"Whir" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the distant, sullen thunder, followed by the unmistakable whir of a Parrott shell. Suddenly shrapnel shells began to come over, screaming, exploding, filling the air with the rush and ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... the glaciers part to let pass a great traffic in men and merchandise. I saw the unpeopled north grow into a land of homes, of farms, of mining-camps, where people lived and bred children. I heard the mountain passes echo to steam whistles and the whir of flying wheels. It was a wonderful vision that I saw, but my eyes were true. They called me a fool, and it took the sea and the hurricane to show them I was right." He paused, ashamed of his outburst, ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... see the incessant stir Of insects in the windrows of the hay, And hear the locust and the grasshopper Their melancholy hurdy-gurdies play? Is this more pleasant to you than the whir Of meadow-lark, and her sweet roundelay, Or twitter of little field-fares, as you take Your nooning in the shade of bush ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... to be a bunch of dry leaves and grass coiled swiftly, with the rattling whir that goes straight to the fear center of the human heart. In a flash Anna's hands were full of rocks. The first article in every California mountain child's education is to destroy every rattlesnake that comes ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... the buffalo or deer, for we saw no signs of them; but birds of varied plumage and song, and troops of squirrels, with footprints here and there of the grizzly bear, and a drove of wild turkeys, with red heads aloft, rushing over an eminence at our left as we approached, and an occasional whir of a rattlesnake at our feet, sufficiently indicated the kind of denizens by ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... have ventured on thy strident streets, Mid whir of traffic in the vibrant hour When Commerce with its clashing cymbal greets The mighty Mammon in his pomp of power.... And in the quiet dusk of eventide, As wearied toilers quit the marts of Trade, ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... is not very far from Hyde Park Corner in London Town. Behind the whir and rattle of the traffic it stands, spacious and cool and very old, muffled by the little streets that guard it, happily unconscious, you would suppose, that there were any in all the world so unfortunate as to have less ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... From all about arose the clacking whir of manure- spreaders. In the distance, on the low, easy-sloping hills, he saw team after team, and many teams, three to a team abreast, what he knew were his Shire mares, drawing the plows back and forth across, contour-plowing, turning the green sod of the hillsides to the rich dark ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... her, at all. When she got tired of the game at last, she rose from almost under my hand and flew aloft with the rush and whir of a shell and lit on the highest limb of a great tree and sat down and crossed her legs and smiled down at me, and seemed gratified to see ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... big yawning chasm, with the swinging steel rope, running away down into the great black hole, was awesome to look at, as the rope wriggled and swayed with its sinister movements; and the roar and whir of wheels, when the tables started, bewildered them. These crashed and roared and crunched and groaned; they would squeal and shriek as if in pain, then they would moan a little, as if gathering strength to break ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... and the time for action. The tiny encampment was hidden from them by the thick boughs, but through the screen of delicate, aromatic leaves they could see the bridge of rock. Around them was the stir and murmur of the summer afternoon—the wind in the trees, the whir of insects, the song of birds, the babble of the water—but far above, where the great arch cut the sky, the world seemed asleep. The trees dreamed, resting against the crimson and gold of the heavens. The Indian's appreciation of the wonders of nature was limited—with a grunted, "All safe: wake ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... Faido, where we met the first human being we had seen since we left Gurtnellen. It was a very old man, with a red cap, like a stocking, pulled close upon his head. He had a rake on his shoulder, and we were close on him before he knew; for the car was coasting, and ran with hardly any noise save the whir of the chains. For a flashing instant that old face shone out of the circle of our lights, concave with astonishment; ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... live there. His intimates know that only a few minutes after the last dinner guest has departed, his chauffeur will drive him some twenty miles to a much simpler abode on a secluded dirt road. Here, he really lives. Whistling tree toads replace the constant whir of buses and taxicabs. ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... not satisfy Susan and she often thought about it. To enter the mill, to stand quietly and look about, was the best kind of entertainment, for she was fascinated by the whir of the looms, by the nimble fingers of the weavers, and by the general air of efficiency. Admiringly she watched Sally Ann Hyatt, the tall capable weaver from Vermont. When the yarn on the beam was tangled ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... houses emerged. Soon I could see people going about the streets and laundry-maids hanging out the family washing in the back gardens. I even came low enough to witness a minor household tragedy—a mother vigorously spanking a small boy. Hearing the whir of my motor, she stopped in the midst of the process, whereupon the youngster very naturally took advantage of his opportunity to cut and run for it. Drew doubted my veracity when I told him about this. He called me an aerial eavesdropper and said that I ought to be ashamed to ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... "Tom Cringle, I have got tired of you, Thomas; besides, I hear my next door neighbour, Madame Adversity, tirling at the door pin; so give me my down bed, Tom, and I'm off." With that she bangs open the window, and before I recover from my surprise, launches forth, with a loud whir, mattrass and all, leaving me, Pilgarlic, lying on the paillasse. Well, her nest is scarcely cold, when in comes me Mistress Adversity, a wee outspoken sour crabbit gizzened anatomy of an old woman—"You ne'erdoweel, Tam," quoth she, "is it no enough ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... bloodshed. Outlawed by his father on account of his unbearable ruthlessness, and soon after presented by Alver with a government, he spent his whole life in arms, visiting his neighbours with wars and slaughters; nor did he, in his estate of banishment, relax his accustomed savagery a whir, but would not change his ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... the doolies had gone. I got out of bed and looked into the darkness. There was never a sign of a doolie. Just as I was getting into bed again, I heard, in the next room, the sound that no man in his senses can possibly mistake—the whir of a billiard ball down the length of the slates when the striker is stringing for break. No other sound is like it. A minute afterward there was another whir, and I got into bed. I was not frightened—indeed I was not. I was very curious to know what had become of the doolies. I jumped ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... many an English river, but so small here that it scarcely has a name; now catch hasty glimpses of a distant town, with its clean white houses and their cool piazzas, its prim New England church and school-house; when whir-r-r-r! almost before you have seen them, comes the same dark screen: the stunted trees, the stumps, the logs, the stagnant water - all so like the last that you seem to have been transported back again ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... as Baree wandered about near the windfall, he heard a soft whir over his head, and once or twice he saw gray shadows floating swiftly through the air. They were the big northern owls swooping down to investigate him, and if he had been a rabbit instead of a wolf dog whelp, his first night under the moon and stars would have ...
— Baree, Son of Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... temple, on every side the endless obelisks of the decaying cypress, and as far as the eye could see were ranged the numberless nodding bells of the yellow lilies, and the still-eyed white stars below them. While we waited in the coming evening, the silence was so deep, the whir of a bald eagle's wings, as he swept through the air, was audible from afar. The lonely creature sat on the peak of one of the wooden towers over our boat, and looked curiously down upon us. The waters seemed full of fish, and, indeed, the lake has much celebrity as a place for such game. We could ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... grew dark to Carey, and seemed to whir around him; the other men saw his face grow deadly white and his lips close firmly. He did not seem to notice them, but he pulled his hat over his eyes ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... History of London, gravely informs us, that one of the projects which received great encouragement, was for the establishment of a company "to make deal-boards out of saw-dust." This is, no doubt, intended as a joke; but there is abundance of evidence to show that dozens of schemes hardly a whir more reasonable, lived their little day, ruining hundreds ere they fell. One of them was for a wheel for perpetual motion — capital, one million; another was "for encouraging the breed of horses in England, and improving of glebe and church lands, and repairing and rebuilding ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... sacrifice, the roar broke into short coughing howls such as the wounded gorilla throws in his native forest. These were followed by the wrath of King—three steps at a time, up the staircase, with a dry whir of the gown. Aladdin and company, listening, squeaked with excitement as the door crashed open. King stumbled into the darkness, and cursed those performers by the gods of ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... all struggle. About neck and all four hoofs was the burning grip of the rope, so bitterly familiar, and man had once again enslaved him. Alcatraz relaxed. Presently there would come a swift volley of curses, then the whir and cut of the whip—no, for a great occasion such as this the man would choose a large and durable club and beat him across the ribs. Why not? Even as he had served Cordova this man of the flaming hair would now serve him. He was very like Cordova in one thing. He did not hurry, but first ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... the battlefield, like the real bees, whir past the ear of him who walks undaunted among them, and ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... the noise of spinning in the house, and my dog scurried off after the cat as I went in the door. I saw Miss Polly Marsh and her sister, Mrs. Snow, stepping back and forward together spinning yarn at a pair of big wheels. The wheels made such a noise with their whir and creak, and my friends were talking so fast as they twisted and turned the yarn, that they did not hear my footstep, and I stood in the doorway watching them, it was such a quaint and pretty sight. They went together like a pair of horses, and kept step with each other to ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... creeks, a tin can placed upon a stake or a bit of rag flying from a twig; all these but poorly marked the paths which were seldom pressed by the foot of a human being. Weeks might elapse, or months even, when no soul passed that way. Perhaps the whir of a partridge's wing as he flew from one feeding ground to another on the tundra was the only sound disturbing the still air for hours; or when a red fox, made sprightly by hunger, left as few foot-prints on the snow as possible, ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... their queries the barkeepers nodded at the back room, and said comprehensively, "Burning Daylight's on the tear." And the men who entered remained, and kept the barkeepers busy. The gamblers took heart of life, and soon the tables were filled, the click of chips and whir of the roulette-ball rising monotonously and imperiously above the hoarse rumble of men's voices and their oaths and ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... fire low down in the southern horizon, and a peculiar gloomy twilight hung over the white wintry landscape. I could not overcome the impression that the sun was just rising and that it would soon be broad day. A white ptarmigan now and then flew up with a loud whir before us, uttered a harsh "querk, querk, querk" of affright, and sailing a few rods away, settled upon the snow and suddenly became invisible. A few magpies sat motionless in the thickets of trailing-pine as we passed, but ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... Sharon Whipple with the news that he meant to do a bit of plain fighting overseas. He found the old man in the stable, in troubled controversy with a rebellious car. He sat stonily at the wheel and at intervals pressed a determined heel upon a self-starter that would whir but an impotent protest. He glared up at Wilbur as the latter came ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... bountiful East. The old theory was good enough for our home-building fathers, but is blighting to a generation aspiring to Americanize the globe. The genius of our nation should cause our ploughs and harrows to prepare the valley and delta of the Nile for tillage; be responsible for the whir of more of our agricultural machinery in the fields of India; locate our lathes and planers and drilling machines in Eastern shops, in substitution for those made in England or Germany; be responsible for American locomotives drawing American cars in Manchuria and Korea over rails ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... settled down to his work under the guttural snarl of his driver; at times the whole throng burst into impartial applause as a horse gained or lost a length; but the quick throb of the hoofs on the velvety earth and the whir of the flying wheels were the sounds that ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... conditions in the trenches—that mysterious land about which millions have read but have never had the opportunity of seeing. No mere verbal description would suffice to describe them. Every minute the murderous crack of rifles and the whir of machine-guns rang out. Death hovered all round. In front the German rifles, above the bursting shrapnel, each shell scattering its four hundred odd leaden bullets far and wide, killing or wounding any unfortunate man who happened ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... holding Ben Bow by the bridle, the old horse reared, plunged violently, snapped his halter, and broke away. The boy, at the same instant, was hurled to the ground. The ringing of hoofs and whir of wheels made strange sensations in his ears. He thought what a fool he was to be knocked down by ...
— A Lost Hero • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward and Herbert D. Ward
... sat before that hearth was an American king. A simple word of command spoken in that room was the thunder of the law in the wilderness about, and men obeyed. There's a bat living there now. He tumbled about me in the dull light, filling the silence with the harsh whir of pinions. ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... seem' how ther' warn't no iron fallin' about, Pluck reckoned he'd keep her to it a time longer, knowin' in his soul that every mile further he got the Devastation away from the Starlight, so much the better for Splitwater and the mackerel. It warn't long, afore whir! ziz! ziz! came somethin' what made a mighty splashin', and looked savagarous, square across her stern sheets. Pluck reckoned how the Britisher had got his dander up, and about cleverest thing would be to round to, seem' how the feller was wastin' his shot, ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... splash behind him showing by how few inches he had missed the jaws of his pursuer. Away he would go in a long, long curve, and, meeting the ship in his flight, would rise in the air, turn off at right angles to his former direction, and spin away again, the whir of his wing-fins distinctly visible as well as audible. At last he would incline to the water, but just as he was about to enter it there would be an eddy—the enemy was there waiting—and he would rise twenty, thirty feet, almost perpendicularly, ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... of the morning has given place to a silence broken only by the shrill whir of the locust. The distant shore lines that ran clear and white against the low background of green have become dim and indistinct; all things are touched by a soft haze which changes the sentiment of the landscape from movement to repose, from swift and ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... there in the whir of the great city a restful breathing-spot is found, its stretch of grass dotted with moss-covered tombs grouped around a low-pitched church. At certain hours the sound of bells is heard and the low rhythm of the ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... black and deep and the forest magnificent. Great beeches and hickories were mingled with the willows and live oaks and cypresses, and the foliage was thick, green, and beautiful. The birds seemed innumerable, and now and then flocks of wild fowl rose with a whir from the creek's edge. Keen, penetrating odors of forest and wild ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... I obeyed with no little difficulty. My cork came up in the back water under the rock on which I stood, and there, almost at my very feet, it disappeared. I could not believe that a bass had taken it, but all doubt on the subject was dispelled by the shrill whir of my reel as the fine silk line spun out at a tremendous rate. The fish had darted across the current, and only stopped after he had taken out over two ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... way came, in spells between, the gentle tones of a German song about the Christ-child. Christmas in the East Side tenements begins with the sunset on the "Holy Eve," except where the name is as a threat or a taunt. In a hundred such homes the whir of many sewing-machines, worked by the sweater's slaves with weary feet and aching backs, drowned every feeble note of joy that struggled to make itself heard above the noise of ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... gone back to the lathe, and the pleasantly soothing whir of the wheels was heard again, while a fountain of the finest possible shavings began to spin in the air. For a few moments Dale watched him at his work. His gray hair flopped about queerly; he made rapid precise movements; and he talked as though he still had his eyes ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... How many were the battles fought here! How terrible the scenes of devastation and the toll of life! Waste were the golden fields of grain upon which we gaze with such rapt admiration. Waste, too, were these mills with their whir of industry. The fury of war fell on those sunny acres like a great pestilence, and their usefulness and beauty became desolation. The only grist mill not burned by Sheridan and his men when they went through is still pointed out ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... to one of the long windows, which she unbolted and flung open, expecting to hear the shrill whir of the burglar-alarm, which, every night, Hill ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... eternity he sits, this god who has grown old. His rounded eyes are open on the whir of time, but man who ...
— Profiles from China • Eunice Tietjens
... Americans in the hotels; no art can give the impression of their exceeding multitude. Expresses, panting with as much impatience as the disciplined English expresses ever suffer themselves to show, await them in the stations, which are effectively parts of the great hotels, and whir away to London with them as soon as they can drive up from the steamer; but many remain to rest, to get the sea out of their heads and legs, and to prepare their spirits for adjustment to the novel conditions. These the successive trains carry into the heart of the land everywhere, these ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... the water's surface near the boat and the man standing next to him fell with his face smashed by a bomb fragment. Hoover seized him and dragged him around the deck-house to the other side of the boat. Another bomb burst on that side. He then heard the whir of an airplane and looking up saw several English bombing planes. Their intention was excellent, but their aim uncertain. The anti-aircraft guns of the German destroyers soon drove them away, and the convoy came into Zeebrugge harbor where the Dutch ...
— Herbert Hoover - The Man and His Work • Vernon Kellogg
... chimneys, Matrons and maidens sat in snow-white caps and in kirtles Scarlet and blue and green, with distaffs spinning the golden Flax for the gossiping looms, whose noisy shuttles within doors Mingled their sound with the whir of the wheels and the songs of the maidens. Solemnly down the street came the parish priest, and the children Paused in their play to kiss the hand he extended to bless them. Reverend walked he among ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... two legs, a whole face with eyes, nose, mouth, chin, and ears, complete. He could see, for he had glanced about him as he dressed. He could speak, for he sang loudly. He could hear, for he had turned quickly at the whir of pigeon-wings behind him. His skin was smooth all over, and nowhere on it were the dark scarlet maps which the child found so interesting on the arms, face, and breast of the burned man. He did not strangle every little while, or shiver ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... sought the trigger. Cautiously he thrust it through the bars of the gate. Bending down, he took a long and deliberate aim. The fates seemed to be on his side. Rochester suddenly stiffened into attention, his gun came to his shoulder, as with a loud whir a pheasant flew out of the wood before him. The two reports rang out almost simultaneously. The pheasant dropped to the ground like a stone. Rochester's arms went up to the skies. He gave a little cry and fell over, a huddled heap, upon ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... in my throat as I thought of what it had been, and of all the weary years of battling for this. It had been such a hard fight, and now at last it was won. To me the whole battle with the slum had summed itself up in the struggle with this dark spot. The whir of the lawn-mower was as sweet a song in my ear as that which the skylark sang when I was a boy, in Danish fields, and which gray hairs do ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... to hide it, her fingers thrust the card back inside its envelope. And she was tucking it away in its warm hiding place within the scant fullness of the white blouse when the clock on the wall behind her began to beat out the hour with a noisy whir ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... safety in travel now took more people where they could see for themselves the beauty of nature. In the new poetry we consequently find more definiteness. We can hear the whir of the partridge, the chatter of magpies, the whistle of the quail. Poets speak of a tree not only in general terms, but they note also the differences in the shade of the green of the leaves and the peculiarities of the bark. Previous ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... things of more account than pleasant ones? Hmm; most young ladies who have visited us have seemed afraid rather than pleased. The whir of the ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... fell uninterruptedly. There was no wind. The cable cars jolted and jostled over the tracks with a strident whir of vibrating window glass. In the street, immediately in front of the entrance to the Board of Trade, a group of pigeons, garnet-eyed, trim, with coral-coloured feet and iridescent breasts, strutted and fluttered, pecking at the handfuls of wheat ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... up her back and began to rub against the legs of Farmer Brown's boy, and all the time the whir, ring sound in her throat grew louder and louder. Farmer Brown's boy stooped down to see what she had in ...
— The Adventures of Grandfather Frog • Thornton W. Burgess
... with a miserable expression. The beautiful front yard, with its box-bordered flower-beds, did not cheer him with the sense of possession. He heard a bird singing with a flutelike note; he heard bees humming over the flowers, and he longed to hear, instead, the buzz and whir of machines which had become the accompaniment of his song of life. A terrible isolation and homesickness came over him. He thought of the humble little house in which he and Sylvia had lived so many years, and a sort of passion of longing ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... always the chug-chug-chug of the gleaming, fierce-eyed motor cars filled one's ears. They darted past, flaming scarlet, somber olive, and livid white; a crouching, masked figure intent at the wheel, veiled, shapeless women behind, a whir of dust to show where they ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... suddenly in the air and, turning quite around, lighted with his nose pointed, as it was before he sprang. Chad cocked the old gun and stepped forward. A low hissing whir rose a few feet to one side of the path and, very carefully, the boy climbed a fallen trunk and edged his way, very carefully, toward the sound: and there, by a dead limb and with his ugly head reared three inches above his coil of springs, was a rattlesnake. The sudden ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... placed himself in front of the wheel, and whirr, whirr, whirr, three times round, and the bobbin was full. Then he set up another, and whir, whir, whir, thrice round again, and a second bobbin was full; and so he went all night long, until all the straw was spun, and the bobbins were full of gold. At sunrise the King came, very much astonished to see the gold; the sight of which gladdened him, ...
— Grimm's Fairy Stories • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... rattle and whir the two great sails went soaring up in the darkness, and the Shiner leaped forward, her lee rail almost ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... the matchlock balls of the Arabs past our ears; 'whir-r-ir' sliced away their scimitars right and left in the air, with the regularity of so many flails at work on a barn-floor; but we did not mind them a bit, for the 'phit—phit—phit!' of the bullets from our Martini rifles pattered amongst the bronze-coloured rascals like hail, deadening ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... kio, kion, kiu, kiun. Whiff subitventeto. While dum. Whim kaprico. Whimper ploreti. Whimsical kaprica. Whine ploreti, bleketi. Whinny cxevalbleketo. Whip vipi. Whip vipo. Whip, riding vipeto. Whir turnigxadi. Whirl turnigxadi. Whirlpool turnakvo. Whirlwind turnovento. Whisk fojnbalao. Whiskers vangharoj. Whisper paroleti, murmuri. Whisper murmuro. Whistle (of wind) sibli. Whistle fajfilo. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... that the woman should have been earlier at home cooking the supper. Dusk had deepened to darkness long before the meal smoked upon the board. The spinning-wheel had begun to whir for her evening stint when other hill-folks had betaken themselves to bed. Basil puffed his pipe before the fire; the flicker and flare pervaded every nook of the bright little house. Strings of red-pepper-pods flaunted in festoons from the beams; the baby slumbered under a gay quilt ...
— The Christmas Miracle - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... did so he heard a vicious, locust-like whir, whose meaning he recognized. An immense rattlesnake was in the bushes, and Fred had descended almost upon it. But for the tremendous effort of Jack he would have dropped squarely upon the velvety body, with consequences ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... were tuning up their voices preparatory to the late-afternoon concert, soon to begin. They hummed a few bars of one melody, then of another; and at last, Angela's voice leading, there burst upon the room in full chorus, to the rhythmic whir of the wheels, the melodious music and maudlin stanzas ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... of the valley it was even warmer than on the crest of the ridge. Noozak went straight to the edge of the slough. Half a dozen rice birds rose with a whir of wings that made Neewa almost upset himself. Noozak paid no attention to them. A loon let out a squawky protest at Noozak's soft-footed appearance, and followed it up with a raucous screech that raised the hair ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... moving hither and thither. At the same time the regular toil of cultivation is maintained. Back and forth between the young plants mules are drawing cultivators, and following these come a score or two women with light, sharp hoes. From the great crate manufactory is heard the whir of machinery and the click of hammers; at intervals the smithy sends forth its metallic voice, while from one centre of toil and interest to another the proprietor whisks in his open buggy at a speed that often ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... silent a few agonized seconds and then said, "I know what you think, Bob; you are for my poor; you are brave." He did not answer, fearing to turn the balance. As she sank into a porch chair a rustling breeze moved the lilac plumes and brought their perfume to her. From down the avenue came the whir of wheels and the hurrying click of a horse's hoofs. At length she rose, and said tremulously: "I stand with you, Bob. May God make the blow ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... not so much as the whisper of a reed or the whir of the wing of a nightbird fell upon their ears; and at last, in an awe-stricken ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... and the night moths—and looked with wonder at the queer little pair lying prone amongst the green clover. Thousands of wonderful night noises also began to awaken in all directions—the merry chirp of the cricket, the whir of the bat on its circling flight, the hum of the moths—but the children heard nothing, although the creatures of the night were curious about these strange little beings who, by good rights, ought not to be sharing ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... led to Middle Patent. So, he ran at right angles until he also reached it, and as now he was close to where it entered the main road, he approached warily. But, he was too late. There was a sound like the whir of a rising partridge, and ahead of him from where it had been hidden, a gray touring-car leaped into the highway. The stranger was at the wheel. Throwing behind it a cloud of dust, the car raced toward Greenwich. Jimmie had time to note only that it bore a Connecticut State ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... with dust. Explorers tell of sand storms in the deserts of central Asia and Africa, in which the air grows murky and suffocating. Even at midday it may become dark as night, and nothing can be heard except the roar of the blast and the whir of myriads of grains of sand as they fly ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... seemed to listen,—then, recommencing, he poured his spirit and life more earnestly into the strain. And finally,—or else the sculptor's hope and imagination deceived him,—soft treads were audible upon the fallen leaves. There was a rustling among the shrubbery; a whir of wings, moreover, that hovered in the air. It may have been all an illusion; but Kenyon fancied that he could distinguish the stealthy, cat-like movement of some small forest citizen, and that he could even see its doubtful shadow, if not really its substance. But, all at once, whatever might ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... upward in its low flight which ends in a nearly perpendicular slide down to within ten or twelve feet from the ground, the bird being closely followed by a second one pursuing. In reality I did not see the birds, but I heard the fast whir of their wings. ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... indicate, in spite of his strength and color, some pulmonary weakness. He, however, rose after a moment's rest with undiminished energy and cheerfulness, readjusted his knapsack, and began to lightly pick his way across the fallen timber. A few paces on, the muffled whir of machinery became more audible, with the lazy, monotonous command of "Gee thar," from some unseen ox-driver. Presently, the slow, deliberately-swaying heads of a team of oxen emerged from the bushes, followed by the clanking chain of the "skids" ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... allowance for his own extreme weariness or for the soporific effect of the alcoholic fumes with which his comrade's breath was redolent. When six o'clock struck at the church of St. Eustache, the young detective's alarm resounded faithfully enough, with a loud and protracted whir. Shrill and sonorous as was the sound, it failed, however, to break the heavy sleep of the two detectives. They would indeed, in all probability, have continued slumbering for several hours longer, if at half-past seven a sturdy fist ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... made of cotton rags wound tight and sewed, and then soaked in turpentine. When a ball was lighted a boy caught it quickly up, and threw it, and it made a splendid streaming blaze through the air, and a thrilling whir as it flew. A boy had to be very nimble not to get burned, and a great many boys dropped the ball for every boy that threw it. I am not ready to say why these fire-balls did not set the Boy's Town on fire, and burn it down, but I know they never did. There was no law against them, and the ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... day when the two girls were working over their sewing-machines, the whir of the numerous machines filling the great warehouse, Agnes ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade
... would go along as a private soldier. You could hear his voice echo and re-echo over the hills. He had worked up his patriotism to a pitch of genuine bravery and daring that I had never seen exhibited, when fliff, fluff, fluff, fluff, FLUFF, FLUFF—a whir, a BOOM! and a shell screams through the air. The reverend LL. D. stops to listen, like an old sow when she hears the wind, and says, "Remember, boys, that he who is killed will sup tonight in Paradise." ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... front, still holding up that scabbard and handle before him, while Rodriguez held the bare sword. And so they came to a room lit by the flare of one candle, which their guide told them the Professor had prepared for his guest. In the vastness of it was a great bed. Shadows and a whir as of wings passed out of the door as they entered. "Bats," said the ancient guide. But Morano believed he had routed powers of evil with the handle of his frying-pan and his master's scabbard. Who could say what they were in such a house, where bats and evil spirits sheltered perennially ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... and fro he twisted, turned, raced, and checked the combination, caressing it, humouring it, wheedling it, inexorably questioning it in the dumb language his fingers spoke so deftly. And in his ear the click and whir and thump of shifting wards and tumblers murmured articulate response in the terms ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... Ben, pretty near bother the life out of me. They creep in through the cracks and crannies and eat the grain. If I go over by the grain chest, the first thing I know, there's a whir, and a cloud of them darts up in front of my face. Sometimes it makes my heart come right up in my mouth. I wish there wasn't ...
— Ben Comee - A Tale of Rogers's Rangers, 1758-59 • M. J. (Michael Joseph) Canavan
... sky the swallows fly, and sail and circle o'er the deep; The light-winged night-hawks whir and cry; the silver pike and salmon leap. The rising moon, the woods aboon, looks laughing down on lake and lea; Weird o'er the waters shrills the loon; the high stars twinkle in the sea. From bank and hill the whippowil sends piping ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... The whir of "B's" was interrupted, and slowly and deliberately came an "I, I, B." Alex leaped in his chair, and again strained ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs
... dread foreboding at his heart, Jack rode forward into the isolated valley, when, from a small opening in the centre of the place the sudden whir of wings and the rapid flight of many dark bodies told him the ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood
... which rules the destiny of wild duck ordained that they should settle on the precise patch of water that was fully commanded by both sportsmen, and some three seconds later both guns spoke practically at the same instant, and up went the teal again with a great whir of wings and loud cries of consternation, leaving behind them a round dozen or more of dead and wounded floating upon the rippled ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... thin lines, with short intervals between the men, as the shrapnel broke. From out the blur of the mingling of landscape and sky there came, simultaneously, a whir, a crash, and the quick dash of shrapnel balls over the ground, and of the brief flash which marked the shrapnel's burst there remained only a dimly-seen lingering cloud of dirty smoke and some silent, writhing ...
— The Boy Allies with the Cossacks - Or, A Wild Dash over the Carpathians • Clair W. Hayes
... station has usurped, with its long slate roof, wooden signal-box, and advertisements in blue and white enamel, I can recall a still pool shining between beds of the flowering rush; and to this day, as I wait for the train, the whir of a vanished water-wheel comes up the valley. Sometimes I have caught myself gazing along the curve of the narrow-gauge in full expectation to see a sagged and lichen-covered roof at the end of it. And sometimes, of late, it has occurred to me that there never was ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Never a whir of wing, no bee Stirred o'er the shameful slain; Nought but a thirsty wasp crept in, ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume I. • Walter de la Mare
... stubble, wrangled With rank weeds, and shocks of tangled Corn, with crests like rent plumes dangled Over Harvest's battle-piain; And the sudden whir and whistle Of the quail that, like a missile, Whizzes over thorn and thistle, And, ...
— Green Fields and Running Brooks, and Other Poems • James Whitcomb Riley
... a little and shook his head up and down in an effort to regain his former temper, but that iron hand kept his nose down, now, and that quiet voice sounded above him—no cursing, no raking of sharp spurs to torture his tender flanks, no whir of the quirt, but a calm voice of authority and understanding. Red Pete broke into an easy canter and in this fashion they came up to Morgan in the road. Red Pete snorted and started to shy, for he recognized the clumsy, bouncing weight which had insulted his back not long before; ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... rabbit scuttled off to cover, and often with the whir of drumming wings a grouse rose noisily and lumbered away with spread tail into the painted foliage. But all the beauty of it was a beauty of wildness and of nature's victory over man. For such beauty Ham felt no answer ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... over the city every day, and at night you can see their lights moving overhead in the darkness. Sometimes they fly so low that you can hear the whir of their engines. For the moment you don't know if they're Russian or ...
— Trapped in 'Black Russia' - Letters June-November 1915 • Ruth Pierce
... I was weary with my labour at making of shoes, than to find myself dropping into the death of sleep! how much sweeter then must it not be to sink into the sleepiest of sleeps, the father-sleep, the mother-bosomed death of nothingness and unawaking rest! Then shall all this endless whir of the wheels of thought and desire be over; then welcome the night whose darkness doth not seethe, and which no morning ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... alternately running and walking. The Belgian trenches were perhaps a half mile beyond us, and we could make out the tap-tap of the rifle fire which had been only a continuous cracking a mile in the rear. Into this the machine guns cut with a whir. Spent bullets dropped here and there in the inundated field to the west of us, but the German shell fire must have been right in ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... the intellect. Archie's mind as a rule worked in rather a languid and restful sort of way, but now it got going with a rush and a whir. He glared round the room. He had never seen a room so devoid of satisfactory cover. And then there came to him a scheme, a ruse. It offered a chance of escape. It was, indeed, a bit of ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... standing in a long, low attic, amidst the whir and clatter of many looms. The meagre daylight peered in through the grated windows, and showed him the gaunt figures of the weavers bending over their cases. Pale, sickly-looking children were crouched on the huge crossbeams. As the shuttles dashed ...
— A House of Pomegranates • Oscar Wilde
... fruit in deadly clusters; maddening mosquitoes, parasitic insects, gorgeous dragon-flies and pretty water-lizards: the blue heron, the snowy crane, the red-bird, the moss-bird, the night-hawk and the chuckwill's-widow; a solemn stillness and stifled air only now and then disturbed by the call or whir of the summer duck, the dismal ventriloquous note of the rain-crow, or the splash of a dead branch falling into the clear but ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... said her brother. "It's a chap I met last night; he's just out of a convalescent home, and a bit down on his luck." His voice died away in a complicated jumble of whir and buzz, the bell rang frantically, and Norah, like thousands of other people, murmured her opinion of the ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... Jerusalem is in the hill country, the morning air on this occasion was not a little crisp. The rays of the sun, with their promise of warmth, lingered provokingly far up on the battlements and turrets of the great piles about, down from which fell the crooning of pigeons and the whir of the ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... errands, hurried here and there; other men stood silently feeding hungry contrivances—men were everywhere, engrossed in their work, paving scant attention to anything outside their task. And rushing up to Bonbright was a wave of composite sounds, a roar, a bellow, a shriek, a rattle, a whir, a grind.... It seemed ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... Melbain was silent for several moments. She seemed to be thinking. Louise's face was expressionless. She had made one attempt to check Wrayson, but recognizing its futility she had at once abandoned it. From below in the valley came the faint whir of the reaping machines, from the rose garden a murmur of bees. But between the two women and the man there was silence—silence which lasted so long that Monsieur Jules, who was watching from a window, called softly upon all the saints of ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the blanket of night, through which no sound from her could have reached the shore. There was little sound, and none agreeable save the whir of the ship's sewing machine at which Smee sat, ever industrious and obliging, the essence of the commonplace, pathetic Smee. I know not why he was so infinitely pathetic, unless it were because he was so pathetically unaware of it; but even strong men had to turn hastily from ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... abnormal size went up with a whir. Big he was, in comparison with his kind, as the monster steer in the side-show, the Cardiff giant, ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... Samson heard the popping of guns off to the side, where other gunners lay in other blinds, and presently a drake veered from his line of flight, far off to the right, harkened to the voice of temptation, and led his flock circling toward the blind. Then, with a whir and drumming of dark-tipped wings, they came down, and struck the water, and the boy from Misery rose up, shooting as he came. He heard the popping of his guide's gun at his side, and saw the dead and ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... rearranged in kaleidoscopic combinations, and transported from port to port, from town to town, from sea to sea. One can look nowhere without seeing this ceaseless activity progressing. Everywhere there is a whir of wheels, a plash of waves, a din of assembly, as the new combinations ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... of England emerges; and the Monument with its bristling head of golden hair; the dray horses crossing London Bridge show grey and strawberry and iron-coloured. There is a whir of wings as the suburban trains rush into the terminus. And the light mounts over the faces of all the tall blind houses, slides through a chink and paints the lustrous bellying crimson curtains; the green wine-glasses; the coffee- cups; and ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... poetry the modern man gets a chance to see to-day is merely going over the Falls that poetry is not supposed to appeal to the modern man. He supposes so himself. He supposes that a dynamo (forty street-cars on forty streets, flying through the dark) is not poetic, but its whir holds him, sense and spirit, spellbound, more than any poetry that is being written. The things that are hidden—the things that are spiritual and wondering—are the ones that appeal to him. The idle, foolish look of a magnet fascinates him. He gropes ...
— The Voice of the Machines - An Introduction to the Twentieth Century • Gerald Stanley Lee
... grandeur of the western mountains. And back to the myriad tiny things that she remembered best, the little, friendly things ... a stretch of maple-shadowed streets heavy and still with the heat of a summer noon; a flurry of pigeons in the courthouse square; yellow dandelions in a green lawn, the whir of a lawnmower and the smell of the cut grass; ivy on old bricks and the rough feel of oak bark under her hands; water lilies and watermelons and crepe papery dances and picnics by the river in the summer dusk; and the library steps in the evening, with fireflies in the cool grass ...
— The Passenger • Kenneth Harmon
... that were so thick that the world had been narrowed down to a few yards around us, we drove to some tall bushes growing on the bank of the slough. Faye was hunting, and about to make some ducks rise when he heard a great whir over his head, and although the snow was so thick he could not see just what was there, he quickly raised his gun and fired at something he saw moving up there. To his great amazement and my horror, ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... fingering the waxen flowers with a delicate, lingering touch. Now that there was no longer the noise of the wheels and the horses' hoofs, the forest stillness, which is composed of sound, made itself felt. The call of birds, the whir of insects, the murmur of the wind in the treetops, low, grave, incessant, and eternal as the sound of the sea, joined themselves to the slow waves of fragrance, the stretch of road whereon nothing moved, the sunlight lying on the earth, ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... up the sharp stony bottom for a short distance, and then halted to await the critical moment of the attack. Then, while they waited, the long white beam from a man-o'-war at sea settled along the ridge on the left and showed the strong wired entrenchments of the outpost. Whir-r-r went a shell overhead, and the first shot of the battle burst in an eruption of black ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... spin straw into gold, and haven't a notion how it's done." "What will you give me if I spin it for you?" asked the manikin. "My necklace," replied the girl. The little man took the necklace, sat himself down at the wheel, and whir, whir, whir, the wheel went round three times, and the bobbin was full. Then he put on another, and whir, whir, whir, the wheel went round three times, and the second too was full; and so it went on till the morning, when all the straw was spun away, ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... Lanning, as fear whipped him north out of Martindale, there seemed no pleasure or safety in the world except in the speed of his horse and the whir of the air against his face. When that speed faltered he went to the quirt. He spurred mercilessly. Yet he had ridden his horse out to a stagger before he reached old Sullivan's place. Only when the forefeet of the ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... whir like the echo of a sawmill, and saw several yards of steel spring shoot out of the inwards of the machine. I heard a sort of frantic shriek from Maud S. I saw a sudden cloud of pebbles and dust in the road, ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin
... scan The burning sky. Hot lie the glimmering plain And uplands parched. 'Behold, the bending grain, Fair in the springtide, now is dead; and dry The brooks. If yet the rainfall fail, we die Of famine sore. No bleating lambs I hear in fold Safe shut, nor lowing kine; nor on the wold The whir of mounting bird: Nor thrives about me Any living thing. So seemeth, end must be Of striving. Since all the land is cursed, What matter if by famine scorched, or thirst, We die?' he saith. "And thick the warlock swarm Above his head, wide-spreading dark ...
— Lilith - The Legend of the First Woman • Ada Langworthy Collier
... was as if an ocean steamer had suddenly stopped the whir of its wheels at the approach of the pilot come out from ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris
... his sad ear; And noise so slight it would surpass Credence:—drinking sound of grass, Worm-talk, clashing jaws of moth Chumbling holes in cloth: The groan of ants who undertake Gigantic loads for honour's sake— Their sinews creak, their breath comes thin: Whir of spiders when they spin, And minute whispering, mumbling, sighs Of idle grubs and flies. This man is quickened so with grief, He wanders god-like or like thief Inside and out, below, above, Without relief seeking ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... in body and spirit, incapable of thinking two thoughts in sequence. His brain seemed to whir, undone, in his skull. ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... operates, let us fancy ourselves ready for the start. The machine is placed upon a single-rail track facing the wind, and is securely fastened with a cable. The engine is put in motion, and the propellers in the rear whir. You take your seat at the center of the machine beside the operator. He slips the cable, and you shoot forward. An assistant who has been holding the machine in balance on the rail starts forward with you, but before you have gone 50 feet the speed is too great for him, and ...
— The Early History of the Airplane • Orville Wright
... ago, On a sudden seven ducks With a splashy rustle rise, Stretching out their seven necks, One before, and two behind, And the others all arow, And as steady as the wind With a swivelling whistle go, Through the purple shadow led, Till we only hear their whir In behind a rocky spur, ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... whir grew fainter, the gyrations stopped automatically. She wiped the blood from her face, and burst into hysterical weeping. The man, cursing horribly, rapped to find the spring that she must have pressed as she ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... omnibuses. The cab drove through the Seven Dials, and there the public-houses were disgorging at every corner their poor ruins of men and women. Shouts, curses, quarreling, and laughter struck upon the ear above the whir of the wheels. Unshaven men and unwashed women, squalid children running here and there among the oyster and orange stalls, thieves, idlers, vagabonds of all conditions, not a few honest people withal, and among them the dark figures ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... passed in the morning would give her a dollar for her harvest. Was it the dollar, or was it the sweet, wandering, summer air? Was it the mingled perfumes of vine and fruit and soft loam loosened as she crept among the brambles, or was it the shimmer of the waning sunlight or the whir of the wings of birds or the note of a hermit-thrush in some still depth of the woodland ever so far away? Or was it only because she was young and invincibly happy at times, in spite of a sore heart, that she sang ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... silence, and in a growing wave of sound the whir of the reaping machines swelled up from the fields beyond the garden and then receded into ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... whish of a riata through the pulseless air, the quick whir-r-r of the horse-hair rope through the loop as it settled down over his head, a snap as it flew taut, a sudden and violent shock as his feet were jerked from under him, the crack of his revolver—aimless, a stunning blow on his prostrate head, ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... success. He knows how to take care of himself, and to find both food and shelter in the evergreens, when the snow lies fresh upon the ground. There, in some sunny glade among the pines, he will ensconce himself in the thickest branches, and whir off as you come near, sailing down the opening with his body balancing from side ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... had retired with a bounce she remained alone in the gymnasium, eyes downcast, lips quivering. Later still, sitting in precisely the same position, she heard the soft whir of the touring car outside; then the click of the ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... sweet subtle odours breathed from magnificent cactuses, orchids, and irises. Thousands of birds, surprised among the tall grasses by the passing caravan, sprang aloft, and filled the air with the whir and winnow of ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... difficulties had taught the captain just how to aim. As he pulled the lanyard, the little bronze cannon spit out fire viciously, and the long projectile, to which had been attached the end of the coiled line, sailed off on its errand of mercy. With a whir the line spun out of the box coil after coil, while the crew peered out over the breaking seas to see if the keeper's aim was true. At last the line stopped uncoiling and the life-savers knew that the shot had landed somewhere. For a time nothing happened, ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday
... now leaping narrow courts, now dropping to low sheds and again clambering to the heights of the higher buildings, until he had come almost to the end of the row. Suddenly, behind him he heard a hoarse shout, followed by the report of a rifle. With a whir, a bullet flew a few inches above his head. He had gained the last roof—a large, level roof—and at the shot he turned to see how near to ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Not one of all can put in verse, Or to this presence could rehearse The sights and voices ravishing The boy knew on the hills in spring, When pacing through the oaks he heard Sharp queries of the sentry-bird, The heavy grouse's sudden whir, The rattle of ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... who could tell where—the tall swale-grass on the river edge, erect now again after the April floods, or the brown broom-corn nearer the road, or from the sky above? We could hear the squirrels' mocking chatter in the tree-tops, the whir of the kingfishers along the willow-fringed water—the indefinable chorus of Nature's myriad small children, all glad that spring was come. But above these our ears took in the ceaseless clang of the drums, and the sound of hundreds of armed men's feet, ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... acclivity, whiz—piff—whir! came the balls over my head; and pitter-patter, pitter-patter! they fell on the body of the elephant like drops of rain. The enemy were behind me; I knew it, and quickened my pace. I heard the gallop of their horse: they came nearer, nearer; I was ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... fruit falling around us, announcing that birds were feeding overhead; and looking up, we discovered flocks of parakeets, or bright blue chatterers, or pompadours having delicate white wings and claret-coloured plumage. Again, with a whir a trogon on the wing would seize some fruit, or a clumsy toucan would make the branches shake as he alighted above our heads. We saw several species of trogons, and frequently caught sight of that curious black umbrella-bird which I have before described. Clumps of ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... mile each way from his home, went the father, shouting, "Birdie! Birdie, little maid!" and the echoes repeated, "Birdie! Birdie, little maid!" but no other sound he heard except the rustling of the leaves and the whir of insect wings. The sun was beginning to sink in the west when, tired and heart-sick, he came back again. "Perhaps she is there now," he thought, a ray of hope lighting up his face as he neared the garden gate; but a glance at his wife's tearful eyes as she came to meet him told him ...
— Harper's Young People, February 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... lolling trailing grace about the lifted length, the head slightly inclined to us, the hood but partly spread—something winged in the undulation, a suggestion of that which we could not see, faintly like the whir of a humming bird's wings. That is it—an intimation of forces we had not senses to register—also colours and sounds! . . . My hand was lost in the great hand. My uncle did not turn back. He was speaking. ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... comfort—a strong feeling, namely, of the briefness of time, and the certainty of the messenger's return to fetch herself. Her soul did not sink into peace, but a strange peace awoke in her spirit. She heard the spring of the great clock that measures the years rushing rapidly down with a feverous whir, and saw the hands that measure the weeks and months careering around its face; while Death, like one of the white-robed angels in the tomb of the Lord, sat watching, with patient smile, for the hour when he should be wanted to go for her. Thus mingled her broken watch, her father's death, and ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... persons have exprest surprize that Something of extravagance there may be in Strange as it may seem Strictly speaking, it is not Such an avowal is not Such is not my theory. Such is steadfastly my opinion that Such is the truth. Such, then, is the answer whir I make to Supposing, for instance, Surely I do not misinterpret the spirit Surely it is preposterous Surely, then, Surely, this is good and ...
— Phrases for Public Speakers and Paragraphs for Study • Compiled by Grenville Kleiser |
