"Drumming" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the great bell of Tokoji the Zenshu temple, shakes over the town; then come melancholy echoes of drumming from the tiny little temple of Jizo in the street Zaimokucho, near my house, signalling the Buddhist hour of morning prayer. And finally the cries of the earliest itinerant venders begin—'Daikoyai! ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... stood silent, drumming tattoos on the table, not pleased with the turn of the matter, not seeing how to better it. Had we been sure of our suspicions, we would have charged him, pistol or no pistol, trusting that our quickness would prevent his shooting, ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... in our saddles many shots came from the roof—from rifles thrust through the thatch. Upon this we rode across the valley of stones, and men fired at us from the nullah behind the house, and from the hill behind the nullah, as well as from the roof of the house—so many shots that it sounded like a drumming in the hills. Then Sikandar Khan, riding low, said, "This play is not for us alone, but for the rest of the Durro Muts," and I said, "Be quiet. Keep place!" for his place was behind me, and I rode behind Kurban Sahib. But these new bullets will pass through five men arow! ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... smiled, "there is. There are trunks up there full of all manner of things that five generations of Churchills could not bear to burn or give away. Some day when the rain is drumming on the roof and the gutters are spouting and all the birds are tucked away in dripping trees and the world is misty with tears, I'm going up there and just revel in second-hand adventure, dead ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... time in the library one afternoon, the Director and a Swiss Brother sitting by the lamp reading, I standing at one of the tall, narrow windows, drumming on the panes and dreaming. The view was not an inspiring one. There was a long horizontal line of pale yellow sky and another of flat, black land, out of Avhich an occasional poplar raised itself solemnly. ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... 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 dances ...
— 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
... breathless hero, "know me to be Vikram the Great, Raja of Ujjayani, and I bear thee to a man who is amusing himself by drumming to devils ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... Rumford on his back, to lie in bed and let his father do all the chores, with the cows lowing to get to the pasture. With a spring he was on his feet and slipping on his clothes. He was soon on his way to the barn, drumming on the tin pail and whistling as he ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... ten 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 ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... The Ballawhaine was drumming on the edge of the open door. "You are right, young man," he said, "a woman's hysteria is of ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... little yellowhammer Droppeth head in winglet down. Now the rocks rise bleak and barren Through the twilight, gray and still; In the marsh-land now the heron Clappeth close his horny bill. Death-watch now begins his drumming And the fire-fly, going, coming, Weaveth zigzag lines of light,— Lines of zigzag, golden-threaded, Up the marshy valley, shaded O'er and o'er with vapors white. Now the lily, open-hearted, Of her dragon-fly deserted, Swinging on ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... Mrs. Brace was drumming her fingers on the window ledge. The action announced plainly that she had finished with the situation. Mildred put her hand on the knob, pulled the door half-open, ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... been! How much grumbling and insincere laughter at what was not laughable! When he learned that he was to be brought up before the Court, he seemed at once harassed and depressed; he began to sleep badly, stood oftener than ever at the windows, drumming on the panes with his fingers. And he was ashamed to let his wife see that he was worried, ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... a bit. And he didn't like the looks of the gun which Farmer Brown's boy had. He knew that Farmer Brown's boy was hiding there to shoot Reddy Fox, but Drummer was beginning to be afraid that Farmer Brown's boy might guess what all that drumming meant—that it was a warning to Reddy Fox. And if Farmer Brown's boy did guess that, why—why—anyway, on the other side of the tree there was a better place to drum. So Drummer the Woodpecker crept around to the other side of the tree and in a minute was drumming ...
— The Adventures of Reddy Fox • Thornton W. Burgess
... on the performers, and followed us to 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 ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... Polly, and her eyes lightened as she seemed to see it before her. "That's where we used to live, Adela—oh, the sweetest place, you can't think!" Polly's fingers stopped drumming now, and the colour flew up to her cheek; ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... asleep, when suddenly like a shot they, the whole herd, are on their feet and gone—gone off at a more or less furious gallop. All go together. The guard are of course at once all action; the men asleep in camp are waked by the loud drumming of the thousands of hoofs on the hard ground and at once rush for their horses to assist. The stampede must be stopped and there is only one way to do it—to get up to the lead animals and try to swing ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... was sailing over from Ruden and Oie towards Wollin, and several ships passed so close before us that we could see the soldiers standing upon them and the flashing of their arms. Item, we heard the horses neigh and the soldiery laugh. On one ship, too, they were drumming, and on another cattle lowed and sheep bleated. Whilst we yet gazed we saw smoke come out from one of the ships, followed by a great noise, and presently we were aware of the ball bounding over the water, which foamed and splashed on either side, and coming straight towards us. ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... 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 on the tambourine. ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... I 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 till the ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... small rods on the front and back, or on the sides to which the combs are attached, so as to run no risk of loosening them. If the hive when removed from its stand was put upon a stool or table, or something not so solid as the ground, the drumming will cause more motion, and yet be less apt to start any of the combs. These "rappings" which certainly are not of a very "spiritual" character, produce nevertheless, a most decided effect upon the bees: their first impulse is to sally out and wreak their vengeance upon those who have thus rudely ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... thunder of the racing-car. Far above them Tenlow and Collie could see it creeping round a turn in the road. It disappeared in a dip, to reappear almost instantly, gliding swiftly down the long slant toward the valley. The staccato drumming of the exhaust echoed along the hillside. Overland's silk hat shone bravely in the sun. Beside the outlaw was the figure of a woman. Tenlow foresaw complications and ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... the women glittered Their libertine show, their drumming tapped out crowds, The Sabazian Mysteries summoned their mob, Adonis been wept to death on the terraces, As I could hear the last day in the Assembly? For Demostratus—let bad luck befoul him— Was roaring, "We must sail for Sicily," While a woman, throwing herself ...
— Lysistrata • Aristophanes
... can't get good servants?" said his friend, who was drumming on the table and looking ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... dull, drumming beat, a beat that rose, and became a low-pitched hum. Then it quieted to ...
— The Last Evolution • John Wood Campbell
... all that he rose not immediately, for the head of the young man whirled, and little drumming pulses beat in his temples. His heart cried within him like the overword of a song, "Does she hear? Will she care? Will this bring me nearer to her?" So that, in spite of his lord's command, he continued to kneel, till lusty James of Avondale came and caught him ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... think of it, and quickened his pace to catch him up. But Blackie was in great form, humming "Scots wha hae." With head thrown back, staff revolving and chest inflated, he sang himself into a martial ecstasy, and, drumming cheerily on the doors with his fist, strutted along like a band of bagpipers with a clan behind him, until he had played ...
— Better Dead • J. M. Barrie
... amazement. Rolf paid no heed, but went on, bawling and drumming and staring upward into vacant space. After a few minutes Skookum scratched and whined at the shanty door. Rolf rose, took his knife, cut a bunch of hair from Skookum's neck and burned it in the torch, then went on singing ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... 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
... prolonged. For long afterwards he remembered those few minutes. There was a sort of volcanic intensity in the atmosphere. He was acutely conscious of small extraneous things, of the perfume of a great bowl of hyacinths, the ticking of a tiny French clock, the restless drumming of her finger tips upon the arm of her chair. All the time he seemed actually to feel her eyes, commanding, impelling, beseeching him to turn round. He did so at last, and looked her ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... 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 ...
— Voodoo Planet • Andrew North
... 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 ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... notes of the scale. Women, crouching on the ground before this instrument, beat out of it a wailing sound with shaped sticks, while on larger kettle-drums, hung by ropes from a wooden railing at one side, two men accompanied the "piano," an old woman in the background drumming out an independent air of her own on an empty ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... little buckskin was drumming down the night road at a pace that astonished the Easterner. Dobe seemed to be doing his best, yet he could not overtake the buckskin. Behind Bartley the patter of hoofs sounded nearer. Bartley thought he heard Cheyenne call back to him. He leaned forward, but ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... fairly set in, therefore, I sally forth, tightly buttoning my shaggy overcoat, and hoisting my umbrella, the silken dome of which immediately resounds with the heavy drumming of the invisible rain-drops. Pausing on the lowest doorstep, I contrast the warmth and cheerfulness of my deserted fireside with the drear obscurity and chill discomfort into which I am about to plunge. Now come fearful auguries, innumerable as the drops of rain. ...
— Beneath An Umbrella (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... a copper poker, and, while beating on the hand-stove, she laughingly said: "I shall go on tattooing. Now mind if when the drumming ceases, you haven't accomplished your task, you'll have to bear ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... 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 ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... The wind drove the rain before it in glistening gray sheets, the steady drumming of the downpour accompanied the click of meeting ivory balls and the occasional speech of the players. After a time, a deep-belled Mission clock in the hall ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... 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, ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... 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 the planks ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... 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 illusion ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... of hay in a livery stable in Portland. Through the wide, open door he could see the muddy street. Gray water-needles darted incessantly up from the pavement where the straight lines of rain struck. On the roof the rain was drumming a monotone. In his fingers was a crumpled bit of ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... kind letter 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 ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... sound: silence of the grave; the house deathly still. He could hear his own heart drumming; but, from Shaynon's ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... 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 them was called ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... he soon managed to catch Juan, when, holding tightly by the reins, the guide vented his displeasure and took his revenge by thoroughly drumming the poor brute's ribs with a stout stick, after which Tom mounted, and our journey for the next ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... attributed to them in harpsichords more than a hundred and fifty years before, by a bassoon pedal, a card which by a rotatory half-cylinder just impinging upon the strings produced a reedy twang; also by pedals for triangle, cymbals, bells, and tambourine, the last drumming ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various
... Inn grew daily more irksome. There he would sit, in mute despair, drumming the table with his fingers, and biting the quill, whose use he so bitterly contemned. Of winter afternoons he would stare through the leaded window-panes at the gaunt, leafless trees, on whose summits swayed the cawing rooks, until servitude seemed intolerable, and he prayed for ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... 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
... party last night was, as I have said, disguised by firing, drumming, and shouting from the fleet and forts; and, in the deep stillness of the fine night, the booming of the guns, the clamor of the gongs, and the outcries raised from time to time, came on our ears like the spirit of discord ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... far away Melody the Wood Thrush was pouring out his beautiful evening song. Whitefoot stopped to listen. Somehow it made him more unhappy than ever. Melody stopped singing for a few moments. It was just then that Whitefoot heard a faint sound. It was a gentle drumming. Whitefoot pricked up his ears and listened. There it was again. He knew instantly how that sound was made. It was made by dainty little feet beating very fast on an old log. Whitefoot had drummed that way himself many ...
— Whitefoot the Wood Mouse • Thornton W. Burgess
... herself falling, as from a great height. The sensation of giddiness is succeeded by a shock, which almost deprives her of consciousness. It is but the fall, broken by a plunge into water. Then there is a drumming in her ears, a choking in the throat; in short, the sensation ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... her words was unexpected; for several of the crowd, annoyed at the little serious attention they had hitherto received, and worked up to considerable excitement, by the shouting and drumming began to pick up stones and fling them at the house. At first they were merely thrown against the house, then, the spirit of mischief increasing, they were sent with better aim, and one crashed through the window above ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... the window, drumming against the raised sash, and feeling in every fibre the wistful tenderness with which she had spoken ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... were moving swiftly towards the Clubhouse. As they approached, the sound inside grew in volume from a hum of terrified whisperings accented by drumming wings, to a pandemonium of cries ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... Preparations for a war on a considerable scale were clearly taking place. Men mustered daily on the dusty plain with firearms and assegais. Much pombe was drunk; many palavers took place; a constant drumming of gongs and tom-toms disturbed their ears by day and by night. The Englishmen concluded some big marauding expedition was in contemplation. And they were quite right. King Khatsua was about to concentrate his forces for ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... overshadowed by a frayed hat, is of the true Falstaff type. The swollen nose, the thick-lipped mouth, every detail is carried out with the daring of the true artist which characterises all the master's work. Look at him, drumming away as if he wanted to make it known that he himself is one of the most magnificent specimens of the work of the ...
— Rembrandt • Josef Israels
... him to return to his lesson-books. The first voyage to America and all the earlier incidents of the narrative are untrue for the same reason. In place of wandering through Denmark, the Hague, and Sweden, initiating and being initiated, he was drumming through a course at Oxford; in place of pious pilgrimages to the shrine of Socinus, he was preparing to take orders in the English Church, and the narrative which is untrue to his early is untrue also to his later life. After receiving Holy Orders ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... senseless humming and drumming, old Adam, and come to the window ere thou hast drenched thy senses in the pint-pot there. See here comes a merry minstrel with his crowd, and a wench with him, that dances with bells at her ankles; and see, the ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... sound of all gath'rings from pole to pole, From pole unto pole, 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
... 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 misfortune is to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... that, until now—to-night-she had not definitely formulated these ambitions. The idea of the banner with its inscription had come as an inspiration. He did not answer, but sat regarding her, drumming on the cloth with his strong, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... had been too absorbed in his drumming to notice the small quantity of flour which had been left in the basket. It was shaken out with each beat of the drum-sticks, and now lay thick on the velvet cover of the chair. Joseph got a whipping for his thoughtlessness, but that was nothing uncommon ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... one been on some craft three hundred miles farther on in the direct course of the Kittlewake, he might have caught the thunderous drumming of two powerful Liberty motors. He might also have seen a spot of light playing constantly upon the black waters. While this light was constant, it moved rapidly forward in a wide circle. The circle was never the same in size ...
— Curlie Carson Listens In • Roy J. Snell
... at the lawyer to see what effect her words were having, but to her great disappointment the judge was apparently paying not the slightest attention. He was gazing out of the window and drumming his fingers absent-mindedly on the desk. Utterly ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... choose. I will 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, Lady ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... hands, had turned round and was walking away down the 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 ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... making uncanny noises in the underbrush. One of my recollections of the railway woods at St. Augustine is of a cricket, or locust, or something else,—I never saw it,—that amused me often with a formless rattling or drumming sound. I could think of nothing but a boy's first lesson upon the bones, the rhythm of the beats was so comically mistimed ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... him under the trees while he gathered and ate the choicest fruits. This went on all day, and even at night, when I threw myself down half dead with weariness, the terrible old man held on tight to my neck, nor did he fail to greet the first glimmer of morning light by drumming upon me with his heels, until I perforce awoke and resumed my dreary march with rage and ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... patter on the leaves of the brake. Faster and faster came the drumming of the long rods of rain. But Rabbit was not afraid, because the rain fell in accordance with a rhythm which was very familiar to him. And besides the rain did not strike him for it had not yet been able to pierce the thick vault of green above him. A single drop only ...
— Romance of the Rabbit • Francis Jammes
... be courteous was offset by an impatient drumming of his fingers on the desk and the drawing ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... looked and lived, what he did, what he said." Instead of which, nothing but "a dull, sulky, snuffling, droning, interminable lecture on Atheistic Philosophy," delivered with the vehemence of some pulpit-drumming Gowkthrapple, or "precious Mr. Jabesh Rentowel." Naigeon belonged to the too numerous class of men and women overabundantly endowed with unwise intellect. He was acute, diligent, and tenacious; fond of books, especially ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... the Carnival's coming, Oh Thomas Moore, The Carnival's coming, Oh Thomas Moore, Masking and humming, Fifing and drumming, Guitarring ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... table with his big hand. The surface of the table was covered with powdered chalk that the baronet had dusted over it in the hope of developing criminal finger prints. Now under the drumming of his palm the particles of white dust whirled ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... given up the attempt to stop his visitor, leans on the mantle piece of the fireplace. While drumming on the marble slab with his right hand, something behind the screen seems to excite his curiosity. He investigates, then suddenly reaches out and draws a piano teacher forward, dressed in gray. Holding her by the collar, with outstretched arm, he ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... and soon set them all at their ease. He sat down in the seat of honour, drumming with his fingers on the table, and talking easily as if quite at home. One of the girls had been in service for a while in a Consul's family in the town, and knew the ways of gentlefolk, and she fetched a bowl of milk and offered ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... joyful at the meeting, but after the first unwelcome surprise she reflected that it was scarcely strange that a link in her past life should turn up here, for she knew that in the very nature of things a firm manufacturing agricultural implements would have its men drumming up trade on the very edge ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... this that Joel, drumming with his heels on the dashboard, got tired out, and shouted, "Hurry up and get in—th' stage-coach's goin'!" which had the desired effect, to make the passenger skip in much livelier ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... 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 ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... music enough we had to cheer us on our way. We did not hear the howl of a monkey, nor the yell of a tiger-cat, common enough on the mountains which lay in front of us; but of harping, fiddling, humming, drumming, croaking, clacking, snoring, screaming, hooting, from cicadas, toads, birds, and what not, there was a concert at every step, which made the glens ring again, as the Brocken might ring ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... one That listens near a torrent mountain-brook, All thro' the crash of the near cataract hears The drumming thunder of the huger fall At distance, were the soldiers wont to hear His voice in battle, and be kindled ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... the signals is still less, as it is only the figures that require indication: but to make these indications it is necessary to execute a sort of pantomime, according to certain authors, such as blowing the nose, coughing, drumming on the table, sneezing, &c. Such evolutions, however, are totally unworthy of your modern Greek, and would soon be denounced as gross fraud. The signals which he employs are only ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... occurred to Margaret at once, so she waited, gently drumming on the closed book with her ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... to the honey-bee, Flying now so merrily Here and there with busy hum— Humming, drumming, drumming, drum. Never idle, never still, Humming, ...
— Chambers's Elementary Science Readers - Book I • Various
... head, drumming on the ground with the crippled foreleg; from time to time the unfortunate animal shivered as with a violent chill. Old Man Curry knelt in the mud, but rose almost immediately; one glance at the broken leg was enough. He looked at ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... The drumming increased as she fell, a low-frequency, high-energy sine wave that shook the ship more violently than had the out-of-phase beat that had pummeled the ship ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... in the cafe, facing the beautiful Place Stanislas, we were disturbed by a strange and curious drumming sound. Going out into the square, we saw an aeroplane, or rather its lights, red and green, like those of a ship. It was the first of several, the night patrol, rising slowly and steadily, and then sweeping off in a wide curve toward the enemy's line. They were the sentries of the air which ...
— They Shall Not Pass • Frank H. Simonds
... into the wood. That night a drumming noise was heard in the wood. The people were afraid. They could not sleep, ...
— Stories the Iroquois Tell Their Children • Mabel Powers
... to sing, drumming his long foot idly on a stone block in the sidewalk till it wobbled up and down in time to ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... haunting eyes that gleamed, all added to the strange and weird impressiveness of the man as he stood before Aldous. And when he spoke, his voice had in it the deep, low, cavernous note of a partridge's drumming. ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... 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 ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... drummer's apprehension, Mr. Mompesson's family were sadly annoyed by violent knocking and drumming—at times apparently in the house, and at other times seemingly on the house-top. This disturbance continued for weeks without much change, but then the annoyance became unbearable. An offensive smell pervaded the house; boards danced through rooms and passages by day; ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... commented. "Very interesting, indeed!" He glanced towards the communicator, then returned his gaze to Telzey, drumming his fingers lightly ...
— Novice • James H. Schmitz
... Max; and the next minute he went to the door, where Kenneth was performing some kind of festive dance to the accompaniment of a liberal drumming with his ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... pitched a good deal going into shell holes, 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 ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... the idea of an indiscriminate amalgamation of the white and black races; and Judge Douglas evidently is basing his chief hope upon the chances of his being able to appropriate the benefit of this disgust to himself. If he can by much drumming and repeating fasten the odium of that idea upon his adversaries, he thinks he can struggle through the storm. He therefore clings to this hope as a drowning man to the last plank. He makes an occasion for lugging it ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... of in the village. The day after their arrival passed but heavily. The natives showed but little curiosity as to the newcomers, although these must have been far more strange to them than to the people nearer the coast. Still no women or children made their appearance. Towards evening a great drumming ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... as if he did not know how to look; and, after drumming on the table for some seconds, said, "Colambre, I told you how it would be: that's a ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... out this morning on the old drill-ground to witness a somewhat sad and novel scene, namely, the branding and drumming out of service of two deserters from Company K. The command was formed into a hollow square, facing inward. Upon the arrival of the blacksmith's forge, the deserters were partially stripped of their clothing, irons were heated, and the letter "D" was burnt upon ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... by the sounds of fife and drum that became louder and louder, until finally I 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, ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... cried, drumming his hands upon his breast. 'You don't suppose I fear your miserable pellets, do you? Oh, you imagine you will take me alive! I'll soon knock that idea out ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... who were at length consulted said, after long drumming and powwowing and the consuming of much tea and tobacco, at the expense of his relatives, that the spirits of the forests and rivers were calling to him to fast and suffer, and prepare to become a great medicine man; ...
— Oowikapun - How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... chanced to be about the outbreak of the Crimean War, and they were "drumming up" for the army. There were recruiting sergeants to be met with at every turn. It is said that even a worm will turn when trodden on, and it did not require much of the sergeant's persuasive oratory to induce ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... good," answers 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? Will you go ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... been broached, it was anything to avoid the main topic. He drummed with his fingers on the table, ceased drumming and sighed heavily. "Yes, I was speaking of Adair. I don't understand him. I've grown out of touch; I don't seem to understand anybody. I'm left behind, somehow. People do things to-day that they never used to do. They shout about things from the house-tops which all my life I've mentioned ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... the rear with his mighty umbrella and an unsuspected rhinoceros-hide whip. The tent boys and the cook scattered along the flank anywhere, as befitted the free and independent who had nothing to do with the serious business of marching. A measured sound of drumming followed the beating of loads with a hundred sticks; a wild, weird chanting burst from the ranks and died down again as one or another individual or group felt moved to song. One lot had a formal chant and response. Their leader, in a ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... felt their coming, The birds like couriers flew, And the banners brightly blooming The slaves by thousands drew, And they marched beside the drumming, And they joined the armies blue. The cocks crowed from the cannon (Pets named from Grant and Lee), Plumed fighters and campaigners In the marching to the sea: It was glorious glad marching, For every man ...
— Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War • Herman Melville
... que 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 rabbit, being laid up with ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... little doubt that we were on some marauding expedition. Now and then we stopped, apparently that our leader might listen to ascertain whether any enemy was near, when from the forest there came forth shrill whistles, chirrups, unearthly cries, drumming noises, such as make one of these Indian forests apparently more full of life during the night than when the sun sheds his beams over the scene. Now we glided away more towards the centre of the river, which was as smooth as polished glass, and reflected, wherever the trees left an opening, ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... she's timid," broke in the good woman, eagerly. "And she's had enough to make her so! What with policemen drumming her up at night, and innocent-looking girls and boys luring her into corners to tell them what she saw in that grand house where the murder took place, she's grown that feared of her shadow you can hardly get her out after sundown. But I think I can get her here; and if you mean her no harm, ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... bids him flout the Law he makes, That bids him make the Law he flouts, Till, dazed by many doubts, he wakes The drumming guns that—have no doubts; ...
— The Seven Seas • Rudyard Kipling
... had no drum. Neither had he any scientific knowledge of the instrument. He was ambitious of entering upon his novel occupation, and was elated to learn, the next morning, that he was to begin his acquaintance with the noble art of drumming that very day. ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... silent. Dyke's challenge was unanswerable. There was a lapse in their talk, Presley drumming on the arm of the seat, meditating on this injustice; Dyke looking off over the fields beyond the town, his frown lowering, his teeth rasping upon his pipestem. The station agent came to the door of the depot, stretching and yawning. On ahead of the engine, the empty rails of the track, reaching ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... time he had set foot there. So great was his luck at the time, that he had not been forced to go ashore in the usual way drumming up cargo. The shippers had come off begging him to become their carrier, and he had muleted them in heavy freights accordingly. So he stepped into the town with many of the feelings of a conqueror, and demanded to be led to the office ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... eyes and tried to sleep, but the drumming of the train was in her ears perpetually, and she could not forget it. Present also was the consciousness of her husband's quiet watchfulness. Though he held aloof from her, his care surrounded her unceasingly. Not once had she felt it relax since she had placed herself in his ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... the rivulet amongst the rocks and stones. Then I jumped, for a peculiar cry arose from the forest behind us, and this seemed to be the signal for an outburst of sounds new to me, piping, thrumming, drumming, shrieking, howling, grunting in every variety, and I turned to look in Uncle Dick's face, which was lit up by the glow from our ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn
... He came forward, drumming his chest with his fists: "Me! Me! I found the notes, did I, and kept them for myself? You dare ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... necessity in future life, when she grew up, of always having the price of her fare ready before it was wanted, to prevent unnecessary delay. Having delivered himself of this good advice, he began to hum, keeping time by drumming with his thick Malacca cane. He was still proceeding with this amusement—producing some of the most acutely unmusical sounds I ever heard—when the omnibus stopped to give admission to two ladies. The first who got in was an ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... 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 ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... 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 ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... indefinable something,—whether it lay in the carriage of her head, which impressed one as both spirited and independent, or in an equally certain but less tangible air of self-confidence and reliance,—to set Mad Maitland's pulses drumming with excitement. For, unless indeed he labored gravely under a misapprehension, he was observing her for the second time within the ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... when behold, the Tailor pushed through the people, and shouted to the executioner, "Hold! Hold! It was I and none else killed the Hunchback; and this was the fashion thereof. I had been out a pleasuring yesterday and, coming back to supper, fell in with this Gobbo, who was drunk and drumming away and singing lustily to his tambourine. So I accosted him and carried him to my house and bought a fish, and we sat down to eat. Presently my wife took a fid of fish and, making a gobbet of it,[FN510] crammed it into his mouth; but some of ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... 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 ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... 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. ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... theirs up to my colored servant, who also cut from their coats every insignia of rank. Then, after there had been read to the command an order from army headquarters dismissing the four from the service, the scene was brought to a close by drumming the cowards out of camp. It was a mortifying spectacle, but from that day no officer in that division ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... 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 ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... This he did in a manner which indicated that he was master of a good deal of technique. Then he began to play; and such playing! I stopped talking to listen. It was music of a kind I had never heard before. It was music that demanded physical response, patting of the feet, drumming of the fingers, or nodding of the head in time with the beat. The barbaric harmonies, the audacious resolutions, often consisting of an abrupt jump from one key to another, the intricate rhythms in which the ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... sat drumming on his desk, apparently gazing at Roland; in reality thinking. To hear that Mr. Roland Yorke had taken French leave for nearly a whole afternoon, just on the especial afternoon that he ought not to have taken ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... more than that. He waited for her to resume. At a loss, she sat in silence awhile, a pucker on her white brow, her fingers nervously drumming on the table. At last she flung herself headlong against the impassive, polished ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... fantastic costumes, which, originating in the reign of Charles II, among working artisans of London, has been joined successively by the dead of past centuries in unbroken retrogression until now it embraces all the generations of man on the hither side of Adam and is drumming up distinguished recruits among the pre-Creational inhabitants of Chaos and Formless Void. The order was founded at different times by Charlemagne, Julius Caesar, Cyrus, Solomon, Zoroaster, Confucious, Thothmes, and Buddha. Its emblems and symbols have ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... with tiny tracks and figured with light and shadow. Trove stopped a moment, looking up at the forest roof. They could hear a baying of hounds in the far valley. Down the dingle near them a dead leaf was drumming on a bough—a clock of the wood telling the flight of seconds. Above, they could hear the low creak of brace and rafter and great waves of the upper deep sweeping over and breaking with a loud wash on reefs of evergreen. The little people of this odd winter land had begun to make roads ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller |
