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Rattling   /rˈætlɪŋ/  /rˈætəlɪŋ/   Listen
Rattling

noun
1.
A rapid series of short loud sounds (as might be heard with a stethoscope in some types of respiratory disorders).  Synonyms: rale, rattle.



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"Rattling" Quotes from Famous Books



... Fudge! The train was rattling through the yards. Another page crackled. Ha! Here was that unknown gentleman-thief again, up to his old tricks. It is remarkable how difficult it is to catch a thief who has good looks and shrewd brains. I had already written him down as a quasi-swell. ...
— Hearts and Masks • Harold MacGrath

... Hi, Bob!" and with a savage slash of the whip, an exciting cry, a terrible reeling and rattling, they did do it; for Bob cleared the track at a breakneck pace, just in time for the train to sweep swiftly ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott

... the radiant gloom of the tunnel, confused and frightened. The giant's voice roared, reverberating around us. Anger. A note of fear. Finally stark terror. He heaved, but the rocks of the opening held solid. Then there was a crack, a gruesome rattling, splintering—his shoulder bones breaking. His whole gigantic body gave a last convulsive lunge, and he emitted a deafening shrill ...
— Beyond the Vanishing Point • Raymond King Cummings

... the faithful horse increased his speed to a gallop and went along thus for miles, his trace-chains rattling an accompaniment to his hoof-falls as he followed the ...
— Buffalo Bill's Spy Trailer - The Stranger in Camp • Colonel Prentiss Ingraham

... away through the dark cold night with the noise of the rattling train ever in their ears. Though there had been a railway running close by Nuremberg now for many years, Linda was not herself so well accustomed to travelling as will probably be most of those who will read this ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope

... stood leaning upon the spade, looking into the open grave, forgetful of everything above the earth. I thought to approach him unheard and unseen; but it was willed otherwise, for I stepped upon some of the crispy earth thrown out, and set the stones to rattling in a very rude sort of way. He turned quickly ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... 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 march on the rattling panes. ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach

... the storm beat at the lone house in the mountain pass, rattling at doors and windows, whistling down the chimney, shaking the building with its fierce gusts. The rain ceased only briefly when the cold congealed it into a flurry of beating hail stones; thereafter came the rain ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory

... She spread the rattling paper out on the table, and with difficulty spelled out the scrawl written with pencil and evidently in much haste. The message ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown

... ready for action; a fact as creditable to their own activity and bravery, as to the skill and energy of their officers. The battle soon became general, and was maintained on both sides with signal and even desperate valor. The Indians advanced or retreated by the aid of a rattling noise, made with deer hoofs, and persevered in their treacherous attack with an apparent determination to conquer or die on the spot. The battle raged with unabated fury and mutual slaughter until daylight, when a gallant and successful charge ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,

... engine to work in a few seconds, but already the flames had rushed into the lower rooms and passages and licked away the windows. The thick stream of water had just begun to descend on the fire, when another engine came rattling to the field, and its brazen-headed warriors leaped ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne

... banner, and oh, boy, that kid did look funny, holding it up. He was scowling as if he thought he could frighten buildings out of the way. The stuff he had inside of his patented megaphone kept rattling and he sounded like a junk dealers' convention as he ...
— Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... cried Billy. They both hung over the rustic palings and heard bits of Chopin's Military Polonaise, interrupted by laughter and the rattling of crockery. ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker

... diamond rings, now too large for the shrivelled fingers, fell on to the counterpane. A little later her wig fell off, and for an instant her head was bald. Her forehead was perspiring; her breath was rattling in her chest. At last ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine

... directly responsible for all cosmic phenomena. Thus thunder to these American children was God groaning or kicking or rolling barrels about, or turning a big handle, or grinding snow, or breaking something, or rattling a big hammer; while the lightning is due to God putting his finger out, or turning the gas on quick, or striking matches, or setting paper on fire. According to Boston children, God is a big, perhaps ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis

... by the clamor of a troop of dogs of all sorts and sizes, "mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound, and curs of lower degree," that disturbed by the ring of the porter's bell and the rattling of the chaise, came ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving

... words the knights rushed toward the unhappy Zbyszko; but they were stopped by a threatening nod from the king who began to shout in an angry voice, similar to the rattling of a carriage rolling over ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... by high grass, bearing the appearance and having the even depth of a canal. An easy, monotonous paddle through these broad meadows brought us to the head of the first rapids, the scene of our two days' upward struggle. These rapids extend about twelve miles as the river runs, alternating between rattling, rocky plunges and swift, smooth water, for the most part through a densely-wooded ravine cleft through low but abrupt hills, and as lonely and cheerless as the heart of Africa. The solitude is of that sort which takes hold upon the very soul and weaves about it hues ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various

... was a funny belief, at school, that Aldy Uthwart had no feeling and was incapable of tears. They never came to him certainly, when, at nights for the most part, the very touch of home, so soft, yet so indifferent to him, reached him, with a sudden opulent rush of garden perfumes; came at the rattling of the window-pane in the wind, with anything that expressed distance from the bare white walls around him here. He thrust it from him brusquely, being of a practical turn, and, though somewhat sensuous, wholly without sentimentality. There is something however in the ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... engaged itself with the axle, wound itself round and round and started pulling me down. When I awoke it had a grip on me and every moment I was being drawn closer to the wheel. I yelled to the driver to stop the horse, but the rattling and rumble of the limber and the gun carriage drowned my call; neither he nor the Sergeant heard me. Numb with cold, absolutely helpless, my head almost down to the wheel, I gave one more yell for dear life. The Sergeant suddenly and providentially woke up; he ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant

... similarity of character, the echo (but a stifled and dull one certainly) of the very cracking and ripping sound which Sir Launcelot had so particularly described. It was, beyond doubt, the coincidence alone which had arrested my attention; for, amid the rattling of the sashes of the casements, and the ordinary commingled noises of the still increasing storm, the sound, in itself, had nothing, surely, which should have interested or disturbed me. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... the master machine and pressed a button. Instantly, the hundreds of dangling arms telescoped out, each to a button bank where a moment before a prolat had labored. And, with a weird simulation of life, the ten forked ends of each arm commenced a rattling pressing of the buttons. Rapidly, purposefully, the metallic fingers moved over the key-boards, and on the screens we could see that the machines all over the world were continuing on their even course. Not the slightest ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various

... formed from roots, adjectives, also appellatives, and abstracts, of which the Dak. has many relics: I E stag, Teut stak strike beat; Dak staka beaten, broken; Slav. Teut kak sound; Dak kaka rattling; I E pu stink, rot; Min pua stinking, rotten; Eu sap understand; Lat ...
— The Dakotan Languages, and Their Relations to Other Languages • Andrew Woods Williamson

... on his way he stepped into the road and solemnly danced three steps of a hornpipe, and the next instant started on a run toward the village. He got little Simon's horse and buggy, drove into the upper street and picked up the sheriff, and then trotted at a good rattling pace around by ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger

... a coach drive up, and questions asked below. "A gent with an elderly wife, sir," was returned from the bureau. And the wheels went rattling on, and free at last from public ken We washed all off in her chamber and restored her ...
— Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with - Miscellaneous Pieces • Thomas Hardy

... charging up and down an abandoned battle-field, rattling the bleaching bones of a dead and gone enemy - for ...
— Confiscation, An Outline • William Greenwood

... be that these interruptions disturbed the actuality of Bim's festivities, or it may be that the rattling of the rain upon the window panes diverted his attention. Once he broke into a chuckle. "Isn't they banging on the window, Lucy?" he said, but she was, it appeared, too deeply engaged to answer him. He found that, in a moment of abstraction, he had eaten the whole of the sponge ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole

... that ensued—a silence so profound that we could hear the horses in the distant stable-yard rattling their harness—one of the younger "Excelsior" boys burst into a hysteric laugh, but the fierce eye of Yuba Bill was down upon him, and seemed to instantly stiffen him into a silent, grinning mask. The young girl, ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... powers, vehemently talking of other things, and, with burning cheeks and shining eyes, moving incessantly from one employment to another; now her needle, now her pencil—roaming round the garden gathering flowers, or playing rattling polkas that half stunned Ethel in her intense listening for tidings. Ethel, who had relieved guard and sent Mary home in the afternoon, had vainly striven to make Ave rest or take food; the attempt ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the glorious execution of Louis the Sixteenth, and renews his oath of detestation of kings, a grand ball of course will be given on the occasion. Then what a hurly-burly! what a crowding! what a glare of a thousand flambeaux in the square! what a clamor of footmen contending at the door! what a rattling of a thousand coaches of duchesses, countesses, and Lady Marys, choking the way, and overturning each other, in a struggle who should be first to pay her court to the Citoyenne, the spouse of the twenty-first husband, he the husband of the thirty-first wife, and to hail ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... way to school Ruth passes another wagon. Rattling and clattering, she hears the butcher's wagon come down the street. "Is there anything in that wagon for us?" asks Ruth. And her mother answers, "Yes, a little chicken." Then rattling and clattering off to Ruth's house goes the ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell

... canoe, which Paul had hauled upon the shore, a sharp, rattling clap of thunder peeled above her head. This was preceded an instant before by a dazzling blue and golden flash that all but blinded the band of wanderers. Another and another flash, followed by their thunderbolts, in quick succession shattered a solid rock over which they had just passed. ...
— Young Lion of the Woods - A Story of Early Colonial Days • Thomas Barlow Smith

... bright ghostliness over all things. It changed the starless sky about it to an extraordinary deep blue, the profoundest color in the world, such as I have never seen before or since. I remember, too, that as I peered from the train that was rattling me along to Monkshampton, I perceived and was puzzled by a coppery red light that mingled with all the shadows that were cast ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells

... ship's port side and board her on the starboard, pretending to come from ocean's depths; and shave the novices with a rusty hoop and dab a soapy brush in their mouths. But champagne popped, the sexes flirted, and the sailors span fathomless yarns, and danced rattling hornpipes, fiddled to by the grave Fullalove. " If there is a thing I can dew, it's fiddle," said he. He and his friend, as he systematically called Vespasian, taught the crew Yankee steps, and ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... sounds died away upon the breeze, the sun arose; the morning gun of the camp responded to the echoes of that from the fleet; the rattling of the marine sentries' muskets, discharged immediately after; the roll of drums, and the blast of trumpets, proclaimed that man had started from his couch, to toil or idle through another day. The smoke soon curled in thin ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo

... were discharged from a point about a hundred yards away, the exploding powder making red dots in the darkness, the bullets rattling on the stone cliff or sending up little spurts of water from the river. The volley was followed by a shrill, fierce war whoop, and then nothing was heard but the flowing of the river and the rushing of ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler

... when the worthy farmer, after a brief apology, sat down with us, and the strong black tea and rich cream were duly amalgamated, what a breakfast we did make! There was not much conversation; but such a hissing and frizzling of ham upon the gridiron, such a crumping of toast and rattling of knives, forks, cups and saucers, surely five people seldom made. We were hungry enough; and our hospitable entertainers were so pressing in their attentions, that we caught ourselves eating plum-cake with broiled ham, honey with fresh-laid ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various

... the lieutenant's horse stumbled and fell on his knees; then a rattling in his throat was heard and he lay down to die. He had received in the chest the bullet of D'Artagnan's first adversary. D'Artagnan swore loud enough to ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... divergence the road to Kiachta ascends the valley of the Selenga, while that to Irkutsk descends the left bank of the stream. I found the Kiachta route rougher than any part of the way from Chetah to Verkne Udinsk, and as the yemshick took us at a rattling pace we ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox

... been idle a long time, and had just poured out his last glassful of wine with as complete an appearance of satisfaction as is ever to be found in an elderly gentleman of a fresh complexion who has got to the end of a bottle, when a rattling of wheels came up the narrow street, and rumbled into ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens

... and blue, sweeping waves of cavalry, horse batteries rattling and bounding—down they came on to our crumbling ranks. It was over. A yell of agony, the agony of brave men who see no hope, rose from one flank to the other, and in an instant the whole of that noble army was swept in a wild, terror-stricken crowd from the field. Even now, dear ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle

... knew it would be in vain, for the menials had surrounded them; and he was conveyed to the kitchen until he should be ready for the important duties he had to perform. To-morrow was appointed for the trial, but fearful was the night that intervened—rattling of chains, falling of heavy weights, loud rumblings, as though a coach-and-six were driving about the premises; these, intermingled with shrieks and howlings, were not confined to the old room, where the beggar lodged ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... Seemed they to follow or guide the revel of frenzied Bacchantes. Single notes were then heard, in sorrowful, low lamentation; Till, having gathered them all, he flung them abroad in derision, As when, after a storm, a gust of wind through the tree-tops Shakes down the rattling rain in a crystal shower on the branches. With such a prelude as this, and hearts that throbbed with emotion, Slowly they entered the Teche, where it flows through the green Opelousas, And through the amber air, above the crest of the woodland, Saw the column of smoke that arose from a neighboring ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... fierce the hero o'er the threshold strode; Stript of his rags, he blazed out like a god. Full in their face the lifted bow he bore, And quiver'd deaths, a formidable store; Before his feet the rattling shower he threw, And thus, terrific, to the suitor-crew: "One venturous game this hand hath won to-day; Another, princes! yet remains to play: Another mark our arrow must attain. Phoebus, assist! nor be the labor vain." Swift as the word the parting arrow sings; And bears thy fate, Antinous, on ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber

... a female coolie eagerly, the glass bangles on her arm rattling as she raised her hand to draw her sari over her face when she thus addressed men. "Is he Krishna, think you? He is handsome enough to be ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly

... pass on the road; so much was gain. Except in the villages, and once or twice where a slow, rattling wagon was plodding along on the wet mirror-like asphalt, Rachael might make her own speed. The road lay straight, and was an exceptionally good road, even in this weather. She need hardly pause for signboards. The ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris

... him that something was rattling behind him along the wall. Or was it only an echo that he heard? Yes, the noise had really come from the house. Marcolina's window had suddenly been opened, the iron grating had been pushed back, the curtain drawn. A shadowy form was visible against the ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler

... had crossed the ferry and were rattling over the streets of New York, Edna took her hands from her eyes; and there was a rigid paleness in her face and a mournful hollowness in her voice, as she ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans

... (the spawn adhering to stones, old oyster-shells, &c.) and punishable to take any oysters, except those of the size of a half-crown piece, or such as, when the two shells are shut, will admit of a shilling rattling between them. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 331, September 13, 1828 • Various

... For her mind, racked by all the torments of infinite despair, the raging of the storm, the noise of the rain rattling down, and the hissing splash of the waves as they dashed against the planks of the boat, made just the right music. The tumult of the night around her harmonised so exactly with the tumult within her that she almost felt it a relief. ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann

... example, where do phantoms prefer to appear? In dark places, cemeteries, old cloisters, ruins, subterranean passages, because the aspect of these localities predisposes the soul to fear. What precedes their appearance? The rattling of chains, groans, sighs, because there is nothing very cheerful in all that? They are careful not to appear in the bright light, or after a strain of dance music. No, fear is an abyss into which you descend step by step, until you are overcome by ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas

... subterfuge whereby Doris sought to justify herself to herself, delighted me. Perhaps no quality is more human than that of subterfuge. She might unveil her body, but she could not unveil her soul. We may only lift a corner of the veil; he who would strip human nature naked and exhibit it displays a rattling skeleton, no more: where there is no subterfuge ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore

... the more pleasure he took in surmounting them. He built his railroad tracks where most other men would have shrunk from placing a rail and whilst those who commenced preparations for a mine at the same time with himself were still in the preparatory stages of work, his cars would be rattling down to the river loaded with coal. One great secret of his ability to hasten matters was his influence with the men under him. He was familiar and affable with them, worked energetically among them whenever a sharp effort was needed, and in this way got ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin

... going to have all the meditating he wanted, and a bit over, for my simple scheme was to lurk outside till he had gone into the little room on the top floor, and then, with the aid of one of those jolly little wedges which you use to keep windows from rattling, see to it that the old boy remained there till they ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse

... In some microphones a rattling noise is frequently occasioned, which borne along with the sound of the human voice causes an audible disturbance in the telephone. The chief cause of these disturbances may be ascribed to the fact that the carbon rollers in their journals, rest loose in the flutings of the beam, which ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 620, November 19,1887 • Various

... rattling whisper, "help me, Macumazahn. I say that I am poisoned by this Zikali, who hates me. Oh! drive away ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard

... nervous, poor Paul. She felt a great tenderness for him, but she could not say the right words. She should have said: "It is nice," but it was not. The hall was so cold and dark, and all over the house windows were rattling. ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole

... has been arrested comes back more or less a hero with a tale to tell of the interior recesses of the mysterious police station. The earliest public excitement the child remembers is divided between the rattling fire engines, "the time there was a fire in the next block," and all the tense interest of the patrol wagon "the time the drunkest lady in our ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams

... your genius vast In energies more active. Rise And shake the lightnings from your eyes; Inspire your underlings, and fling Your spirit into everything!" The Master's hand here dealt a whack Upon the Deputy's bent back, When straightway to the floor there fell A shrunken globe, a rattling shell A blackened, withered, eyeless head! The man had been a ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce

... happened to be balanced upon an unstable pile of cooking utensils at the end of Nicky Vro's thwart. Cat, cage and parrot, a gridiron, two cake tins, a bundle of skewers, and a cullender, went overboard in one rattling avalanche, and Master Calvin laughed ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... what we expect to see; and no one who has not deliberately set himself to observe the fact can realize how much of what he thinks is observation is really inference from a small part of the facts before him. I feel a slight tremor run through the house with a little rattling of the windows, and assume that a train has gone by on the railroad below the hill a hundred yards away: as a matter of fact it may have been one of the slight earthquake shocks which come every few years ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner

... afternoon's news. The ringing impact of trucks, the sharp whistle of the engines from the junction, mingled with their shouts of "Men from Mars!" Excited men came into the station about nine o'clock with incredible tidings, and caused no more disturbance than drunkards might have done. People rattling Londonwards peered into the darkness outside the carriage windows, and saw only a rare, flickering, vanishing spark dance up from the direction of Horsell, a red glow and a thin veil of smoke driving across the stars, and thought that nothing more serious than a heath fire was happening. ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells

... harsh rattle caused him to look up to see a bird about a third larger than Welcome Robin, and with a head out of all proportion to the size of his body. He was flying straight towards the Smiling Pool, rattling harshly as he flew. The mere sound of his voice settled the matter for Peter. "It's Rattles the Kingfisher," he cried. "I think I'll run over to the Smiling Pool and ...
— The Burgess Bird Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess

... rattling Dice invite th' attentive Ear, Lords loudly laugh, as loud the Bullies swear: The Country Knight o'th' Shire sells his Estate, And here with Heart intrepid meets his Fate; So they withdrew to quench their glowing Flame, And to preserve the Honour of her Name; For ...
— The Ladies Delight • Anonymous

... waters of the dock, and mixed with the rank, gross sweetness of the bags of beet-root sugar from the freight-steamers; there was a coming and going of carts and trucks on the wharf, and on the ship a rattling of chains and a clucking of pulleys, with sudden outbreaks and then sudden silences of trampling sea-boots. Burnamy looked into the dining-saloon and the music-room, with the notion of trying for some naps ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... to hear the chorus breathe feebly from all sorts of dark corners, and "this day has done his dooty" rise and fall and be taken up again in this dim inferno, to an accompaniment of plunging, hollow-sounding bows and the rattling spray-showers overhead. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... that?" as we heard a rustling and flutter of wings in the ivy branches over our heads. Only a couple of rooks, whose antiquarian slumbers were disturbed by the unwonted noise there at midnight, and who rose and flew away, rattling down some fragments of the ruin as they went. It was somewhat odd, but I could not help fancying, what if these strange, goblin rooks were the spirits of old monks coming back to nestle and brood among their ancient cloisters! Rooks ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe

... fluid had flashed across its gloomy bed; a sheet of flame glanced from the attic of the block, and then came the roar of the little piece of artillery, which had so long dwelt there in silence. The rattling of a shot among the sheds, and the rending of timber, followed. Fifty dark forms were seen, by the momentary light, gliding from among the out-buildings, in an alarm natural to their ignorance, and with an agility proportioned to their alarm. The moment ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper

... this to please thee," she said, and loosening her hold of the bundle, she flung it suddenly into an empty red cart which was rattling by. "Take care of them, Shemi, thou know'st ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine

... the distant roar of a forest, then again delicate and high, like soft angels' voices. Then it began to hiss in the valves—steam clouds rose, the iron shovel clattered, and fresh heaps of coal sank rattling into the furnace. There was such a noise all round that one could hardly hear one's own voice. The stoker with the red nose stood there like a king; he drank from a flat-bodied flask, and from time to time he handled ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann

... of the event. Hence, although they had left Mafeking unobserved, when Mathakgong's party approached Mafeking on the return trip with the cattle, a strong Dutch force was waylaying him and waiting to give him and Colonel Plumer's cattle a hot reception. They opened a rattling fusillade upon the cattle drivers, which could be heard from Mafeking. Over half of the cattle were killed in the ensuing fight, and the remainder, like the fat carcases of the dead bullocks, fell into the hands of the Boers. The drivers escaped with only two wounded out of the party of twelve. ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje

... from the bottom of the main shaft. All away and away up the long black galleries the flare-lamps were winking and dancing like so many fireflies, and the men and the women waited for the clanking, rattling, thundering cages to come down and fly up again. But the outworkings were very far off, and word could not be passed quickly, though the heads of the gangs and the Assistant shouted and swore and tramped and ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling

... arms and legs would grow stiff, and his thumbs became twisted against the palms of his hands—like this. [He illustrates the movement and it is imitated by ADOLPH] Then his eyes became bloodshot, and he began to chew— like this. [He chews, and again ADOLPH imitates him] The saliva was rattling in his throat. His chest was squeezed together as if it had been closed in a vice. The pupils of his eyes flickered like gas-jets. His tongue beat the saliva into a lather, and he sank—slowly—down—backward—into the chair—as if ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg

... they have often been employed by God himself for the government of peoples, the bestowing of the most wholesome counsels on kings and princes, the science of medicine and other things useful to the human race, nay even the prophetical office, and the rattling reprimand of Priests and Bishops" [etiam ad Propheticum munus, et incrependos Sacerdotes Episcoposque, are the words; and, as the treatise was prepared for the press in 1638, one detects a reference, by the Moravian ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson

... landing-place—Teina, a chief of Anaa, leader of the armed natives who made the strength of the expedition. Now that his comrades were departed this way and that, on their laborious exploration, the silence fell profound; and this silence was the ruin of the islanders. A sound of stones rattling caught the ear of Teina. He looked, thinking to perceive a crab, and saw instead the brown hand of a human being issue from a fissure in the ground. A shout recalled the search parties and announced their ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson

... yet still sounded with a steady shout in the neighbor trees. At the casements it tugged and rattled; against them it flung the rain fiercely. Every bay and passage of the interior uttered its own voice, and overhead was creaking of old timbers, rattling of old slates, and rustling of mortar fragments ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts

... could say more, or further hail the Red Cross girl, there was a crash and terrific rattling around the turn of the avenue. The next instant a horse appeared, madly galloping along the roadway, and drawing the shattered remains of a grocery ...
— The Girls of Central High Aiding the Red Cross - Or Amateur Theatricals for a Worthy Cause • Gertrude W. Morrison

... spotless, appeared in a doorway; black boys sprang up like a crop of mushrooms and took charge of the buck-board; Dan rattled in with the pack-teams, and horses were jangling hobbles and rattling harness all about us, as I found myself standing in the shadow of a queer, unfinished building, with the Maluka and Mac surrounded by a mob of leaping, bounding dogs, flourishing, as best they ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn

... could hear the clanking of spurs and the sound of the wet, tired horses shaking themselves and rattling the saddles on every side. "Who's in the wickiup?" I heard the sheriff ask. "Some women and kids,—Mrs. Louderer ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart

... his eyes, and immediately a sound of cannonading, of musketry and the rattling of carriage wheels seemed to fill his ears, and now again drawn out in a thin line the musketeers were descending the hill, the French were firing, and he felt his heart palpitating as he rode forward beside Schmidt with ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... sickness, lean against the wall useless. Those whose duty it is cower about the dying woman, and look on speechless. How faint the breathings grow, how the chest rises and falls at longer intervals, weaker every time! They listen as the rattling in her throat becomes harder and slower. They dare not weep, for all ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier

... is changed. Rattling thunder breaks from the cloudless firmament. The storm bursts forth in fury. ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various

... heard it too, and galloped on and on; but still the wolves came neater and nearer. James shouted to keep them off; the oxen almost flying; their chains rattling as they went. This clanking sound, to which the hateful pack were unaccustomed, made them pause whenever they came close upon the oxen, whilst the latter redoubled their speed, till at length these gallant racers left the wolves behind, ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland

... the far end of the lane, where it opened out at the gate of the serai, and received us, as we advanced at the double, with a rattling fire of musketry. Some climbed to the top of the bank, while others fired down at us from the walls. It was a perfect feu d'enfer, and the loss on our side became so heavy that a temporary check was the result, ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths

... was like a great tower, with battlements. However that may be, it grew nearer and larger, and it was blue and dark like that curtain there; and there was no wind to stir it, for the windows had ceased rattling, and the dust was quiet in the streets; and still it came on quickly, growing as it came; and then there came a far-away sound, like a heavy waggon, or, some said, like a deep voice complaining. And ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson

... not hear it?—No; 'twas but the wind, Or the car rattling o'er the stony street; On with the dance! let joy be unconfined; No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet To chase the glowing Hours with flying feet. But hark! that heavy sound breaks in once more, As if the clouds its echo would repeat; And nearer, clearer, ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year • Various

... many an alehouse fire. Then from his arm hoarse thunder rolls, As loud as fifty mustard bowls; For thunder still his arm supplies, And lightning always in his eyes. They both are cheap enough in conscience, And serve to echo rattling nonsense. The rumbling words march fierce along, Made trebly dreadful in your song. Sweet poet, hired for birth-day rhymes, To sing of wars, choose peaceful times. What though, for fifteen years and ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift

... why. I telegraphed on to my advance man all about you last night, and what you did yesterday will be spread all over town here today. It will be a rattling good advertisement. You and the tiger are my best drawing ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington

... This monkey-cup (as the Malayan name implies) is about four or five inches long and an inch in diameter. Giring landak (Crotalaria retusa) is a papilionaceous flower resembling the lupin, yellow, and tinged at the extremities with red. From the rattling of its seed in the pod it obtains its name, which signifies porcupine-bells, alluding to the small bells worn about the ankles of children. The daup (bauhinia) is a small, white, semiflosculous flower, with a faint smell. The leaves alone attract notice, being double, as if united ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... they might fight, and rage, and rave, I should perceive the noise no more Than we can hear a shaking leaf, While rattling thunders round ...
— Hymns and Spiritual Songs • Isaac Watts

... said, 'whether America will plunge into war at the bidding of a group of diplomats who shuffle the nations like a pack of cards, then I say no. If you older nations over here allow this thing to come to a crisis with a rattling of swords and "Hock der Kaiser!" and "Britannia Rules the Waves," count us out. But should the occasion arise when palpable injustice is being done, and the soul of Britain calls to the soul of America that Right must be maintained, then the Republic that ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter

... first time now the deep marks of illness upon the mother's face appeared to husband and children as more than the passing traces of suffering, as imprints from the hand of death. The hard-drawn breath rattling in her throat no longer betokened conscious pain, but was the last blind remonstrance of the body ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon

... were there for the season, some of them in cottages. These families are intimate, even connected by marriage, with the Bayardiers of South Carolina and the Lontoons of Louisiana. The girls are handsome, dashing women, without much information, but rattling talkers, and so exclusive! and the young men, with a Piccadilly air, fancy that they belong to the "Prince of Wales set," you know. There is a good deal of monarchical ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... strike the golden lyre again: A louder yet, and yet a louder strain! Break his bands of sleep asunder, And rouse him, like a rattling peal of thunder. Hark, hark! the horrid sound Has raised up his head: As awaked from the dead, And amazed he stares around. Revenge, revenge, Timotheus cries, See the Furies arise! See the snakes that they rear How they hiss in their hair, ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... that was upon him." Numerous cases were cited of sudden and fearful judgments which fell upon the adversaries of the cause. A clergyman at Bristol, standing up to preach against the Methodists, "was suddenly seized with a rattling in his throat, attended with a hideous groaning," and on the next Sunday he died. At Todmorden a minister was struck with a violent fit of palsy immediately after preaching against the Methodists. At Enniscorthy a clergyman, having preached for some time against Methodism, ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... hundred and fifty." A stable-boy brought him a telegram and went away. He opened it negligently, regarded it without emotion, and, in complete silence, handed it to me. On the pinkish paper in a sprawled handwriting I read: "Safe Brindisi. Having rattling good ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford

... securing the robber, as he might have done, but yielding to an irresistible impulse of vengeance, he grappled fiercely with the mask, who writhed and struggled in his unclinching hold. Something fell rattling on the floor, and continued to rattle as the strife went on. Mr. Mason, knowing that by virtue of his authority he could arrest the offender at once, looked on with that strange pleasure which men feel in witnessing scenes of conflict. He was astonished at the transformation ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz

... use of the typewriting machine for the production of spurious papers," he began, rattling the note significantly. "It is partly due to the great increase in the use of the typewriter generally, but more than all is it due to the erroneous idea that fraudulent typewriting cannot be detected. The fact is that the typewriter is perhaps a worse means of ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve

... Ann Harriet fell into a deep slumber, and when she awoke the broad sunshine was illuminating her chamber, while the rattling of teams along the paved streets reminded her that she was in the great metropolis of New England. She missed the green foliage and healthy perfume and bird songs of her pleasant country home: all she could see was a combination of bricks, slate, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... Bingo had been left with Mrs. O'Brien that, on their way back to the hotel, Maurice, in a burst of enthusiasm, invited his third bad moment: "I am going to have a rattling old dinner party to celebrate your escape from the hag! ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland

... or that one to make greater haste with the preparation of his land, that he may not lose his moisture. In fact, he has his hands full till the mounting sun warns him to go back to breakfast. And so, with a rattling burst after a jackal or fox, he gets back to his bungalow to bathe, dress, and break his fast with fowl cutlets, and curry and rice, washed down with ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis

... Timpson's down. Pickford had not only knocked Timpson's down, but had knocked two or three houses down on each side of Timpson's, and then had knocked the whole into one great establishment with a pair of big gates, in and out of which, his (Pickford's) waggons are, in these days, always rattling, with their drivers sitting up so high, that they look in at the second-floor windows of the old-fashioned houses in the High-street as they shake the town. I have not the honour of Pickford's acquaintance, but I felt that he had done me an injury, not to say committed ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... end of January, old Sigismond Planus, cashier of the house of Fromont Jeune and Risler Aine, was awakened with a start in his little house at Montrouge by the same teasing voice, the same rattling of chains, followed ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... went home, washed himself, and listened to his wife rattling spoons on the other side of the wall. And this made up the entire substance of his life! Yes, it was certainly interesting how Nina Kallistratovna had entered that flat, swung back her hand—which hand had it been?—was it the one in which she held the attache-case or was that ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak

... did journey once when eve was near. Through carriage windows I beheld the moors, Then, churches, hamlets cresting of low hills. The way was long, at last I, fall'n asleep, Awoke to hear a rattling 'neath the wheels And see the lamps alight. This ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow

... the baby were at the pier to meet him. He looked for signs of the mourning Ursula had described, but he looked in vain. Never had he seen her lovelier, or so sparkling. And how she did talk!—rattling on and on, with those interesting commonplaces of domestic event—the baby, the household, the garden, the baby—the horses, the dogs, the baby—the servants, her new dresses, the baby—and so on, and so ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips

... of about sixty men on horseback had alighted in this place. The steaming horses showed that they had travelled fast. There was a confused noise of human voices, the neighing of horses, and the rattling of every kind of weapon—for it did not appear to be a regular cavalry corps. Lances with red pennons, muskets, carbines and double-barrelled guns were ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid

... talk of was the circus tents, that might be blown over by the strong wind, which was now rattling the shutters and windows of the farmhouse. Or else the white canvas houses might be washed away ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Playing Circus • Laura Lee Hope

... the first in a hoarse, rattling whisper; "no one on it; but water is there ... and plenty of birds and turtle, and ...
— By Reef and Palm • Louis Becke

... killed one snake here, it's probably all there is near; and anyway, the Bird Woman says a rattlesnake is a gentleman and always gives warning before he strikes. I don't hear any rattling. Do you?" ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter

... are we; but listen, there comes the rain. Now for it," observed Paul, as with a rush the water began to descend, rattling on the roof of ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren

... of a club is more spectacular for some at least than the use of intellectual and moral forces. The rattling of the machine-gun produces more commotion than the more quiet ways of peace. All of the powerful forces in nature, those of growth, germination, and conservation, the same as in human life are quiet forces. So in the preservation of peace. It consists ...
— The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit • Ralph Waldo Trine

... of the city, and was speeding through the suburbs, rattling gayly and noisily past the ostentatious stations and the scattered houses. Maurice felt that his companion was secretly observing him, although she was apparently looking at the landscape which slid precipitately past. He wished to say something, and desired that it should not be ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates

... crowd suddenly parted as a fierce-looking man, buttoned up to the chin, his sword rattling by his side, his spurs clinking at his heel, descended the stairs,—his cheeks swollen and purple with intemperance, his eyes dead and savage as a vulture's. There was a still pause, as all, with pale cheeks, made way for the relentless Henriot. (Or Hanriot. It is singular ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... make such a bad start, and can trust himself better," said Herbert. "Come, Jenny, don't look at me in that way. You can't wish me to go to York, and meet those rattling ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge

... water is easy enough, but when the ship is pitching into the fast-rising seas and heeling over to the gale, with the wind whistling through the rigging, blocks rattling, ropes lashing about, the hard canvas trying to escape from one's grip, and blatters of rain and sleet and hail in one's face, it is no pleasant matter. We had taken two reefs in the topsails, and even then the brig had as much canvas on her as she could stand up to, and we had all come ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston

... more pear's grease for Watty's hair," whispered Hamish; and Andrew uttered a dry laugh, which sounded like the rattling together ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn

... introduced into his Battel of the Gods every thing that is great and terrible in Nature, Milton has filled his Fight of good and bad Angels with all the like Circumstances of Horrour. The Shout of Armies, the Rattling of Brazen Chariots, the Hurling of Rocks and Mountains, the Earthquake, the Fire, the Thunder, are all of them employ'd to lift up the Readers Imagination, and give him a suitable Idea of so great an Action. With what Art has the Poet represented the whole ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... types of life. The England of Fielding and the Scotland of Scott were breezy, boisterous, disorderly, picturesque, and jolly worlds, where gay and hot spirits got into mischief and played mad pranks as, in the words of the old song, "They powlered up and down a bit and had a rattling day." Laws, police, total abstinence, general education, and weak digestions have put an end to pranks, as we are all proud to say. The result is that Romance, finding little of romance in the real world, has taken two different lines in the desperate ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison

... are so rare that a family of hunting Indians can scarcely find a living in a thousand square miles. Today the voracious maw of the daily newspaper is eating the spruce and hemlock by means of relentless saws and rattling pulp-mills. In the wake of the lumbermen settlers are tardily spreading northward from the more favored tracts in northern New England and southern Canada. Nevertheless most of the evergreen forests of the north must always remain the home of wild animals and trappers, ...
— The Red Man's Continent - A Chronicle of Aboriginal America, Volume 1 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Ellsworth Huntington



Words linked to "Rattling" :   crepitation rale, extraordinary, energetic, noise



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