory. Well, would you have been glad if your son had taken his ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... said M'Iver, drumming with a horn spoon on his knee, and winking and smiling very friendly to the little fellows in a row in the bed, who, all but the oldest, thawed to this humour of the stranger. "It must be a task getting ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... men from town when the storm caught me. You know what I mean—not drumming them out of the city, but merely pursuing them in this general direction. I wonder if by any chance you happened to pass them on ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... however, and hardly to be identified with the sleek, glib fellow who had interviewed Kirkwood in the afternoon. His flabby cheeks were ashen and trembling, and upon the back of his chair the fat white fingers were drumming incessantly an inaudible tattoo ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... injury, this stout woman deemed it prudent to go off into hysterics, and began by uttering a yell that would have put to shame a Comanchee Indian, and did more damage, perhaps, to the nerves of her sensitive hearers than the accident itself. She followed it up by drumming heavily on the ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... for the moment nervously drumming upon the table. He knew that the other was purposely disparaging the property and trying to tempt him into an equal stake; and yet he suffered himself to be tempted. The luck might this time be with him. It were worth while to try it, at least. If he lost, it would be but one more buffet ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... fires kindled by the soldiers as they make their bivouacs blaze up in the gloom, and throw their glares a long way, revealing on the slopes of the hills many suffering ones who have not yet been carried in. The last victorious regiment comes up from the rear, fifing and drumming ere it reaches its resting-place the last bars of "The Downfall ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... 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 him to ...
— The Tale of Pony Twinkleheels • Arthur Scott Bailey
... their drumming, slid to the desk edge, tightened there, and a whiteness crept into his face. Then, with an effort, he jerked himself erect ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... only a thought, that came that day In the midst of the muffled drumming And funeral music and sad display, That I knew was right and becoming Only a thought as the mourning train Moved, column after column, Bearing the dead to the burial plain With ...
— Poems of Power • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... she was bid. The sunlight left the hollow, but stayed bright upon the hills beyond. It was August, but in a treetop somewhere a solitary bird was singing. Nearer the earth the crickets and cicadas began their evening concert, a shrill drumming in the warm, still air. There was a scent of dry grass, a feeling of summer at its full. Dewy freshness, tender green, mist of bloom, and a thousand songs were far away, and yet upon the bench beneath ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... down there?" asked Madame Beattie peremptorily, with the air of drumming him up to some task that would have to be reckoned with in the end. "Come, Jeff, why don't you ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... Owen sat drumming on his desk, lost in thought. "By George, that's a queer case. Her other reason is the real one. I ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... still, the rain pounding down on their plastic headgear, holding rifles ready and straining their ears for some sound other than the drumming of rain. ...
— The Revolt on Venus • Carey Rockwell
... flew away into the wood. That night a drumming noise was heard in the wood. The people were afraid. They could not ...
— Stories the Iroquois Tell Their Children • Mabel Powers
... second of 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 had been educated for the law, but, finding the ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... elation of the bright, clear, bracing air, he whirred his wings in loud defiance. Then, giving fuller vent to this expression of vigor, just as a colt frisks to show how well he feels, he whirred yet more loudly, until, unwittingly, he found himself drumming, and tickled with the discovery of his new power, thumped the air again and again till he filled the near woods with the loud tattoo of the fully grown cock-partridge. His brother and sister heard and looked ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... had elapsed, and the gong of the station dining-room below was adding its raucous clamor to the drumming thunder of the incoming train from Green Butte, when the vice-president concluded his outline sketch of the Red ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... down in the clerk's room. Lord Hartledon went into the other, and stood drumming on the window-pane, as he gazed out upon the ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... Alex rose to his 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 ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs
... family and had been given the Emperor Napoleon's sister in marriage, and had really a very good presence, and wore his fine black hair in curls, and would shortly enter the city in state and would certainly please all the ladies. Meanwhile, the drumming continued in the street, and I went and stood outside the door and watched the French troops marching in, those glorious happy Frenchmen, who marched through the world with songs and shining sabres, the gay firm-set faces of the Grenadiers, the bear-skins, the tricolour cockades, the gleaming bayonets, ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... brooded on it all the week, hearing the rain drumming on the roof outside, smoking countless cigarettes, harassed, balky and beaten. He thought of it now, his hands deep in his pockets, his chest hollowed, his sullen eyes surveying the hill opposite, up which a cable car crawled like a large wet beetle. ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... could not bury her dead. She rode about the veld, she sat by the lake and watched the wild fowl, or at night heard them flighting over her in flocks. She listened to the cooing of the doves, the booming of the bitterns in the reeds, and the drumming of the snipe high in air. She counted the game trekking along the ridge till her mind grew weary. She sought consolation from the breast of Nature and found none; she sought it in the starlit skies, and oh! they were very far away. Death reigned within ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... overhauled; the tale of Topelius and the trade was told in appreciative ears and cemented their acquaintance. Trent's suspicions, thus finally disposed of, were succeeded by a fit of profound thought, during which he sat lethargic and stern, looking at and drumming on the table. ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... head; interruptions worried him, for he lived maddeningly, like a man that has a drumming in his ear. ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... great questions of the game, namely, the price of three dozen counters, and whether, all things considered, it would be better to call the round counters or the oblong half-a-dozen each. Miss Browning, drumming the pack of cards on the table, and quite ready to begin dealing, decided the matter by saying, 'Rounds are sixes, and three dozen counters cost sixpence. Pay up, if you please, and let us begin at once.' Cynthia sate between Roger and ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... neither did she purr. They must have smelt her, though. Anyway, she seemed to be a little island in the mist—the faint, faint, ethereal dew-mist—where nobody walked. You could hear them—a rustle here, a squeak there, a thud somewhere else, a displaced leaf, a cracked twig—this only once—a drumming, a patter, a sniff, a snuffle, a sigh; but they all passed by on the other side, so to say, and gave the silver tabby room to think. Apparently cats are not considered good company in the wild; lonely creatures, they ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... overlooks the road. The child had seated herself at my feet near my table, and was playing softly, drumming on her knees. I was hard at work on my seventeenth chapter, where Protrap Singh, the hero, had just caught Kanchanlata, the heroine, in his arms, and was about to escape with her by the third story window of the castle, when ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... the Carnival's coming, Oh Thomas Moore, The Carnival's coming, Oh Thomas Moore, Masking and humming, Fifing and drumming, Guitarring and strumming, Oh ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... he did he would be hanged, and as he wished to live a little longer he restrained himself. He gave me a scowl, which showed how ready he was for the crime if he could commit it with impunity. On another occasion most vigorous drumming was carried on above our heads, which made speaking and hearing impossible. As after many years spent in Benares I cannot recollect any more violent acts than those I have mentioned, the reader may infer how little reason we have to complain of ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... Valentine's admiration over his breast, and, modestly scratching his elbows, looked at young Thorpe with an expression of utter bewilderment. "Yes! decidedly the most magnificent muscular development I ever remember studying," reiterated Mr. Blyth, drumming with his fingers on the table, and concentrating the whole of his critical acumen in one eye by totally ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... him. For so many nights to come there would be none of it; but ceaselessly the drumming of the engines, quiver of the screw, and wash of the water against the ship's side.—All the same he did not quite like the colour of the moon or that frayed flattened edge of it westward. Why is there always something a trifle ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... dark on all sides of them coolies shouted in high-pitched voices. Heavy rain was falling, drumming on the deck. The odor of wood rubbing against steel persisted. They could see nothing. The world was ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... Scotch airs, in poor settings, and with much stumbling. After a little, Fenwick listened restlessly, his brow frowning, his fingers drumming on the arm of his chair. They were all glad when ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... were in the very thick of the fight, shooting, stabbing, using now the bayonet and again the butts of their rifles as the occasion demanded. There was a red mist before their eyes and their blood was pounding in their veins and drumming in their ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall
... breezes, was his own land still. Under the spell the Occident vanished; it was the Orient—all this dreamy mirage, these dim white walls, this spice-haunted dusk, the water inlaid with stars, the fairy foliage, the dew drumming in the stillness like the ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... that Monmouth had landed the day before at Lyme, a small seaport on the boundary between Dorsetshire and Devonshire. A great beacon blaze upon Portsdown Hill was the first news that we had of it, and then came a rattling and a drumming from Portsmouth, where the troops were assembled under arms. Mounted messengers clattered through the village street with their heads low on their horses' necks, for the great tidings must be carried to London, that the Governor of Portsmouth might ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... thought the whole Army must be marching to the house. I stumbled over everything in the room in my haste to get to one of the little dormer windows, but there was nothing to be seen, as it was still quite dark. The drumming became less loud, and then ceased altogether, when a big gun was fired that must have wasted any amount of powder, for it shook the house and made all the windows rattle. Then three or four bugles played a little air, which it was ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... soft fingers of the snow drumming drowsily against the pane, Richard went to sleep and dreamed of angels, all of whom were ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... years ago. Kinds of game: partridge, quail, squirrels. Partridge drumming. My father went hunting often. How he was injured. Birch brush near hemlock; partridge often found in such localities. Loading the gun. Going to the woods. Why partridge live near birch brush. Fall season. Hunting for partridge allowed from September ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... shearing her eyebrows into a delicate 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
... for blood, Above the wild war-drumming, Let Freedom's voice be heard, with good The evil overcoming. Give prayer and purse To stay the Curse Whose wrong we share, Whose shame we bear, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... the morning of Tuesday, January 25th, as I sat at breakfast with Pawsy in her chair at one end and with Kaiser at the other, drumming on the floor for another bit of bacon, ...
— Track's End • Hayden Carruth
... recurrence, succession, run; battology, tautology; monotony, tautophony; rhythm &c 138; diffuseness, pleonasm, redundancy. chimes, repetend, echo, ritornello^, burden of a song, refrain; rehearsal; rechauffe [Fr.], rifacimento [It], recapitulation. cuckoo &c (imitation) 19; reverberation &c 408; drumming &c (roll) 407; renewal &c (restoration) 660. twice-told tale; old story, old song; second edition, new edition; reappearance, reproduction, recursion [Comp.]; periodicity &c 138. V. repeat, iterate, reiterate, reproduce, echo, reecho, drum, harp upon, battologize^, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... past and prayers for the future lives of every individual present, adapted to their several cases, as far as the elder could guess at them from appearances. This grace might not have ended so soon as it did, had it not been for the somewhat impatient drumming of his knife-handle on the table with which Captain Holdernesse accompanied the latter half of the ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... to lift the lid, but the two padlocks had been refastened to prevent their being lost. She sat down on the chest, and began drumming her feet on the ...
— Under Padlock and Seal • Charles Harold Avery
... well-known convention of ocean-travel, which is sure at some time or other, to enlist all the talent on board every English steamer in some sort of public appeal. He was not very clear how he came to be on the committee for drumming up talent for the occasion; his distinction seemed to have been conferred by a popular vote in the smoking room, as nearly as he could make out; but here he was, and he was counting upon Miss Claxon to help him out. He said Mrs. Milray had told him about ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the glory of its Poet's Corner. Fanny and Matilda sang duets together, Mamma playing the piano, and the other two sisters sitting with their arms round each other's waists and listening affectionately. Nobody saw the poor girls drumming at the duets in private. No one saw Mamma drilling them rigidly hour after hour. In a word, Mrs. Bute put a good face against fortune and kept up appearances in the most ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a holiday wherever General Saxton's proclamation reaches. The chilly sunshine and the pale blue river seems like New England, but those alone. The air is full of noisy drumming, and of gunshots; for the prize-shooting is our great celebration of the day, and the drumming is chronic. My young barbarians are all at play. I look out from the broken windows of this forlorn plantation-house, through avenues of great live-oaks, with their ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... through the woods, and the men at the gun gave a gasp which was meant to be a cheer, and one of them laid hold of Jimmie again, crying: "Portay! Portay!" He dragged out a heavy box and loaded it into Jimmie's arms and carried another himself, and so in a few moments the machine-gun was drumming, and Jimmie went on carrying boxes. The men who were driving the wagon leaped upon the horses and drove away; and still Jimmie carried boxes, blindly, desperately. Was it because he was afraid of the little French demon who was shouting at him? No, not exactly, because when he went back ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... sat on his boxes, whistling to himself and drumming his heels on the platform. The train came up at last, and in he jumped, finding himself and a grave elderly gentleman in joint possession ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... the farmer. "Ay, it is a pleasant bit. It is pleasant even here, if one had time, with the brook drumming in that black pool, and the green things hanging all about the rocks, and, dear heart, to see the very pebbles! all turned to gold and precious stones! But you have come to that time of life, sir, when, if you will excuse me, you must look to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Negroes, Chinamen—people from everywhere. You see a mixture 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 ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... a tiny wooden cross that pricks up through the snow: (Poor Little Moccasins! you're tired, and so you lie at rest.) And there's a grey-haired, weary man beside the campfire glow: (O fiddle mine! the tears to-night are drumming on your breast.) ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... took off his caftan, and betook himself—looking, in his shoes and stockings, very like a lean chicken—with his wife, to something resembling a cupboard. Two little Jews lay down on the floor beside the cupboard, like a couple of dogs. But Taras did not sleep; he sat motionless, drumming on the table with his fingers. He kept his pipe in his mouth, and puffed out smoke, which made the Jew sneeze in his sleep and pull his coverlet over his nose. Scarcely was the sky touched with the first faint gleams of dawn than he pushed Yankel with ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... Mr. Eggleston began to be nervous. Every now and then he would walk out into the main office, interview one of the clerks as to his knowledge of Phil's whereabouts and return again to his private office, where he occupied himself drumming on the desk with the end of his gold pencil, and watching the clock. The junior had no such misgivings—none of any kind. He had a game of polo that afternoon at three, and was chiefly concerned lest the day's work might intervene. The signing ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... killed, wounded, and missing, in the elemental matter of hatred, or, if you choose to give it a milder name, rivalry. These things are of the essence of war, and the manifestations run parallel even in the finer lines. One cock-pheasant finds the drumming of another cock-pheasant a very irritating sound, Chanticleer objects to the note of Chanticleer, and the more articulate human being is rasped by the voice of his neighbor. The Attic did not like the broad Boeotian speech. Parson Evans's ...
— The Creed of the Old South 1865-1915 • Basil L. Gildersleeve
... those days he used to go off every Saturday morning and he wouldn't come back till Monday morning. He'd travel all round the country drumming up students for the school and telling the people to send their children. And on Sunday he'd get the preachers to let him get up in their pulpits and tell the people about the school after they had finished ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... mouths get very red. In connection with personal ceremonies upon assumption of the perineal band, admission to the emone (excepting, as regards this, the case of a child of very tender years), qualifying for drumming and dancing, devolution of chieftainship and nose-piercing, the person concerned, male or female, is under the same food restriction for a day prior to that of the ceremony, and as regards nose-piercing this taboo is prior to the actual piercing, ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... at Tom, then began whistling and drumming his fingers on the desk. He seemed on the point of saying something in this connection, but all he did say was, "You find pleasure and ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... here Bad Pete whirled by them with a swift drumming of his pony's hoofs. In a few moments more he ...
— The Young Engineers in Colorado • H. Irving Hancock
... laboratory. Lagune stared; confronted by a psychic phenomenon beyond his circle of ideas. "Odd!" he said at last, and began to unpack his bag. Ever and again he stopped and stared at Lewisham, who was now sitting in his own place and drumming on the table with ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... make an announcement, just as the prize announcement was made," explained Griffin, drumming impatiently on the table. "You may be too modest to be there, but it can be put through without you, and you will be cleared, don't ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... bracket within reach of his arm as he sat at the wheel, and when the lights at the village faded astern, he lit the lamp, in order to thread a passage by its light through the dark waters. As the noise of shouting, the drumming, and the report of fire-arms died down, other sounds reached their strained hearing—the booming of the Congo bittern, the harsh roar of a bull crocodile, and ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... him who 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
... up to his room, leaving Sidonie and Madame Dobson at the windows of the salon. The music from the neighboring Casino reached their ears, with the "Yo-ho!" of the boatmen and the footsteps of the dancers like a rhythmical, muffled drumming ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... lady does not command our favor," declared the spokesman, very pale now and drumming nervously with his fingers on the edge of a blotting pad. "Those of us who have met her are charmed with her manners and appearance, and our only regret is that Providence did not ordain that her birthplace should be on the ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... be no rules of the road. Omnibuses careered along, every window rattling loudly; drays creaked and strained; non-descript delivery wagons tried to outrattle the omnibuses; horsemen picked their way amid the melee. The din was described as something extraordinary—hoofs drumming, wheels rumbling, oaths and shouts, and from the sidewalk the blare and bray of brass bands before the various auction shops. Newsboys and bootblacks darted in all directions. Cigar boys, a peculiar product of the time, added to the hubbub. ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... one hand in his breeches pocket, and the fingers of the other drumming a disconsolate rub-a-dub upon the window glass of an elegant mansion near Boston Common, is the personage I wish to call your attention to, friend reader, for the space of a few moments. The facts of my story are commonplace, and thereby ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... the seat ahead of Bland. He placed his feet, pulled down his goggles, grasped the wheel and felt himself balanced—poised, with a drumming beat in his throat, a suffocating fulness in his chest. His moment had come, he thought swiftly, as one thinks when facing a sudden, whelming event. The biggest moment in his life—the moment that he had dreamed of—the culmination of all ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... Napoleon's fashion, and I did not dare to look back for fear they should see my moustache. I had turned up the collar of the grey coat so as partly to hide it. Even now if they found out their mistake they might turn and overtake the carriage. But when once we were on the road I could tell by the drumming of their hoofs how far distant they were, and it seemed to me that the sound grew perceptibly louder, as if they were slowly gaining upon me. We were riding now up the stony and rutted lane which led from the ford. ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... yards ahead, "See," said one of my comrades, "she moves!" She did indeed, and in fine style, her front as straight as a string, her reserve regiments in columns doubled on the center, following in true subordination; no braying of brass to apprise the enemy, no fifing and drumming to amuse him; no ostentation of gaudy flags; no nonsense. This ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... out, along the roads the ceaseless wagons clattered; Listened we for an English voice ever, ever in vain; Far in the west, year out, year in, terrible thunders battered, Drumming the doom of whom—of whom? Hope in our hearts lay shattered.... Then we heard the lilt of Highland pipes ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 30, 1919 • Various
... an ignorant Britisher,' he almost shouted. 'You may hear drums any night, but a drumming like that I only once heard before. It was in '79 in the 'Zeti valley. Do you know what happened next day? Cetewayo's impis came over the hills, and in an hour there wasn't a living white soul in the glen. Two men escaped, and one of ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... a distant window at the far end of the hall, whence all the front approaches to the house could be seen, he stood drumming on the glass and fixedly looking out. Sir Wilfrid, with an ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... been drumming on the table all this time, looked uneasy, and muttered, with some little air of compunction: "They have plucked my feathers deucedly, that's a fact. Hang that fellow Stevens, persuading me to keep race-horses; it's all his fault. ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... his way across the room and reached the table that stood between the arm-chairs Miriam and Ford had occupied, he stopped. He stood there, with fingers drumming soundlessly on the polished wood, waiting for some ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... resolved themselves. For, throwing back his head, he gave a laugh: a laugh long, rather loud, but replete with anything in the world save mirth: suggesting strongly, indeed, the savageness of the frown which presently replaced it, when, drumming a scale upon the edge of the table in front of him, he muttered: "Conduct a symphony played by a full concert orchestra without a single rehearsal!—Good Heavens! Nicholas ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... round table in the hall Another Ariadne's Crown Out of the sky hath fallen down; More than one Monarch of the Moon Is drumming with his silver spoon; The light ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... white hand were drumming gently on the top of the desk; then, with a movement so quick and sure that Lanyard himself could hardly have bettered it, they slipped down to a handle of a drawer, jerked it open, closed round the butt of a revolver, and presented it at ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... I hear no martial drumming, But down in the dust at our feet lie the useless crowns of kings; And the mighty spirit of Progress is steadily coming, coming, And the flag of one republic abroad ...
— The Kingdom of Love - and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... cows—a substitute for an anteroom. Arrived there, the negroes at once commenced beating a couple of large drums, half as tall as themselves, made something like a beer-barrel, covered on the top with a cow-skin stretched tightly over, by way of a drum-head. This drumming was an announcement of our arrival, intended as ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... A peculiar 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 ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... way, to the bed, and stooped over it. Nearly at the same moment there came a scrunching blow; an unnatural shriek, accompanied by a convulsive sound, as of the motion of running, and the arms drumming on the bed, and then another blow—and silence. The diabolical surgery was over. There came a little tapping at ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... Small feet drumming the harder ground, she flashed up the last rise and across the yard to the door of that unlighted kitchen. Her hands felt for the latch and failed to find it; then she realized that it was already open—the door—but her knees, all the strength ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... an arm over a rail and drumming with his fingers, "I was raised on round-ups. I don't suppose I've forgotten all about it. You might turn the management over to me for a year or so, and take a trip. Belle needs it, dad. I think I could keep things riding along, ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... Tristram, however, speaks of them as 'very 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 ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... gingerbread-men and "cooky"-cows; while the two girls were nurses, 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 ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... for every one was in a hurry to begin. So the procession was formed at once, Miss Celia taking the lead, escorted by Ben in the post of honor, while the boys and girls paired off behind, arm in arm, bow on Shoulder, in martial array. Thorny and Billy were the band, and marched before, fifing and drumming "Yankee Doodle" with a vigor which kept feet moving briskly, made eyes sparkle, and young hearts dance under the gay gowns and summer jackets. The interesting stranger was elected to bear the prize, laid out on a red pin-cushion; and ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... faces that one 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
... crouched in the cabin and in the forecastle and knew not what to make of such a foray of the elements. At one moment the rain flooded down upon the decks as though a cloud had burst directly above them; then great hailstones fell, drumming on ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... that spot for nearly a generation. He twisted the reins round the whip-socket, and clambering down rang the great bell. It answered to his imperious summons by the hollow clang that betrays an empty house. No one came. He stood without, drumming with his fist on the doorpost. Then he turned to listen. Some one was approaching from the darkness of the trees. But it was only the driver following ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... and they passed over gold and russet leaves strewn deep along the path. A light wind was blowing in the tree-tops, and the leaves were still falling, falling, falling! He saw Cynthia's haggard face in a flame of glowing colours. Through the drumming in his ears, which seemed to come from the clear sky, he heard the ceaseless rustle beneath his feet; and to this day he could not walk along a leaf-strewn road in autumn without seeing again the blur of red-and-gold and the gray ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... under his boots to an arch over his head. They united and spun faster until Dane, watching with dazzled eyes, saw the wheel become a blur of light, hiding Tau within its fiery core. His own wrists ached with the strain of his drumming as he lifted one hand and tried to shield his sight from the glare of that pillar ...
— Voodoo Planet • Andrew North
... little animal were well mimicked: the nose was thrust forward and pulled back, the whole head would emerge and retreat, and at rare times the shoulders would be seen for a moment, to be quickly drawn in among the screening spruce twigs. All these motions were made in perfect time to the singing and drumming. The old man who pulled the actuating strings made no secret of his manipulations. The play was intended for a farce, and as such ...
— The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony • Washington Matthews
... M. Linders, making a grand bow, whilst his companion, having finished dealing, sat puffing away at his cigar, and drumming impatiently with his fingers on the table; "but the hour is rather late; what do you say, Madelon? ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... taste of salt water in her mouth, there was a hideous drumming at her heart. She felt sick and cold from her bewildered brain down to her very feet. When one felt like this— ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... and talked, and the sound of our laughter drowned the cry of the wind in the chimney and the drumming of the rain upon ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... the house. So absorbed were the spectators in the dancing—if dancing it could be called—that they did not perceive our departure. We could hear the shrieks and shouts of laughter and applause, the drumming on tom-toms, and the sound of the horns until a late hour in the night. We had evidence of many barbarous customs of the natives, which I have not mentioned. I do not say that they are more savage, or rather fierce, than people of other parts of the world; indeed, in some respects they ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... yet harder. Good cheer to him who hungry goes, And mirth to her who sorrows, Lend bitter chill to Christmas snows. Small joy care's bondsman borrows. From jollity he may not share, Despair is darkly drumming At his dull breast, whose hearth won't ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 24, 1892 • Various
... of 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 to be an indispensable ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... tricks which many children practice even in families counted well-bred. Such, for example, are drumming with the fingers on some piece of furniture, or humming a tune while others are talking, or interrupting conversation by pertinacious questions, or whistling in the house instead of out-doors, or speaking ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... at the table. Sit firmly in your chair, without lolling, leaning back, drumming, or any other uncouth action. Unfold your napkin and lay it in your lap, eat soup delicately with a spoon, holding a piece of bread in your left hand. Be careful to make no noise in chewing ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... offensive, his noyes and oathes being hearde to the other 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
... drawn by the gentlemen from the river, and music and fireworks wound up the evening of days spent on the Eagle's Nest. Now they had prepared a little fleet to pass over to the Fourth of July celebration, which some queer drumming and fifing, from, the opposite bank, had announced ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... if she never wished to raise her eyes from this chilling consolation. Then, when she thought she had got lid of all the traces of her trouble, she went cautiously to the back music-room. Janey was there, moping alone, drumming on the window-pane with ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... a long time, completely absorbed in the blurred pages of an old newspaper. Presently he arose, and, refolding it,—an operation of great care and delicacy in its tattered condition,—placed it under the blankets of his bed. He resumed his seat by the fire, but soon began drumming with his fingers on the arm of his chair. Eventually this assumed the time and accent of some air. Then he began to whistle softly and hesitatingly, as if trying to recall a forgotten tune. Finally this took shape in a rude resemblance, not unlike that which his flag bore ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... 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 it came about that, just as Mr. Carmyle was bending towards Sally in an access of manly ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... His thoughtful air, however, as he stood absently drumming on the window-pane, showed that the mischief-maker had not spoken in vain. By way of striking while the iron was hot, Juechziger continued: 'As I was on my way to your worship's house this morning, I saw the Herr Burgomaster Richzenhayn ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous
... hands. We consider it "bad form" . . . like scratching in public where you itch! Well, perhaps our decision in this respect has added to the general fun of existence. In life's everyday, one doesn't notice these things, maybe. One has become so habituated to "Father" drumming "Colonel Bogey" on the chair-arm; or "Little Willee" playing "shakes" with two ha'pennies and a pen-knife—that one has ceased to pay any attention to these minor irritations. And, when we are among strangers, we are so busy watching that people don't put their hands into our pockets, ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... 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
... to be your own room," Mrs. Hunter whispered in Elizabeth's ear, and the young girl stole a shy look at her lover, who was drumming on the window and had not heard, and made no reply, but it gave her a sense of possession in the new house which she had very nearly lost ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... cabinet, in a low chair which the Duke had expressly provided for his use, tapping and drumming on his spectacle case, or starting up and smiting himself on the thigh, he would pour out his soul hours long to his one confidential minister. "Ah, my friend, how this sacrament displeases me," he said; "I know not why it is, but my heart tells me that some ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... poor souls more perilously placed; and as we lay there on our oars, praying God the mist might hold, the sweat poured from my brow. Presently we heard one of the boats where we might have thrown a biscuit in her. "Softly, men," we heard an officer whisper; and I marvelled they could not hear the drumming of my heart. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... they make their bivouacs blaze up in the gloom, and throw their glares a long way, revealing on the slopes of the hills many suffering ones who have not yet been carried in. The last victorious regiment comes up from the rear, fifing and drumming ere it reaches its resting-place the last bars of ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... low, plaintive, and not unpleasing character, time being kept by beating one bone or stick upon another. They have besides what may be called a musical instrument—the ibero—a piece of bamboo, three feet in length, which, by blowing into it, is made to produce an interrupted, drumming, monotonous noise. In their ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... sustained no injury, this stout woman deemed it prudent to go off into hysterics, and began by uttering a yell that would have put to shame a Comanchee Indian, and did more damage, perhaps, to the nerves of her sensitive hearers than the accident itself. She followed it up by drumming heavily on the ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... Mr. Parr, slowly, drumming on the table, "you would say that of the new settlement house of St. John's, whereby we hope to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... voice of the rapids had changed its tone now, for a cataract was drumming upon the after-deck and there was a crashing and a smashing as the piles of boxes came tumbling down. The scow drove higher upon the reef, its bow rose until it stood at a sharp incline, and meanwhile wave after wave cut like a broach over the stern, which steadily sank deeper. ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... order, for rude boys were flicking butter-pats across chaos, and McTurk had turned on the fags' tea-urn, so that many were parboiled and wept with an unfeigned dolor. The Fourth and Upper Third broke into the school song, the "Vive la Compagnie," to the accompaniment of drumming knife-handles; and the junior forms shrilled bat-like shrieks and raided one another's victuals. Two hundred and fifty boys in high condition, seeking for more ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... great drumming in Jolly Roger's head, and for a time he failed even to hear Peter yelping at their side, for all the world was drowned in those moments by the breaking sobs in Nada's breath and the wild thrill of her body in his arms; and he saw ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... and swearing, the rude songs and disorderly shouts, the drumming of clenched fists upon the oak tables, the wild laughter of drunken soldiers, the giggling and screeching of bar-maids, and the scolding and imperious commands of the host, they proved that the green bush had not lied, for the wine really did come from ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... her head 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? I don't want to take advantage of your being very ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... wild things whisked and scurried by and were gone before you could even get your eye on the place where the noise was; and where only the earliest birds were turning out and getting to business with a song here and a quarrel yonder and a mysterious far-off hammering and drumming for worms on a tree trunk away somewhere in the impenetrable remotenesses of the woods. And by and by out we would ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... 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
... before daybreak, and my young readers can rest assured that by that time his appetite was decidedly keen. Listening intently, he could hear the grouse drumming in the woods ...
— American Boy's Life of Theodore Roosevelt • Edward Stratemeyer
... the wooden tiers And flung the skins at the passers' ears; Drumming their heels on the planks below, They sang of Dolly of Idaho. Past, like a flash, the first race went. The time drew ...
— Right Royal • John Masefield
... idly drumming on the polished desk, and regarded her with a sort of impersonal speculation. A little smile crept ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... every Englishman possesses, my impressions of this city are certainly anything but respectful. It has an absurd kind of Lilliput look with it. There are soldiers, just as in Paris, better dressed, and doing a vast deal of drumming and bustle; and yet, somehow, far from being frightened at them, I feel inclined to laugh in their faces. There are little Ministers, who work at their little bureaux; and to read the journals, how fierce they are! ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray
... black eyes, looking considerably younger than his years; and on this side the third judge, pale and bald and colourless—a priest who held the degree of Doctor in Physical Science as well as in Theology—he at this instant was drumming gently with a large white hand on the ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
... silent, drumming a tattoo on his chair-arm with long, strong fingers; and when he resumed his argument, it was with an entire absence of ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... and it was all a man could do to keep his station. I put my nose up to my loop-hole to get air, but only once. The machine-gun bullets were simply rattling on our hide. Tock, tock, tock they kept drumming. The first shell that hit us must have been head on and a direct hit. There was a terrific crash, and the old girl shook all over,—seemed to pause a little even. But no harm was done. After that we breathed easier. We hadn't been quite ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... fight him with cannon—or with soap-bubbles," answered De Malfort, lolling back in his chair, tilted at an angle of forty-five, and drumming a gay dance tune with his finger-tips on the table. "'Tis a foolish imbroglio from first to last: and only his lordship and I know how foolish. He came here to provoke a quarrel, and I must indulge him. Come, ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... 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 on ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... fate dealt out to them by their former persecutors and become a tribe of nomads and serfs. But to these Ulster immigrants such a choice was no choice at all. They knew themselves strong men, who had made the most of opportunity despite almost superhuman obstacles. The drumming of their feet along the banks of the Shenandoah, or up the rivers from Charleston, and on through the broad sweep of the Yadkin Valley, was a conquering people's challenge to the Wilderness which lay sleeping like an unready sentinel at the gates ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner
... sizzed and foamed in the pail and the milker, his forehead against the cow's warm pelt, watched it rise on the tin's side. It made a loud drumming which prevented his hearing a hail from the picket fence. The hail came again in ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... paused, drumming on the leather covering of his chair. I waited, hoping he would at least open his door wide enough to give me a ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... an elegant little creature, with large, lustrous black eyes like those of a Deer, a fact which, combined with its large ears, the fawn-coloured back, and the pure white breast, has given it the name of "Deer-mouse." It is noted for drumming with one foot as a call to its mate, and for uttering a succession of squeaks and trills that ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... sometimes, beaver which they had trapped. The camp began to be more lively. In all directions persons could be heard shouting out invitations to feasts. Here a man was lying back on his couch singing and drumming; there a group of young men were holding a war dance; everywhere the people were eating, singing, talking, and joking. As the light faded from the western sky and darkness spread over the camp, the noise and ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... FEDYA. It's drumming in his head.... His stomach's leading him on! [Laughs] Your houour's a happy man. Lie down and go to sleep! What's the use of standing like a scarecrow in the middle of the inn! This isn't ...
— Plays by Chekhov, Second Series • Anton Chekhov
... Sphex, sprawling flat upon the vine leaves, grows dizzy with the heat and frisks for very pleasure; "with its feet it taps rapidly on its resting-place, and thus produces a drumming like that of a shower of rain falling thickly on the leaves." Fabre takes a keen delight in the production of these pictures, at once so exact and lifelike; but we must not therefore suppose that his mind is incapable of the detailed descriptions ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... of the four men who were gathered around the table. He knew them all. The stocky, grizzle-haired man in the centre was a plain-clothes man from headquarters, named Barlow; at the lower end of the table Reddy Curley and Haines, his partner, faced each other, Curley drumming indifferently with his fingers on the table-top, Haines scowling and chewing his lower lip, a certain coarse brutality in both their faces that was neither pleasant nor inviting; but it was the white-haired old man, ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... day, meeting this gentleman "drumming around" our suburb, I had the curiosity to stop and inspect his live freight. In doing so I lighted upon Dicky Chips, as I subsequently christened him: a sturdy little bullfinch, who looked somewhat out of place, and lonesome, amongst his screaming companions from foreign lands. ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... drumming of the automatic: P. Sybarite swung round in time to see one of the plain-clothes men return the fire with several brisk shots, then abruptly drop his revolver, clap a hand to his bosom, wheel about-face, and ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... thing was still possible, the light burned, though distant, feeble, flickering. He had told himself that he despaired; but he had not known what real despair was until this moment, until he sat, as he saw now, among the Dead Sea splendours of his parlour, the fingers of his right hand drumming on the arm of the abbot's chair, his shaggy eyelids ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... sword. See the poor devils of the Prussian Guard! See the sheet-lightning pouring into us from the walls of St. Privat! Look at that fellow with his head bound up, and this one with no head to bind. That's meant for our colonel on the white horse. See him hounding us on to hell! And there's a drummer drumming as though we could hear a single beat! Our very colours were blown to ribbons, you see, and we ourselves to shreds; but the shreds hung together, my young fellow, and so will you and I in our day of battle!" Baumgartner might have known his ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... the folk that looked on, and many fell on their knees and confessed their sins, accusing themselves with groanings and tears; but Hilarius, seized with sudden terror, turned and fled blindly, without thought of direction, his eyes wide, the blood drumming in his ears, a great horror at his heels— a horror that could drive a man from wife and child, that had driven brave Martin to flee against the wind, and all this folk to leave house and home to save that which most men count ...
— The Gathering of Brother Hilarius • Michael Fairless
... were unintelligible in the roaring of guns and floods and hurrahs, and the thumping of the tremendous big drum behind his head—'somewhere in the middle of the earth': he tried to explain the locality of that terrible drumming noise to them, and Vittoria conceived him to be delirious; but he knew that he was sensible; he knew her and Angelo and the mountain-pass, and that he had a cigar-case in his pocket worked in embroidery of crimson, blue, and gold, by the hands of Countess Anna. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... stop me, old fellow; good-bye,' and Johnnie ran off and up to his room as fast as he could go. He had not been there more than five minutes, when there was a sound of little toddling steps along the passage, and two fat hands came drumming on the door. 'What do you want, baby?' said Johnnie, rising ...
— Holiday Tales • Florence Wilford
... would return, and so had patiently waited, crouched in the rock hole, waist deep in water. This, perhaps, did not improve its flavour, but emu meat was worth procuring at the small cost of tainting the water with the taste of clothes. Presently I heard the drumming of the approaching birds, and, cautiously looking up, found them attentively examining the bucket and pannikin, I had left on the rock. They made such a quaint, pretty picture that unless we had really ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... up; the boys came expectantly forward. Even the book-keeper stopped to watch the new-comer as he came rapidly toward the office. Only the head of the house sat unconcernedly at his desk—his long, pale, bony fingers drumming on the port-folio—his hard eyes looking out ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... screamed, ending in a hysterical giggle. Then we heard rhythmic beating on the top of the stand behind the medium. Startling as it was at the beginning, increasing as it did from a slow beat to an incredibly rapid drumming, when the initial shock was over Herbert commenced ...
— Sight Unseen • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... And that very night he stole back again to the clump of evergreens where he had heard Mr. Grouse drumming. ...
— The Tale of Tommy Fox • Arthur Scott Bailey
... 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 after sundown. But I think I ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
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