There was a momentary silence, to which, probably, I owe my life; for, during it, I heard a quick patter of many feet, and, turning sharply, saw a troop of the creatures coming toward me, at a run.

The big drops sift through the pine-needles, plash and patter on the granite pavements, and pour down the sides of ridges and domes in a network of gray, bubbling rills.

Wampus rolled himself in a rug and was about to stretch his moderate length upon the broad double seat when a pattering of footsteps was heard and Beth came up to the car.

Dar it is again!" He fell to pattering in a tongue unknown to mecharms, spells, undoubtedly, to exorcise the devils that had hold of him.

She pattered about in a pair of her husband's cotton-velvet slippers, and tucked all her little ones into bed again, very much as if they had been clothes in a boiler, which she was forcing down with a stick.

I slept soundly for a long time; then I waked up and found that, instead of rain pattering against the roof, and darkness everywhere, it was quite light.

Nearer and nearer they came; I heard their feet pattering on the ice nearer still, until I could feel their breath, and hear their sniffling scent.

Mr. Jobson got out first and knocked at the door, and as soon as it opened Mrs. Jobson pattered across the intervening space with the boots dangling from her hand.

Then Crusoe would prick up his ears and stretch out at full gallop, clearing ditch, and fence, and brake with his strong elastic bound, and leaving Grumps to patter after him as fast as his four-inch legs would carry him.

" Then would she run, pattering like a scared rabbit over the uneven floor, to the window, and watch my father stalking, grim and tall, across the open spaces of the yard towards the Judgment Hall of Duke Casimir, the men-at-arms avoiding him with deft reverence.

I remember (and who that was reared in the country does not) when I was a boy, how I went out in the sunny days of autumn, after the frosts had painted the hillsides, to gather chestnuts; and when the breeze rustled among the branches, how the nuts came rattling down; and how if the winds were still, I climbed into the trees and shook their tops, and how the chestnuts pattered to the ground like a shower of hail.

At the word, a light foot pattered along a stone floor within, and in a moment a little woman stood in an arch raised by two steps from our own level.

It was a dripping-sweet spring morning, dew-drenched, and with the air so full of moisture that it gathered and pattered from the scant leafage.

"You don't put in enough patter with it," said Andresen.

Then he pattered down the steep stairway without waiting to be answered.

Distant peals of thunder were heard; and thick sultry drops of rain pattered at intervals against the casement of the inn: every thing seemed to indicate a tempestuous evening.

Their eyes swallowed each other for a brief moment as he passedand then he was pattering with quick, excited steps down the passage beyond, and the girl was left out of sight in the shadows behind him.

We lay down in our clothes and slept; the rain pattering above our heads only causing us to sleep the sounder.

The room darkened gradually, and, going to the window, he longed for something to break the silence, and was glad when the rain pattered among the leaves.

Two minutes later Diablo was rocking across the hills with his mighty stride, and the cow pony of Pete Reeve was pattering beside him.

Shrapnel bullets pattered into the roadway, a piece of jagged shell fell with a clatter.

I'll bet my soul they're in their billets at this moment, MacTavish mugging up some stable-patter out of NAT GOULD, and Blenkinsop imbibing a dose of ship-chatter from 'BARTIMEUS.'

We could hear them pattering over the dry ground.

The jackals will patter past us slipping back to the hills.

Do not you miss the hearing little feet pattering round the house?