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Rumbling   /rˈəmbəlɪŋ/  /rˈəmblɪŋ/   Listen
Rumbling

noun
1.
A loud low dull continuous noise.  Synonyms: grumble, grumbling, rumble.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Rumbling" Quotes from Famous Books



... cracked just here, because the granite has broken and torn the limestone as it lifted it up; and here is the hot water out of the boiler actually oozing out of the crack; and the earthquake I heard last night was simply the steam rumbling and thumping inside, ...
— Madam How and Lady Why - or, First Lessons in Earth Lore for Children • Charles Kingsley

... rumbling sound in the darkness, a movement as if some heavy body had slid out of the way, and Mark felt a breath of air on his cheeks. Then he saw ...
— Lost on the Moon - or In Quest Of The Field of Diamonds • Roy Rockwood

... began to descent with great rapidity. Very soon he had vanished into blackness, and the agitation of the cord alone told us that anything was going on below. At last the rope ceased shaking and a faint shout came rumbling up the well, announcing Ali's safe arrival. Then, far below, a tiny star of light appeared. He had lit the candle, thereby disturbing hundreds of bats that flitted up in an endless stream and as silently ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard

... to calm! And though his thunder car The rumbling tempest drive through earth and sky, Good cheer! good cheer! The elemental war Tells that the blessed healing ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various

... conversation Nigel was startled by what was to him an absolutely new sensation, namely a shaking or trembling of the whole cavern, accompanied by faint rumbling sounds as if in deeper ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne

... the due time now. Again I listen intently, as I listened yesterday, for his coming. There is a sound now; but, alas! not the right one! It is the rumbling of an approaching carriage. A pony-chaise bowls past. The occupants are acquaintances of mine, and we bow and smile to each other. As long as they are in sight, I affect to be diligently botanizing in the hedge. When they have disappeared, I sit down on a heap ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton

... gods themselves chided his temerity, the very heavens split and shattered all sound with rending uproar. Coaley squatted, stopped and stood shaking, his heart pounding so that Lance felt its tremulous tattoo against his thigh. The rumbling after-note of the thunder ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower

... for a moment whether a tramp had found his way into the grounds on some nefarious errand. She stood still, thinking as she did so that she heard a rustle in a bush close at hand, and then Jock growled again, a fierce, low rumbling in his throat, which frightened Toni almost out ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes

... tried again to remain in bed, but this time without success. He was up in the gray awakening city, walking in the park, listening to the birds near by and the rumbling beginnings of London life. After breakfast, he went again ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson

... lightning darted through the firmament, ever and anon lighting up the raft. At last, the flashes were so rapid, not following each other—but darting down from every quarter at once, that the whole firmament appeared as if on fire, and the thunder rolled along the heavens, now near and loud, then rumbling in the distance. The breeze rose up fresh, and the waves tossed the raft, and washed occasionally even to Amine's feet, as she stood in ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat

... quoth Tip again, as we distinctly heard the commixed rumbling and rattling sound of artillery ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... there they had laid till the sun melted the snow in summer, when the coyotes and the vultures would soon clean the bones." He broke off suddenly; there was a dull sound, and at the same moment a distinct vibration of the ground, then a rustling murmur mingled with a rumbling as of a waggon ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty

... This time I ran back a few steps. But it was a false alarm. Nothing came of it. The heaving mass seemed to be producing the desired effect, however. The Strokhr was evidently getting very sick. I looked over once more. All below was a rumbling, tumbling black mass, dashing over and over against the sides of the churn. Soon a threatening roar not to be mistaken startled me. "Look out, sir!" shouted Zoega; "look out!" Unlike the Frenchman ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... miles beyond Eden, which the railroad had reached, and Gumbolt. Wagons, ambulances, and other vehicles of a nondescript character on good days crowded the road, filling the mountain pass with the cries and oaths of their drivers and the rumbling and rattling of their wheels, and filling Mr. Gilsey's soul with disgust. But the vehicle of honor was still "Gilsey's stage." It carried the mail and some of the express, had the best team in the mountains, and was known as the "reg'lar." On bad ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page

... which had been provided for my boxes and trunks, rumbling along behind us, empty except for ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes

... main parties, and render government unstable and capricious. The main parties themselves tend to degenerate into factions. Personality is declining—the demand is for followers, not leaders. Compromise is supplanted by log-rolling and lobbying. And, to crown all, the rumbling of class strife grows ominously louder. The danger is that these tendencies may be allowed to go too far before reform is attempted—that the confidence ...
— Proportional Representation Applied To Party Government • T. R. Ashworth and H. P. C. Ashworth

... neighbor none could tell, So cold he seemed in wonted sympathy. Yet he would ponder an hour at a time Upon a bird found dead; and much he loved To brood i' th' shade of yon wind-wavered pines. Often at night, too, he would wander forth, Lured by the hollow rumbling of the sea In moonlight breaking, there to learn wild things, Such as these dreamers pluck out of the dusk While other men lie sleeping. But a star, Rose on his sight, at last, with power to rule Majestically mild that deep-domed ...
— Rose and Roof-Tree - Poems • George Parsons Lathrop

... days before, a splintered rock Had struck her lover dead— Had struck him in the quarry dead, Where, careless of the warning call, He loitered, while the shot was fired— A lively stripling, brave and tall, And sure of all his heart desired ... A flash, a shock, A rumbling fall ... And, broken 'neath the broken rock, A lifeless heap, with face of clay; And still as any stone he lay, With eyes that ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various

... harsh rumbling sound, and then there was wheeled out into the open yard an inclined plane hitched up on huge iron wheels. To the inclined plane was bound a ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... of horse's hoofs and the rumbling of wheels on the hard roadbed, and around the rocky hillside appeared a light carriage driven by a portly, middle-aged man of professional appearance, who drew rein at sight of the child sitting there so disconsolately with the broken ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown

... The sun was almost down. Far away a low rumbling was heard, a noise like the rolling of cars ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson

... the first sound of the bell, with one bound the men were out of bed, in another into their combinations, and in a third they were going head over heels down the holes in the floor, just as mice would disappear down theirs at the sight of a cat, and in a second or two I heard again the rumbling of the engine ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss

... the hour for the morning train drew near, Carrie, resting upon pillows, and whiter than the linen which covered them, strained her ears to catch the first sound of the locomotive. At last, far off through an opening among the hills, was heard a rumbling noise, which increased each moment in loudness, until the puffing engine shot out into the long, green valley, and then rolled rapidly ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes

... the footing much more safe; but in order to get to the wood, the road is so dangerous, that it made me almost tremble to think of it,—slippery grey rocks, and many of them unfortunately loose, so that when we took hold, they separated from the mass, and fell with a horrid rumbling noise. Here and there were a few patches of grass, the only thing we could depend upon to assist us in climbing, which must be done with extreme caution, for the least slip or false step would dash one to atoms on the rocks below. ...
— The Book of Enterprise and Adventure - Being an Excitement to Reading. For Young People. A New and Condensed Edition. • Anonymous

... this, beforehand, that I had really felt ashamed of doing what I was nevertheless impelled to do, I went back to the inn. If such a wind could rise, I think it was rising. The howl and roar, the rattling of the doors and windows, the rumbling in the chimneys, the apparent rocking of the very house that sheltered me, and the prodigious tumult of the sea, were more fearful than in the morning. But there was now a great darkness besides; and that invested the storm with new terrors, real ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... spring, the hearts of men were awaiting the outburst of the thunder, the blue peaks of whose cloud-built cells had long been visible on the horizon of the future. Every now and then they would start and listen, and ask each other was it the first growl of the storm, or but the rumbling of the wheels of the government. To the dwellers in Raglan Castle it seemed at least a stormy sign—of which the news reached them in the dull November weather—that the parliament had set a guard upon Worcester House in the Strand, and searched ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald

... or peeped out from under the white coverings. This was evidently no ordinary party of immigrants, but rather some nomad people who had been compelled from stress of circumstances to seek themselves a new country. There rose through the clear air a confused clattering and rumbling from this great mass of humanity, with the creaking of wheels and the neighing of horses. Loud as it was, it was not sufficient to rouse the two tired wayfarers ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle

... abaft that we had no clear view of what passed. We heard dropping shot now and then, and now and again a bolt thundered on to our own hull and buried itself deep in our timbers; while, once, a terrible blaze ahead, followed by a rumbling which set the Rata shivering in all her planks, told us of disaster and explosion somewhere near among the Spaniards themselves. What it all meant we could only guess. For the night came on us roughly, and, as darkness closed, it was all our helmsman ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed

... on the third morning out a great commotion was occasioned on board. Everybody was awakened by a loud rumbling. A majority thought a submarine had been encountered. Several dashed up the steps of the hatchway to be ready for action. Someone shouted, "Don't get excited, but make room for me to get out first." Later it was ascertained that the ...
— The Delta of the Triple Elevens - The History of Battery D, 311th Field Artillery US Army, - American Expeditionary Forces • William Elmer Bachman

... pedagogue himself. His instructions are not limited to school hours; and having inherited the musical taste and talents of his father, he has bitten the whole school with the mania. He is a great hand at beating a drum, which is often heard rumbling from the rear of the school-house. He is teaching half the boys of the village, also, to play the fife, and the pandean pipes; and they weary the whole neighbourhood with their vague pipings, as they sit perched on stiles, or loitering about the barn-doors in the evenings. ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving

... morning sky was bright and cloudless, the streets of the Cabanal were rumbling as in a thunderstorm. People jumped out of bed as the crashing almost split their eardrums; and good women of the village, their hair still down and in wrappers hastily thrown on, went out on the sidewalk in front of their doors to see what was going on. The bluish transparency of dawn ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... the street in question. The Rue de la Pepiniere is in a tumult. Policemen are hurriedly making way through the crowd. In the distance, confused cries and a rapidly approaching, rumbling sound are heard. Monsieur thrusts his head ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... madly, now snarling like beasts, now rumbling portentously like a storm, now babbling like an infant; a great emotional frenzy, throbbing with passion, goaded beyond fear, desperate with need; leaderless, and therefore the ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill

... meantime the rumbling of wagon wheels could be heard in the road leading down the mountain. It was evident we were being detained by a small force striving to hold us there while the train made its escape. A regiment was ordered up mounted to make a charge. I heard the colonel giving his orders. "Men," ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd

... a slight rumbling sound of an earthquake was felt yesterday evening, the atmosphere at the time being very close: this was succeeded by a squall. Strong winds are prevalent, generally easterly: clear sunshine is evidently of rare continuance at Pushut: little snow remains except ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith

... A confusion of rumbling voices sounded. Blurred giant shapes were outside. The room jolted and swayed as the boat landed and ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various

... were quite sick and stupid, and would have had sunstrokes; but, being under the water, they could only have water-strokes; which, I assure you, are nearly as bad, as you will find if you try to sit under a mill wheel. And mind—when you hear a rumbling at the bottom of the sea, sailors will tell you that it is a ground swell; but now you know better. It is the old lady wheeling ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester

... restraining hold. The wind had eased up. I leaped out into it, swimming. The rocks slid by close under me in a swift sidewise drift. In a moment I would be carried out over the river. It was a chaos of green, windswept darkness. But there was bursting light now overhead and rumbling ...
— Wandl the Invader • Raymond King Cummings

... Shearson; also motive power, almost. For reckonable seconds he stood stricken. Then slowly he got under way and rolled through the door. Once, on the stairs, they heard from him a protracted rumbling groan. "Ruin," was ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... loosen the soil about its roots. What a deep-rooted plant it was! Again the girl pulled with all her might, and observed that the earth began to stir and crack to some distance around the stem. She gave another pull, but relaxed her hold, fancying that there was a rumbling sound right beneath her feet. Did the roots extend down into some enchanted cavern? Then, laughing at herself for so childish a notion, she made another effort; up came the shrub, and Proserpina staggered ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various

... like, and sleep till eight, If dust and rumbling wheels are what you hate, If tavern-life disgusts you, then repair To Ferentinum, and turn hermit there; For wealth has no monopoly of bliss, And life unnoticed is not lived amiss: But if you'd help your friends, and like a treat, Then drop dry bread, ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace

... farmer, and the mechanic follow them. The long solitude of the centuries is broken by mill-wheels, the buzzing of saws, the stroke of the axe, the blow of the hammer and trowel. The stageman cracks his whip in the passes of the mountains. The click of the telegraph and the rumbling of the printing-press are heard at the head-waters of the Missouri, and borne on the breezes there is the laughter of children and the sweet music of Sabbath hymns, sung by ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various

... then slowly strolled back to the Casino. The terrace was nearly empty; every one had gone to listen to the operetta, the sound of whose contemporary gayety came through the open, hot-looking windows in little thin quavers and catches. The ocean was rumbling just beneath; it made a ruder but richer music. Bernard stood looking at it a moment; then he went down the steps to the beach. The tide was rather low; he walked slowly down to the line of the breaking waves. The sea looked huge and black and simple; everything was vague ...
— Confidence • Henry James

... of one of these gloomy caverns, extending several hundred feet into the interior of the mountain, he was surprised to hear a deep rumbling noise, increased in intensity by ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne

... ministers reminded me of those marine landscapes not unusual on the coasts of South America. You behold a range of exhausted volcanoes. Not a flame flickers on a single pallid crest. But the situation is still dangerous. There are occasional earthquakes, and ever and anon the dark rumbling of the sea." His attacks on Peel have been pronounced to be among the most remarkable speeches in the annals of the British Legislature. In 1849, at which period also he wrote the biography of his father and the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various

... rhinoceros had not had the slightest intimation of the elephant's approach; for the tread of the latter—big beast as he is—is as silent as a cat's. It is true that a loud rumbling noise like distant thunder proceeded from his inside as he moved along; but the kobaoba was in too high a caper just then to have heard or noticed any sound that was not very ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid

... occur, sir," exclaimed Robson. "We were just about to lie down, when we heard the most fearful rumbling noise, and the rocks about us trembled as if they would come down on our heads. Let us get away from this place as fast as we can, or we shall have been only saved from drowning to suffer ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston

... black on the sky, a waggon of clover Slowly goes rumbling, over the white chalk road; And I lie in the golden grass there, wondering why So little a thing As the jingle and ring of the harness, The hot creak of leather, The peace of the plodding, Should suddenly, stabbingly, make it Strange ...
— The Lord of Misrule - And Other Poems • Alfred Noyes

... line, carrying the tag end of the revellers, when he set forth in his car for a mid-day visit to Red Roof. Already the huge camp of Slavs and Italians was beginning to jerk up the borrowed rails and ties; the work trains were rumbling and snorting in the meadows above Blitherwood, tottering about on the uncertain road-bed. He gave a few concise and imperative orders to obsequious superintendents and foremen, who subsequently repeated them with even greater freedom to the perspiring foreigners, and left the scene ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... her door startled her. The profound silence that followed appeared to irk her badly. After a long time there was the shriek of the night-freight's whistle and the great rumbling of the arriving train, the grinding of brakes, shouts that sounded harshly, various loud thumps as cars were shunted off to the siding. And then the train started again, groaning and clattering and heaving up the grade through the cut, after which the intense stillness returned ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick

... and rumbling began anew. No one else got in, and when they had passed the only two landmarks she knew—the leprous Chinaman's hut and the market garden of Ah Chow, who twice a week jaunted at a half-trot to the township with his hanging baskets, ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson

... through Voreppe, a little village not without some importance because in the neighborhood of the Grande Chartreuse, which, at this season of the year, attracts more curiosity-hunters than believers—suddenly the horses stopped, I heard a rumbling noise outside, and a crimson glare lighted up the carriage windows. I might have taken it for sunset, if the sun ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin

... hands into the ambulance compartment. The train drew slowly away from the scene of the accident, gradually gathering speed, and Diana, worn out with strain and excitement, dozed fitfully to the rhythmic rumbling of the wheels. ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler

... informant of the depot platform had used his "ups" and "downs" indiscriminately in indicating the direction of Wallencamp. In the inky blackness by which I was surrounded I was conscious, clearly, of but one sensation—that of going up and down. The rumbling of the wheels reached me as something ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene

... bright-colored line of peasant women, and the scattered hay was being rapidly formed into gray winding rows over the pale green stubble. After the women came the men with pitchforks, and from the gray rows there were growing up broad, high, soft haycocks. To the left, carts were rumbling over the meadow that had been already cleared, and one after another the haycocks vanished, flung up in huge forkfuls, and in their place there were rising heavy cartloads of fragrant hay hanging over ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy

... A rumbling noise, which might have been either a sign of contempt or a sigh of relief, was Tantor's only reply as the uplifted trunk and ears came down and the beast's tail dropped to normal; but his eyes still roved ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... I accordingly ordered the usual watching-hole to be constructed, and, having placed my bedding in it, repaired thither shortly after sundown. I had lain about two hours in the hole, when I heard a low rumbling noise like distant thunder, caused (as the Bechuanas affirmed) by the bowels of the elephants which were approaching the fountain. I lay on my back, with my mouth open, attentively listening, and could hear them plowing up the earth with their tusks. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester

... seclusion," thought Tom, as he and Mary took their places. And as he glanced over the bill of fare his ears caught the murmur of the voices of two men coming from behind the screen. One voice was low and rumbling, the other high-pitched ...
— Tom Swift among the Fire Fighters - or, Battling with Flames from the Air • Victor Appleton

... of thunder, each in kind resembling a screech, or the blast of a trumpet, rather than the rumbling sound of thunder in Europe, burst over our heads, and were succeeded by vivid flashes of forked lightning. We now made every necessary preparation for a storm, by striking the top-gallant-masts, with their yards, close reefing the topsails ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 275, September 29, 1827 • Various

... was the lift in which, at no great pace and with much rumbling and creaking, the porter conveyed the two gentlemen to the alarming eminence, as Mr. Longdon measured their flight, at which Vanderbank perched. The impression made on him by this contrivance showed him as unsophisticated, yet ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James

... were startled by a violent storm of thunder and lightning, and the rumbling of an earthquake. At the same time appeared the marvellous phenomenon of eight rainbows arching over the mouth of the cave. Above the din of the storm the parents heard the voice of the awakened child calling ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various

... muttering curses in his sleep. Others were snoring loudly. I lay awake for a long time, staring into the black darkness of the marquee. Suddenly—it must have been two or three o'clock in the morning—the familiar rumbling noise broke out in the distance. It seemed to spread along the whole horizon. The "stunt" ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt

... the great serpent of the sky as among the Zuni. Subsequently the zoic concept fades, and the constant association of human intellectual qualities engenders an anthropic concept, when the sun becomes an anthropomorphic deity (perhaps bearing a dazzling mask, as among the Zuni), and thunder is the rumbling of quoits pitched by the shades of old-time giants, as among different American tribes. Eventually all the leading agencies of nature are personified in anthropic form, and retain the human attributes of caprice, love, and hate which ...
— The Siouan Indians • W. J. McGee

... Mantua itself must have broken on him in the prospect, with its towers, and walls, and water, pretty much as on a commonplace and matrimonial omnibus. He made the same sharp twists and turns, perhaps, over two rumbling drawbridges; passed through the like long, covered, wooden bridge; and leaving the marshy water behind, approached the rusty ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens

... to my joy, the neighbours rumbling over to call in heraldic barouches (the mothers alone—with embarrassed excuses for not bringing their daughters), and the agony of not knowing, till they were in the room, if Yvonne would receive them with lowered lids and folded hands, sitting by ...
— Coming Home - 1916 • Edith Wharton

... me, my friends," said he, "I have been costive for several days, and my physicians were to seek about it, when a suppository of pomegranate wine, with the liquor of a pine-tree and vinegar relieved me; and now I hope my belly may be ashamed if it keep no better order; for otherwise I have such a rumbling in my guts, you'd think an ox bellowed; and therefore if any of you has a mind, he need not blush for the matter; there's not one of us born without some defect or other, and I think no torment greater than wanting the benefit of going to stool, which is the only thing even Jupiter himself cannot ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter

... the callous-hearted only urged her to proceed. She would howl then with a howl that told of bitter disappointment. Sometimes she would sit down flat and regard the thing with a blighting glance, the hatred of a gentle nature roused to unwonted vehemence. Always her wails accompanied the rumbling of ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael

... movements. But in the perspective of history we ought not to overlook another significant trait: the overemphasis on dancing has usually characterized a period of political reaction, of indifference to public life, of social stagnation and carelessness. When the volcanoes were rumbling, the masses were always dancing. At all times when tyrants wanted to divert the attention of the crowd, they gave the dances to their people. A nation which dances cannot think, but lives from hour to hour. The ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg

... 1856, that I landed with my family at Civita Vecchia, on my return for the third time to Rome. Before we could make all our arrangements, it was too late to think of journeying that day towards the dear old city; but the following morning we set forth in a rumbling, yellow post-coach, with three horses, and a shabby, gaudy postilion,—the wheels clattering, the bells on the horses' necks jingling, the cock's-plumes on their heads nodding, and a half-dozen sturdy beggar-brats running at our side and singing a dismal chorus ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various

... The rumbling of the great hempen cable out through the hawse-pipe served as a signal to some dozen or more of poor scurvy-stricken wretches who lay gasping in their hammocks in the stifling forecastle. They had heard the cry of "Land ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... day, but not one syllable about those who have no necessity to hire, because they have carriages and horses of their own; not one word of a penalty on liveried coachmen and footmen. The whole of the saintly venom is directed against the hired cabriolet, the humble fly, or the rumbling hackney-coach, which enables a man of the poorer class to escape for a few hours from the smoke and dirt, in the midst of which he has been confined throughout the week: while the escutcheoned carriage and the dashing cab, may whirl their wealthy ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens

... they heard upon the road the rhythmic foot-beats of horses, and the rattle of some farmer's wagon rumbling homeward from the village. Then together they screamed for help. But the hoofs went on beating their tattoo till the sound grew faint, and the rattle of the wagon died in the distance. Again and again the sound which told of human nearness woke hope in their hearts only to die in ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith

... a weary close, and the sun sank behind heavy clouds black with more than one rumbling promise of storm. The boys toiled doggedly on, weak from hunger, for their lunches had gone over with the boat, and, anyway, they would not have had the heart to swallow a bite. Lanky, good-natured Tod Fulton—drowned! It simply couldn't be. ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island • Gordon Stuart

... taken their seats, and the accused stands awaiting the charges to be read, when suddenly there is a quick cry of terror. A strange rumbling sound fills the air, and the walls of the judgment hall are trembling to their base—the monastery and the city of London are being shaken by an earthquake! Friar and prelate grow pale with superstitious awe. Twice already has this arraignment of Wycliffe ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... chimney in sheets of flame went this delightful fabric; sometimes it roared there, as if it had set the chimney on fire, and she had to pause, shielding her scorched face, until the hollow rumbling had died down. But at last the holocaust was over, and she unlocked the door again. No one knew but she, and no one should ever know. The Guru had turned out to be a curry-cook, but no intruding Hermy had been here this time. ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson

... my name called," announced the defendant in a deep-rumbling voice of challenge, "an' hyar I be—but, afore God on high, I aims ter git me ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... seated themselves on the skins that made up the couch they were both conscious of a far-away rumbling like peals of thunder. Not having seen any signs of a storm outside Carruthers turned inquiringly ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various

... Jesus! Viva Gesu!" A far-rumbling thunder broke from the swaying mob. His own fire caught extra ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... sighs Of the mounting wind in the pines; And the sobs of the mounting waves that rise In the dark of the troubled deep To break on the beach in fiery lines. Echo the far-off roll of thunder, Rumbling loud And ever louder, under The blue-black curtain of cloud, Where the lightning serpents gleam, Echo the moaning Of the forest in its sleep Like a giant groaning In the ...
— The Red Flower - Poems Written in War Time • Henry Van Dyke

... three sharp jerking shocks of an earthquake in quick succession, at 9.8 p.m., appearing to come up from the southward: they were accompanied by a hollow rumbling sound like that of a waggon passing over a wooden bridge. The shock was felt strongly at Dorjiling, and registered by Mr. Muller at 9.10 p.m.: we had accurately adjusted our watches (chronometers) the previous morning, and the motion may therefore ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... may seem funny, but it is natural. When you were asleep you heard the bee buzzing and rumbling, and the sound reminded you of an engine, so you began to picture an engine in your mind, and with the queer mixture of fact and fancy that are common to dreams you thought it was coming right at you. And it was only a bumble-bee taking a look ...
— Every Girl's Book • George F. Butler

... sat and watched, two men began to launch it. The sea ran high; tide coming in; the sou'-wester still increasing in force to a gale; at the signal-staff on the cliff, the danger-cone was hoisted. White spray danced in air. Big black clouds rolled up seething from windward; low thunder rumbling; a storm threatened. ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen

... of our men lay between us and them. As I looked I could see a mighty stir in it. Every man of them seemed to be jumping up in the air. From afar came the sound of bugles calling 'retreat, the shouting of men, the rumbling of wagons. It grew louder. An officer rode by me hatless, and halted, shading his eyes. Then ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller

... is creeping over the sky towards the sun. Red zigzags of lightning gleam here and there across it. There is a sound of far-away rumbling. A warm wind frolics over the grass, bends the trees, and stirs up the dust. In a minute there will be a spurt of May rain and ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... giants had gone he swept and tidied the camp and put some venison on the fire to roast. At midday, when the sun was right overhead, he heard a rumbling noise from the river, and looking up he saw the head and shoulders of an enormous man emerging from it. And behold! right down the river-bed and up the river-bed, till they faded into the blue distance, ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various

... this news; he asked whether the horses had been fed, and when they answered "Yes," he had his men mount, and in three hours' time he was at the gates of Erlabrunn. Amid the rumbling of a distant storm on the horizon, he and his troop entered the courtyard of the convent with torches which they had lighted before reaching the spot. Just as Waldmann, his servant, came forward to announce that ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... four-post bedstead in it, which was quite a little landed estate. Here, among pillows enough for six, I soon fell asleep in a blissful condition, and dreamed of ancient Rome, Steerforth, and friendship, until the early morning coaches, rumbling out of the archway underneath, made me dream of ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... even an attempt at gayety in the ornamentation, yet there appeared to be nothing attractive to tourists, save the Foreign Legion, which gave mystery and romance to all that would otherwise have been banal. Noise was everywhere, loud, shrill, insistent; rumbling, shrieking, rattling, roaring. Huge wagons, loaded with purple-stained cases of Algerian wine, bumping over the stones; strings of bells wound round the great horns of horses' collars jingling like sleigh-bells in winter; whips in the hands of fierce-eyed carters ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson

... the mountain was removed at the instant that Mr. George had spoken these words, by another avalanche, which just at that moment commenced its fall. They all stopped to listen. The sound was greatly prolonged, sometimes roaring continuously for a time, like a cataract, and then rumbling and crashing like ...
— Rollo in Switzerland • Jacob Abbott

... soldiers which have bleached upon the ruins of the Old Trail. Silence reigns supremely over the once famous ranch, broken occasionally by the screams of the locomotives as they whiz by on the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad, puffing, screeching and rumbling up the steep ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus

... was a stronger tremor now, and it was accompanied by a low, rumbling sound, like distant thunder. The adventurers ...
— Tom Swift and his Wireless Message • Victor Appleton

... the mountain had been reached, and they were pausing before the next climb, when a rumbling jar was heard, and a cry of warning ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish

... train rolls on, the journey is so long, so long and wearisome, there is nothing we can do except listen to the rumbling of the wheels. An engine flares past, it sounds like iron striking iron, and I start, but she does not; she is probably entirely absorbed in thoughts about her friend. And the ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun

... and around them all the scouts arose and joined hands to form the outer guard. The lightning became more vivid in its flashes and the mutterings of thunder changed to rumbling and roaring as they stood there. The big drops of rain began to thicken ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo

... which it starts. The London trains being the worst, having a large proportion of what are vulgarly called "swells out of luck." In a rural district the gathering of smock-frocks and rosy-faced lasses, the rumbling of carts, and the size, number, and shape of the trunks and parcels, afford a very agreeable and comical scene on a frosty, moonlight, winter's morning, about Christmas time, when visiting commences, ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney

... spot where I sat I heard trees whispering on the hills, and a cart rumbling along the hardened dust ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... strong effort, I caught back my escaping self-control, and forced my shuddering limbs to obey my will and resume their work-and so, slowly, inch by inch, I resumed my climb, sick with giddiness and fear and chilled to the very heart. Presently I heard a rumbling roar like the sound of great billows rushing into hollow caverns which echoed their breaking in thuds of booming thunder. Looking up, I saw the Figure I had followed standing still; and I fancied that the sombre draperies in which it was enveloped showed an outline ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli

... that has once seen Edinburgh, with its couchant crag-lion, but must see it again in dreams, waking or sleeping? My dear sir, do riot think I blaspheme, when I tell you that your great London, as compared to Dun-Edin, 'mine own romantic town,' is as prose compared to poetry, or as a great rumbling, rambling, heavy epic compared to a lyric, brief, bright, clear and vital as a flash of lightning. You have nothing like Scott's monument, or, if you had that, and all the glories of architecture assembled together, you have nothing like ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... nothing was seen or heard of it, and the onlookers were smiling to each other when the wonderful crystals began to splutter and fizz, till the packet suddenly exploded with a loud report, rattling the bottles and jars together, while the rumbling report rolled up ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday

... prepared to walk it, but feared to take the wrong road, for she instinctively felt that if she had to endure any unexpected delay, some one from Briar Farm would be sent to trace her and find out where she went. While she thus hesitated, she heard the heavy rumbling of slow cart-wheels, and waited to see what sort of vehicle might be approaching. It was a large waggon drawn by two ponderous horses and driven by a man who, dimly perceived by the light of the lantern fastened in front of him, appeared to be asleep. Innocent hailed him—and after ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli

... the night clear and bright. Cayrol's carriage rolled rapidly along the broad avenue of the park shadowed by tall trees, the lanterns throwing, as they passed, their quivering light on the thickets. The rumbling carriages took the last guests to the railway station. It was past midnight. A nightingale began singing his song of ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet

... maintained the gravest faces, the most mysterious silence, and were, withal, the most melancholy party of pleasure he had ever witnessed. Nothing interrupted the stillness of the scene but the noise of the balls, which, whenever they were rolled, echoed along the mountains like rumbling peals of thunder. ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... commenced after sunset, and everything in the house had to be uncovered, lest the evil spirit should find any resting-place. A free passage was left out of the door into the street, where many people were kneeling. About five minutes after the station opened a rumbling noise was heard, and a black barrel rolled out with an unearthly din, though to some coming up the street it appeared in the shape of a black horse with a bull's head, and a headless man seated thereon. From this time the ghost gave no ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour

... disappeared. Whole trees bobbed and sank and raised skeleton arms or tangled roots as they were swept along by the current or caught back by the eddies; and underneath the roar of the waters we heard the dull rumbling and crunching of boulders rolled beneath the flood. A crowd of men was watching in idle curiosity. We learned that all the cradles and most of the tools had been lost; and heard rumours of cabins or camps located too ...
— Gold • Stewart White

... The rumbling of a drum broke upon the stillness, and for just one moment she thought of the glorious deliverance promised by her Voices—I read it in the rapture that lit her face; then she saw what it was—her prison escort—and that light ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain

... the poet, the artist, the dreamer—was enchained and entranced by emotions vague and undefinable, half of delight and half of pain. Leaning on the shoulder of his friend, he gazed around him, and heard, with deepening awe, the rumbling of the earth below, the wheels and voices of the Ministry of Nature in her darkest and most inscrutable recess. Suddenly, as a bomb from a shell, a huge stone was flung hundreds of yards up from the jaws of the crater, and falling with a mighty crash upon the rock below, ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... feel the fainting coming on again, and the sensation that this was the last struggle before complete annihilation—when, on a sudden, a violent uproar reached my ears. It had some resemblance to the prolonged rumbling voice of thunder, and I clearly distinguished sonorous voices, lost one after the other, in the distant ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne

... on the terrace, dreaming of his club, of the noisy Paris crowd, of the rumbling omnibuses, of the playbill of the little kiosk, of the scent of heated asphalt—and the memory of the least of these enchantments brought infinite peace to his soul. The inhabitant of Paris has one ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... hopes were soon to be dispelled. One night a deep rumbling roar was heard in the jungle through which they were picking their unanimous way. A shudder ran through the slaves. "Simba," they whispered in terror. A little while later there was another rumble, this time much closer. They ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon

... this belief he exercised extreme caution, stopping to listen now and then, with one hand always near his pistol. A quiet gloom filled the forest and by the tree-tops he marked the going down of the sun. Nathaniel's ears ached with their strain of listening for the rumbling roar that would tell of Casey's attack ...
— The Courage of Captain Plum • James Oliver Curwood

... slippers; more and more splendid banners, painted with dragons sprawling in distressed attitudes; litters containing minor gods and the paraphernalia they were accustomed to need on a journey like this; more litters bearing Chinese orchestras, gongs going at full blast, fiddles squeaking, drums rumbling, trumpets shrieking, cymbals clashing,—just the sort of Babel that ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... apt to happen. Wilbur's judgment was not gone, but he was ready to yell. The herd behind grew closer and closer. Presently the walk broke into a short trot, the horns of the following bunch of steers appeared at Kit's flanks, a rumbling as of half-uttered bellows was heard from the rear of the herd, and, on the instant, the ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... of the third day, as we pulled slowly into the station at Strazeele, we could hear in the distance the steady rumbling of the big ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat

... closed his eyes. He had been rumbling through the Strand for thirty years. "Lor', mum," he said, "legs ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor

... find lucky times to commence undertakings. Falling stars are considered to be the opening of heaven, and anything asked for at that moment will be granted. Thunders are the rumbling which S. Elias makes with his car. Amulets are worn, especially near the Turkish border. It is considered lucky to spill wine on oneself. To meet a snake, a viper in the house, or a centipede crawling over the walls is also lucky. On the ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson

... of the people was apparent, for the road swarmed with voitures of every description, diligences, gondoles, co-cous, cabs, fiacres, omnibuses, dame-blanches, all rolling and rumbling along, occasionally interrupted by the lilting and tilting of a light English cab or tilbury, drawn by a thoroughbred, and driven by a dandy. The spirit of the old white horse even seemed roused as he got among the carriages and heard the tramping of hoofs ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees

... coat and went out, walking slowly along the uneven sidewalk toward the river. The night was clear, and he could see, across the flats and over the tracks, where tiny signal lanterns were waving and circling, and freight trains were bumping and rumbling, the glow of the arc lamps on the elevator, and its square outline against the sky. Now and then, when the noise of the switching trains let down, he could hear the hoisting engines. Once he stopped and looked eastward at the clouds of ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin

... nearer towards the cloud, which seemed to rest stationary over the water, they could see that the sea was churned up around it in a state of violent commotion, and they could hear a peculiar sucking noise rumbling in the air at the ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson

... go on. When Hetty recovered from her burst of weeping, she rallied her fainting courage: it was raining, and she must try to get on to a village where she might find rest and shelter. Presently, as she walked on wearily, she heard the rumbling of heavy wheels behind her; a covered waggon was coming, creeping slowly along with a slouching driver cracking his whip beside the horses. She waited for it, thinking that if the waggoner were not a very sour-looking man, she would ask him to take her up. As the waggon approached her, ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... object of his attention, and discovered a small knob of iron concealed between the Saint's shoulder and what was supposed to have been the hand of the Robber. This observation delighted him. He applied his fingers to the knob, and pressed it down forcibly. Immediately a rumbling noise was heard within the Statue, as if a chain tightly stretched was flying back. Startled at the sound the timid Nuns started away, prepared to hasten from the Vault at the first appearance of danger. All remaining quiet and still, they again ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis

... behind; across the two poles, just behind the horse's tail, was fastened a rack of cross poles upon which was placed some straw and a buffalo robe. It was really a travois, the kind of conveyance used by the Plains Indians. Getting aboard the affair, off we went, the old plug rumbling along in a kind of a trotting walk, while Athabasca held the reins. The morning being a fine sunny one, and the trees being draped and festooned with snow, the scene was so beautiful when we got into the thicker woods that it made one think ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming

... the act of crossing from the starboard gangway to the quarter-deck, to report twelve o'clock to the captain, who was looking over the larboard quarter-deck hammocks at the land, and strange sail, when he suddenly heard a rumbling noise, as if a top-sail-tie had given way, and the yard was coming down. He looked aloft, but saw nothing amiss, and then perceived that the ship was aground. Mr. Bell instantly sprang into the main-chains, and dropped the hand ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler

... and the dim light in the little station. He recognised it as the junction, where a branch line ran from the main road, across the country, through forest and by lake shore, straight to Algonquin. The home train was approaching now. He could hear its rumbling wheels and its clanging bell far down the curving track, and the next moment, with a flare of light upon the snow, it came tearing up out of the forest and roared into the little station. Its brilliant windows ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith

... ourselves extremely awkward in dancing what the ladies were pleased to call English country dances. The music, which came from a solitary ill-scraped fiddle, accompanied by the rumbling of the same half-rotten drum that had summoned the high court of justice, and by the jingling of a rusty triangle, was to me utterly unintelligible. The extreme rapidity with which it was necessary to go through many ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer

... rumbling forth a deep, lugubrious bass, accompanied with heavy chanting of priests, out of which sometimes rose the clear, young voices of choristers, like light flashing out of the gloom. The church, between the arches, along the nave, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various

... distance—off on the river, a sloop with slanting mainsail, and two or three little shad-boats. Over on the railroad opposite, long freight trains, sometimes weighted by cylinder-tanks of petroleum, thirty, forty, fifty cars in a string, panting and rumbling along in full view, but the sound ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... into the woods over a yielding surface of leaf-mould, which sent up a warm smell, the silence was as the silence of a huge cavern, into which is borne the hollow rumbling of the waves, the sound in place of that being the continual murmur of the sea of leaves moved by a breeze ever so slight, so soft that no chance breath of ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville

... might be just as well for him if he escaped showing himself before his parents for a while. He was not disinclined to favour the scheme, and was just on the point of saying that he agreed to it—when they heard a loud rumbling behind them. It was the wild geese who had come up from the lake—all at one time—and stood shaking the water from their backs. After that they arranged themselves in a long row—with the leader-goose in ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof

... out to the factory—the rest of the household was still asleep. There he came into contact with the workmen, and saw their hopeless, wretched, impoverished lives; listened to Bitska's jests, and to the rumbling of the wagonettes—identified himself with the life of the factory, which dominated all ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak

... which did actually occur. On went the schooner, almost brushing the base of the volcano, causing Roswell many a bound of the heart, when he fancied she must strike; but she went clear. All this time, it was crack, crack, crack, from the crater, rumbling sounds and heavy explosions; the last attended by flames, and smoke of a pitchy darkness. A dozen times the Sea Lion had very narrow escapes when nearest to the danger, stones of a weight to pass through her decks and bottom falling even on the ice outside ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper

... of Danish camp. The host was like a forest of mighty trees tossing and swaying before the approach of a storm. Lines of moving shot lightning flashes through the dusk of the shady grove; while the hundreds of jubilant voices blended into rumbling thunder. Through the tumult, the blaring horns ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz

... old Lais, and chose to make use of it! No—never was known in this riotous sphere Such a breach of the peace as their singing, my dear; So bad, too, you'd swear that the god of both arts, Of Music and Physic, had taken a frolic For setting a loud fit of asthma in parts, And composing a fine rumbling base to ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... coral beach where the cocoanuts grew down to the mellow-sounding surf. The hulk of an ancient wreck burned with blue fires, in the light of which danced the hula dancers to the barbaric love- calls of the singers, who chanted to tinkling ukuleles and rumbling tom- toms. It was a sensuous, tropic night. In the background a volcano crater was silhouetted against the stars. Overhead drifted a pale crescent moon, and the Southern Cross burned low in ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London

... Barsoomian night had fallen. Cluros rode majestically the high heavens. The rumbling roar of a banth reverberated among the hills. Gahan of Gathol let the ship rise a few feet from the ground, then, seizing a bow rope, he dropped over the side. To tow the little craft was now a thing of ease, and as Gahan ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... hours' watch to take, I blunder through the splashing mirk; and then Hear the gruff muttering voices of the men Crouching in cabins candle-chinked with light. Hark! There's the big bombardment on our right Rumbling and bumping; and the dark's a glare Of flickering horror in the sectors where We raid the Boche; men waiting, stiff and chilled, Or crawling on their bellies through the wire. "What? Stretcher-bearers wanted? Some one killed?" Five minutes ago I heard a sniper fire: Why did he do it? ... ...
— Counter-Attack and Other Poems • Siegfried Sassoon

... valley farmers; mountaineers—darkies, and the motley feminine horde that the soldier draws the world over—all moving along the road as far as he could see, and interspersed here and there in the long, low cloud of dust with a clanking troop of horse or a red rumbling battery—all coming to see the ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.

... interest in his opinion, quite as much as her frank reproof, offended him. They walked in silence for some minutes. Thunder, which had been rumbling in the distance, came nearer and every now and then a flash from an approaching storm lit up the dark land with a ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall

... with wild amaze, He fix'd on P——t[32] his quick convulsive gaze. Thus shrunk the trembling thief, when first he saw, Hung high in air, the waving Abershaw.[33] Thus the pale bawd, with agonizing heart, Shrieks when she hears the beadle's rumbling cart. "And oh! what noise," he cries, "what sounds unblest, Presume to break a senior's holy rest?[34] Full well you know, who thus my anger dare, To horse-whips what antipathy I bear. Shall I, in vain, immersed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various

... but steadily along passage and nerve down to the central seats of consciousness; then burst forth a sound as of a single groan—the groan of Jupiter himself in mortal anguish; and then the noise of women weeping, the shrieking treble of age, and the rumbling murmur of curses and execrations,—against senate and nobles, against the rabble and their dead leader, but, above all, against ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne

... it work," remarked Rose, so Tom Hardy got on the wooden platform and walked up the little hill it made. Then came the rumbling sound, and the faster Tom walked the faster ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandma Bell's • Laura Lee Hope

... a second or two at the stone, lifted it to his ear as if listening, and lowering his hand to the turf, bent over it and gazed again. "Ay, he could understand and see into you, my beauty! He could hear the little drums tum-a-rumbling, and the ox-bells and bangles tinkling, and the shuffle of the elephants going by; he could read the lust in you, and the blood and the sun flickering and licking round the kris that spilt it—for it's the devil you ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... slept rather late the next morning, but when they did awaken they heard a queer rumbling on the road beside which their automobile was ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue on an Auto Tour • Laura Lee Hope

... her daughter. Mr. Hickman, she says, is of opinion, 'that she ought not to obey her mother.' How the creeping fellow trims between both! I am afraid, that I must punish him, as well as this virago; and I have a scheme rumbling in my head, that wants but half an hour's musing to bring into form, that will do my business upon both. I cannot bear, that the parental authority should be thus despised, thus trampled under foot. But ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... king, with all the eagerness, not only of a young man, but of a young man in love, withdrew from the window, in order to take his gloves and cane, which his valet held ready for him. The neighing of the horses and the rumbling of the wheels on the gravel of the courtyard could be distinctly heard. The king descended the stairs, and at the moment he made his appearance upon the flight of steps every one stopped. The king walked straight up to the young queen. The queen-mother, who was ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... famous earthquake of nine years before a little Welsh girl named Mary Price was then attending a London school. The children were frightened nearly out of their wits by the upheaval, the crash of broken glass, the long subterranean rumbling, and, in common with many London residents, in that hour little Mary promised to serve God. For nine years she strove and prayed, but found no way by which she could come near to Him. Persuaded by a friend who knew her inward sorrow, she sought out the despised ...
— Fletcher of Madeley • Brigadier Margaret Allen

... I did and found I was in a current from which I could not extricate myself. Another sharp, turn and the village of Puente del Arzobispo came into sight with the heavy spray from the falls rising high in the air. The roar was like the deep rumbling of thunder when near at hand. I paid no attention to the shouts of the people to stop, for I saw could not possibly get out of the current, so I exerted myself to pass the falls safely. I saw where the water sank on the brink and I knew that was ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton

... as it were, by the dull rumbling of vehicles without, Mr. Gammon's voice began counting. He expected to hear Polly's key turn in the lock, so did Mrs. Bubb and Mrs. Clover. But the key ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing

... young girl went to the piano, and the other women seated themselves to listen; but Miss Egerton, saying that it was warm, stepped out through one of the high windows on to the little balcony that overhung the garden. It was dark out there and cool, and the rumbling of the encircling city sounded as distant and as far off as the reflection seemed that its million lights threw up to the sky above. The girl leaned her face and bare shoulder against the rough stone wall of the house, and pressed ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis

... The rumbling explosion immediately followed, and the shaft was filled with smoke and flame and hurling stones. One of these latter, shooting upwards, struck and cut the ascending miner on his forehead as he looked down to observe the fate of his ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne

... the mask and the man he had rescued were now alone, but their thoughts were fully occupied. The sound of the distant stampede had become a veritable rumbling roar that told of its nearing proximity. Aside from this drumming of many feet, there was no sound, for the animals of the range when in the ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan

... widened into a cavernous fissure. The church was full of dread voices, of strange moanings and groanings, as if the spirits of all the monks departed were wailing for the destruction of Abbot Vinnicomb's tower. There was a dull rumbling of rending stone and crashing timbers, but over all the architect heard the cry of the crossing-arches: "The arch never sleeps, never sleeps. They have bound upon us a burden too heavy to be borne; we are shifting it. ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner

... rumbling roar of thunder sounded dismally over the leaden-gray, white-capped water; and the wind, rising instantly into a fierce gale, hurled the dark storm-clouds across the sky, blotting the lurid glow of sunset and mantling the heavens above ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey

... the rag off the bush. He described the Godless Atheists that held half the world in thrall. He rehearsed again the butchery of the kulaks and the kangaroo courts of Cuba. He showed the Mongol tanks rumbling into Budapest and the pinched-face terror of the East German refugees; the "human sea" charges in Korea and the ...
— Telempathy • Vance Simonds

... the princely abode shone resplendent in the pleasant mildness of the temperature, borrowing a grandiose beauty from the silence, the repose of that noonday hour, the only hour in the day when one did not hear carriages rumbling under the arches, the great doors of the reception-room opening and closing, and the constant vibration in the ivy on the walls caused by the pulling of bells to announce somebody's coming in or going out, like the feverish ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet

... through glasses a great wave of infantry surge forward along a spur and disappear beyond a crest line. The patter of the Mauser rifles swelled into a continuous rumbling like a train of waggons passing over a pontoon bridge, and presently the wave recoiled; the minute figures that composed it squeezed themselves into cover among some rocks, a great many groups of men began carrying away black objects. A trickle of independent dots dispersed itself. Then ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill

... They heard a heavy, rumbling sound, yet faint, like thunder in the distance. Then slowly they saw a spot on one side of the valley, some four or five miles distant, grow misty and white, as though a heavy ...
— The Young Alaskans in the Rockies • Emerson Hough

... ice-bag, down to the kitchen for ice. He felt dramatic in this late-night expedition, but as he gouged the chunk of ice with the dagger-like pick he was cool, steady, mature; and the old friendliness was in his voice as he patted the ice-bag into place on her groin, rumbling, "There, there, that'll be better now." He retired to bed, but he did not sleep. He heard her groan again. Instantly he was up, soothing her, "Still ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis

... great panic of 1857 had had a very depressing effect on business of every description and it was contended that the passage of this measure would give employment to thousands of people; that the rumbling of the locomotive would soon be heard in every corner of the state, and that the dealer in town lots and broad acres would again be able to complacently inform the newcomer the exact locality where a few dollars would soon bring to the investor returns unheard ...
— Reminiscences of Pioneer Days in St. Paul • Frank Moore

... about time tables to convince him that it was almost futile. The later of the two trains by which Sisily might have fled from Cornwall had reached London and discharged its passengers somewhere about the time that Mr. Peter Portgartha, in the depth of the rumbling wagonette, was paying his tribute to shrinking female modesty as exhibited ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees

... and so did his Lady, and Charles Macdoodle of Macdoodle signed to Lady Mary to say no more, and every one was silent. After breakfast, Charles Macdoodle told Lady Mary that it was a tradition in the family that those rumbling carriages on the terrace betokened death. And so it proved, for, two months afterwards, the Lady of the mansion died. And Lady Mary, who was a Maid of Honour at Court, often told this story to the old Queen Charlotte; by this token that the old King always said, "Eh, eh? What, what? Ghosts, ...
— Some Christmas Stories • Charles Dickens

... nine and sixty, Came the hissing locomotive, Came the train of rumbling coaches, Dashing through the quiet city; Came the smoking iron monster, Of the "Louisville and Nashville," Sounded loud the shrill steam-whistle Of the railroad "On to Richmond." And the Old Church walls so sacred, Fell beneath the stormy cargo, Our Republican ancestress ...
— The Song of Lancaster, Kentucky - to the statesmen, soldiers, and citizens of Garrard County. • Eugenia Dunlap Potts



Words linked to "Rumbling" :   noise, full, grumble, rumble



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