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More "Screech" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... express the thing briefly by saying that, as far as Bream was concerned, Sam's unconventional appearance put the lid on it. He did not hesitate. He did not pause to make comments or ask questions. With a single cat-like screech which took years off the lives of the abruptly wakened birds roosting in the neighbouring trees, he dashed away towards the house and, reaching his room, locked the door and pushed the bed, the chest of drawers, ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... sending them deadly missiles through the passage, windows, and sides of the house, in every direction, instantly followed the ferocious order. And, in the expiring light, the fated French was seen to leap into the air; and then, spinning giddily round and round an instant, fall, with a low, short screech, prostrate on the floor; while mingled groans, rising from a half dozen others along the passage, told also the fearful ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... the Indian village already partially revealed to those in advance, the riders were brought to sudden halt by a fierce crackling of rifles from rock and ravine, an outburst of fire in their faces, the wild, resounding screech of war-cries, and the scurrying across their front of dense bodies of mounted warriors, hideous in paint and feathers. Men fell cursing, and the frightened horses swerved, their riders struggling madly with their mounts, the column thrown ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... raise the catch, however, it resisted. Evidently it had not been lifted for many years, and had rusted to the staple. Carefully Alex threw his weight upward against it. It still refused to move. He pushed harder, and suddenly it gave with a piercing screech. ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs
... and call'd: at which celestial noise The longing heart of Hero much more joys, Than nymphs and shepherds when the timbrel rings, Or crooked dolphin when the sailor sings. She stay'd not for her robes, but straight arose, And, drunk with gladness, to the door she goes; Where seeing a naked man, she screech'd for fear, (Such sights as this to tender maids are rare,) And ran into the dark herself to hide (Rich jewels in the dark are soonest spied). Unto her was he led, or rather drawn By those white limbs which sparkled through the lawn. The nearer that he came, ...
— Hero and Leander and Other Poems • Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman
... just shot. And at another time she plunged into the water and brought up in her claws a fish, which she carried away to her nest. The Barn Owl is white, and does not hoot, at least by many this is thought to be the case. The Brown Owl is the hooting or screech owl, and ...
— Mamma's Stories about Birds • Anonymous (AKA the author of "Chickseed without Chickweed")
... jolt interrupted this pastime, and the warning screech of the brakes informed that he had no time to scheme, but had best continue on the plan of action that had brought him thus far—that is, trust to his star and accept what should ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... was, it was like the sounds a man makes in a dream. And this, while the potent draught seemed still to be making its way through his system; and the frightened apothecary thought that he intended a revengeful onslaught upon himself. Finally, he uttered a loud unearthly screech, in the midst of which his voice broke, as if some unseen hand were throttling him, and, starting forward, he fought frantically, as if he would clutch the life that was being rent away,—and fell forward with a dead thump ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... discharge these fiddlers. Fellow-musicians, we are sorry that it hath been your ill-hap to have had us in your company, that are nothing but screech-owls and night-ravens, able to mar the purest melody: and, besides, our company is so ominous that, where we are, thence liberality is packing. Our resolution is therefore to wish you well, and to bid you farewell. Come, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... his foes and friends by turns. Thus as in giddy freaks he bounces, Crack goes the twig, and in he flounces! Down the swift stream the wretch is borne; Never, ah never, to return! Zounds! what a fall had our dear brother! Morbleu! cries one; and damme, t'other. The nation gives a general screech; None cocks his tail, none claws his breech; Each trembles for the public weal, And for a while forgets to steal. Awhile all eyes intent and steady Pursue him whirling down the eddy: But, out of mind when out of view, Some other mounts the twig anew; And ...
— English Satires • Various
... washed ashore the time of the Spanish Armada, and had been found in the sand. Mick took it into his hands to feel the weight. Suddenly the old woman looked up, and asked Pat what was the young gentleman's name. Mick answered for himself. She rose from her stool with a screech: "Michael Darragh! Is that who ye are? Mother a' God! an' yer father's gun in his han'." Mick turned in bewilderment to Pat, but he was leaning against the wall, shaking all over. "In the name of God," he was saying. Then he took the gun away, ...
— The Weans at Rowallan • Kathleen Fitzpatrick
... dancer wore an antelope's horn suspended round the neck, which he blew occasionally in the height of his excitement. These instruments produced a sound partaking of the braying of a donkey and the screech of an owl. Crowds of men rushed round and round in a sort of "galop infernel," brandishing their lances and iron-headed maces, and keeping tolerably in line five or six deep, following the leader who headed them, dancing backwards. The women kept outside ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... car came up the street and stopped with a screech of brakes in front of the Bullfinch house. Here were Mr. and Mrs. Bullfinch home ...
— Jerry's Charge Account • Hazel Hutchins Wilson
... I spit on that—the thing will go off. See here—yeep! yeep!" as I spat on it and hurled it into the ditch. With a yell and a screech a Comanche might have been proud of, that darkey "lit out." As he ran he turned his head, and seeing me dancing a war-dance to work off the extra hilarity which his fright had occasioned, he pulled up ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride
... wit far surpassing Fielding.' Then she said as to our other books they would all sink to nothingness before yours, that they were not fit to be mentioned in the same day, and that she felt quite discouraged from writing when she thought of yours. The whole conversation of the aunties [3] made her screech with laughing; and, in short, I can neither record nor describe all that she said; far from exaggerating it, I don't say half enough, but I only wish you had seen the effect it produced. I am sure you will be the ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... feeling stopped, the cook opened her eyes, gave one sounding screech and shut them again, and Anthea took the opportunity to get the desperately howling Lamb ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... dog, Newfoundland and retriever. In Lancashire it is called the "Trash" or "Striker"; Trash, because the sound of its tread is thought to resemble a person walking along a miry, sloppy road, with heavy shoes; Striker, because it is said to utter a curious screech which may be taken as a warning of the approaching death of some relative or friend. When followed the phantom retreats, glaring at its pursuer, and either sinks into the ground with a harrowing shriek, or disappears in ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... our travellers neared the town, the screech of a railway whistle resounded towards the right,—a long train rushed from the jaws of a tunnel and shot ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the accelerator, trying to pull free. The truck at once swerved off the road, steering around a utility pole. As the cable tautened, there was a sickening screech of metal and the sports car was brought to a ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton
... the thrill of passion in the poet's mystic book And I've lingered in delight to catch the rhythm of the brook; I've felt the ecstasy that comes when prima donnas reach For upper C and hold it in a long, melodious screech. And yet the charm of all these blissful memories fades away As I think upon the fortune that befell the other day, As I bring to recollection, with a joyous, wistful sigh, That I woke and felt the need ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... fireside feeling can be kindled; it is wasting wood to throw it upon the hearth to-night, for that doleful wail penetrates everywhere: even the demon that lurks at the bottom of Pomoyssin must shudder as he hears it. When at length the bells stop swinging and their vibrations die away, a screech-owl flies close by the open gallery of the house, which we call a balcony, and startles me with its ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... enter the tug's cabin I heard Possum's shivering whimper rising to a screech, and went forward to tell Wada to take the creature in out of the cold. I found him hovering about my luggage, wedging my dressing-case securely upright by means of my little automatic rifle. I was startled ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... I was out of bed like a rabbit, and turning off the light, dashed outside just as the second went over. I naturally looked skyward, but there was not a sign of anything and, stranger still, not even the throb of an engine. A third went over with a loud screech, and my hair was blown into the air by the rushing wind it caused. I saw a flash from the sea and Thompson said she was wakened by my voice calling, "I say, come out and see this new stunt." Soon everyone was up and the shells came on steadily, blowing ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... sight of the cruiser in its new position and blazed again a moment later, boring into the stern. He dropped the detector screen and swung the cruiser in another curve, spiraling in the opposite direction. As before, the screech of the alarm siren died as the battleship's blasters followed the course given them by course analyzers and target tracers that were built to presume that all enemy ships were ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin
... he's in a fit. I mean to screech for Miss Alice," and Muggins was about darting away, when Hugh's long arm caught and held her fast. "Oh, de gracious, Mas'r Hugh," she cried, "you skeers me so. Does you know me, Mas'r Hugh?" and she took a step ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... wide circle, an assemblage of men and women, but chiefly the latter, and of these almost all old, hideous, and of malignant aspect, their grim and sinister features looking ghastly in the lurid light. Above them, amid the smoke and steam, wheeled bat and flitter-mouse, horned owl and screech-owl, in mazy circles. The weird assemblage chattered together in some wild jargon, mumbling and muttering spells and incantations, chanting fearfully with hoarse, cracked voices a wild chorus, and anon ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... some remote distance there floated to him a sound strangely incongruous here in the early stillness, a subdued screech or scream, a wild, clamorous, shrieking noise which for the life of ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... to his room. He was welcomed by a screech from the parrot and a dignified salaam from James, who was trimming the wick of the oil-lamp. For the last year and a half this room had served as headquarters. Many a financial puzzle had been pieced together within these ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... screech of surprise and pain the mate crumpled in the far corner of the forecastle, rammed halfway beneath a bunk by the force of the terrific blow. Like a tiger Billy Byrne was after him, and dragging the man out into the ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... her dress since he saw her, and now, in a pink-rosebud print, with the sleeves tucked above her elbows, was skimming the cream in a great red-brown earthen pan. He pushed the door a little, and, at its screech along the uneven floor, Letty's head turned quickly on her lithe neck, and she saw Godfrey's brown face and kind blue eyes where she had never seen them before. In his hand glowed the book: ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... But there were other sounds which enchained my attention more than these voices of nature. As the skilled leader of an orchestra hears every single sound from each member of the mob of stringed and wind instruments, and above all the screech of the straining soprano, so my sharpened perceptions made what would have been for common mortals a confused murmur audible to me as compounded of innumerable easily distinguished sounds. Above them all arose one continued, unbroken, agonizing ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... woodpeckers, bluebirds and their like, the mahogany-like dense heart-wood rots, leaving hollow passages in the trunk and larger limbs, and often in the smaller ones, too. Here are homes for all who seek complete seclusion from storms and enemies. The little screech owl loves these hollows more than those of any other tree, and sings his little quavering night song from the dusky tops, while his mate and her eggs are safely hidden in the blackness of the hollow below. The downy woodpecker bores his nest hole in the softened heart-wood of upright limbs ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... streaming behind, away up the tote-road went Gideon Ward on his return to the deep woods, the mighty din of his myriad bells clashing down the forest aisles. At the distant turn of the road he hooted with the vigor of a screech owl, ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... very moment she heard her aunt's voice, Mrs. Catherine was aware of her situation; and when her companion retired, and the landlady, with much officiousness, insisted on removing her hood, she was quite prepared for the screech of surprise which Mrs. Score gave on dropping it, exclaiming, "Why, law bless us, it's ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... is lovely, but it sounds particularly soft and true out in the open air this way, and without a piano to accompany her. Mine doesn't—I'm all right to sing in a crowd, but when I try to sing by myself, it's just a sort of screech. There isn't any beauty to my tones at all, and I know it and don't try ...
— A Campfire Girl's Happiness • Jane L. Stewart
... groaned inwardly. "They'll screech if I get up now," he thought. "Nothin' for it but to lay here till it's over. Wal', ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... when she didn't have help. They said the little thing used to stand on a chair and wash dishes, and they'd seen her carrying in sticks of wood most as big as she was many a time, and they'd heard her mother scolding her. The woman was a fine singer, and had a voice like a screech-owl when she scolded. ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... during those nights, nights misty and gray, that the hemp-dresser tells his weird stories of will-o'-the-wisps and milk-white hares, of souls in torment and wizards changed to wolves, of witches' vigils at the cross-roads, and screech-owls, prophetesses of the graveyard. I remember passing the early hours of such a night while the hemp-dressing was going on, and the pitiless strokes, interrupting the dresser's story at its most awful place, sent icy shivers ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... gathering up such food as remained to them, and Bob was looking for something in which to carry some water to the cellar, when there came again that nerve-racking screech, followed by a roar and bang that seemed to knock the very bottom out ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... over the controls, his eyes on the navigation chart. Only the thin screech of parted air disturbed the silence of the ship. The high scream and the slow, precise snack-snack of cards as Reg and Max played a game of double solitaire with a ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... the first heel disappeared. Even as Suzanne's white teeth closed upon it, the parrot gave a vast screech of disapproval. "Quork!" cried he. "Look out! Look out!" At which warning both the twins fled precipitately underneath the bed; whence presently their heads peered out, ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... beautiful contrast to the pale straw-colour of the under portion of their extended pinions. With discordant screams they circle about, as if a little undetermined, and then perch upon the topmost branches of the tallest trees, where they screech, flap their wings, and engage in a series of either imaginary combats, or affectionate caresses, until, the coast being clear, they are again enabled to ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... arrived at 'The Moorings' exactly as the town-hall clock was chiming the quarter after four. Mr. Vicary, his face a study of patience, was standing by the side of the 'sardine-tin,' which was already packed for transit, and whose occupants set up a joyful screech of welcome. ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... the broker at a sale in company with a parrot, a cockatoo, and a canary, all being the property of a lady lately deceased. The canary died before he reached home, and the parrot and cockatoo, on the strength of being able to screech and say a few words, soon found owners, but the squirrel, being shabby-looking, hung on hand, or rather outside the little shop, in a canary's cage, to which it had been promoted after its own revolving wire home had been sold, the purchaser declining to buy the squirrel ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... plundering hords assail their byke[104]; As open pussie's mortal foes When, pop! she starts before their nose; As eager runs the market-crowd, When "Catch the thief!" resounds aloud; So Maggie runs, the witches follow, Wi' mony an eldritch[105] screech and hollow. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... such in all ranks—will prefer flaring reds and blues and yellows heaped together in staring contrast. A thrush or a blackbird is but a soberly clad creature by the side of macaws and paroquets; but the one has a song and the others have only a screech. The gentle virtues are the truly Christian virtues—patience and meekness and long-suffering and sympathy and readiness to efface oneself for the sake of God ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... Christian, an' has his linen washed reg'lar. My! What a crush! I only wish my boy Jan was here to see; but he's stayin' at home, my dear, cos his father means to kill the pig to-day, an' the dear child do so love to hear'n screech." ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and me White Joe, by way of distinction and for the convenience of his boss (my uncle), and my aunt, and mother; so, when we heard the cry of "Bla-a-ack Joe!" (the adjective drawn out until it became a screech, after several repetitions, and the "Joe" short and sharp) coming across the flat in a woman's voice, Joe knew that the missus wanted him at the house, to get wood or water, or mind the baby, and he kept carefully out of sight; he went at once when uncle called. ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... that they might find out the dominie and me, and tear us to pieces. With intense relief I saw the streaks of dawn appear in the sky. The laughing-jackass uttered his cheerful notes, and parrots and other birds began to chirp and screech and chatter. The sound tended somewhat to raise my spirits, though the pangs of hunger and thirst which now oppressed me soon became insupportable. As in daylight the blacks might be passing, I was afraid ...
— Adventures in Australia • W.H.G. Kingston
... more, when all at once, hebens, golly! I see'd somefin' bright-like shine trough de winder, and I looked out and de barn was all afire. Den dar come a yell dat nearly blowed de roof off de house. Big Mose gib a screech and run, and bang-bang went a lot ob guns all around us. De Injines was dar, burnin', tomahawkin', screechin', shoutin', and killin' de poor niggers as fast as dey showed ...
— Oonomoo the Huron • Edward S. Ellis
... mushrooms, whose best growth sprang from a live by begging: be thou one of them practise the art of Wolner in England, to swallow all 's given thee: and yet let one purgation make thee as hungry again as fellows that work in a saw-pit. I 'll go hear the screech-owl. [Exit. ...
— The White Devil • John Webster
... said, 'Dreadful is this spot, this wilderness, that resounds with the screech of owls and teems with spirits and Yakshas and Rakshasas. Terrible and awful, its aspect is like that of a mass of blue clouds. Casting off the dead body, finish the funeral rites. Indeed, throwing away the body, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... end of twenty minutes Job gave a satisfied grunt, maneuvered the cannon back and forth on its swivel base once or twice, and fired. Above the roar of the discharge the boys heard the screech of the whirling chainshot, and then in the Revenge's mainsail appeared a great gaping rent, through the tattered edges of which the wind passed unhindered. There was a howl of joy from the crew, and without waiting for an order, they tumbled pell-mell ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... themselves in the neighbourhood of the Dummburg. The night was already far advanced. The moon gleamed faintly through the chasing clouds. All around was still. Suddenly they heard something rush along over their heads. They looked up, and an immense screech-owl flew before them. ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous
... adds stones fetched from the most distant East, and sand, which the ebbing tide of the ocean has washed. She adds, too, hoar-frost gathered at night by the light of the moon, and the ill-boding wings of a screech owl,[36] together with its flesh; and the entrails of an ambiguous wolf, that was wont to change its appearance of a wild beast into {that of} a man. Nor is there wanting there the thin scaly slough of the ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... his collar bone collapse, Accompanied by his expiring screech; To crack his ribs is ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... to screech out his grief. He was stabbed, but his tongue lay dead in the tomb of his mouth. He threw himself again upon the ground and ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... the same lady in the cabinet adorning the recess; and while Shirley was stooping to examine the missal and the rosary on the inlaid shelf, and while the Misses Nunnely indulged in a prolonged screech, guiltless of expression, pure of originality, perfectly conventional and absolutely unmeaning, Sir Philip stooped too, and whispered a few hurried sentences. At first Miss Keeldar was struck so still you might ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... said George, advancing with a miniature pitchfork or "tormentor" in his hand; "pardon my interrupting you, sir,—I did hear the screech, but as I couldn't say exactly for certain, you know, that it was a Kafir, not havin' seen one, I thought it best not to alarm you, sir, an' ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... Greek and the Goanese joined in the shout, the dark man setting up such an ululating screech that the very storm dwindled into second place in comparison. It was true, the unearthly yelling was carried out over the water, and very likely not a sound of it reached twenty yards inland; but it rattled our nerves, nevertheless. The skin grew prickly all up and down my backbone, ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... Rebecca heard the screech-owl cry, And saw the black bat round her fly; She sat, 'till, wild with fear, at last Her blood ran cold, her pulse beat fast; And yet, rash maid! she stopp'd to see What youth her husband ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr
... courage enough, not to fight—that he did not even desire—but to run. Courage to flee home was all he could even imagine, and it would not come. But what he had not was ignominiously given him. A cry in the wood, half a screech, half a growl, sent him running like a boar-wounded cur. It was not even himself that ran, it was the fear that had come alive in his legs: he did not know that they moved. But as he ran he grew ...
— Harper's Young People, December 16, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... it) wos wid the pig, and many's the word o' good advice she gave it, as it sat in its usual place beside the fire forenint her; but it was all thrown away, it wos, for there wosn't another pig in all the length o' Ireland as had sich a will o' its own; and it had a screech, too, when it wasn't plaazed, as bate all the steam whistles in the world, it did. I've often moralated on that same, and I've noticed that as it is wid pigs, so it is wid men and women—some of them at laste—the more advice ye give them, the less ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... dignified and handsomely dressed member of his family, the crested flycatcher has, nevertheless, an air of pensive melancholy about him when in repose that can be accounted for only by the pain he must feel every time he hears himself screech. His harsh, shrill call, louder and more disagreeable than the kingbird's, cannot but rasp his ears as it does ours. And yet it is chiefly by this piercing note, given with a rising inflection, that we know the bird is in our neighborhood; for he ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... Cornell don), you have no special taste for a plump landlord breathing passionately and genially upon your very cheek while you strive to satisfy a legitimate appetite, you may burst into a sudden unpremeditate but uncontrollable screech of mingled laughter and dismay, meanwhile almost falling backward in your chair in an effort to evade the steady pant and roar of those ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... round about am so populate he ain't able to go frough. Yas, sah, seem like all de ghostes in de world havin' de conferince right dar. Seem like all de ghosteses whut yever was am havin' a convintion on dat spot. An' dat li'l black Mose so skeered he jes fall down on e' old log whut dar an' screech an' moan! An' all on a suddent de log up and ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... bay, as the laughter at his expense increased, was fairly frantic. He lost what he had hitherto retained, his self-possession. "I tell you I did!" he suddenly screamed out, in a sweet screech, like an angry bird, which commanded the ears of the crowd from its strangeness. "I tell you I did have an elephant, I did ride him, and I did have a circus ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... of my mouth before the deck gave a mighty leap, a hot wind that seemed half of flame blew across my face, and the roar started the pain throbbing in my ears. At the same instant the screech of shot sounded overhead, we heard the sharp crack-crack of wood rending and splitting,—as with a great broadaxe,—and a medley of blocks and ropes rattled to the deck with the 'thud of the falling bodies. Then, instead of stillness, moans ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... this strange silence, through the open windows, there floated the clear call of the whippoorwill,—only one, for the buzz and clamor and clatter of many voices surged up again instantly, and the violins began to scrape and screech themselves into tune, and no one seemed to have noticed either the silence or the whippoorwill. But I could not for the life of me help one swift glance toward mademoiselle, and I met her eyes ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... nothing definite concerning the "millions" which appear with such an imposing intention when reformers want to stir the public. No man's imagination was ever vitally impressed by figures, and I am a little afraid that the statistical gentlemen repel people instead of attracting them. The persons who screech and abuse the drink sellers are even less effective than the men of figures; their opponents laugh at them, and their friends grow deaf and apathetic in the storm of whirling words, while cool outsiders think that we should be better employed if we found fault with ourselves ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... the darkness, saying, "Well, boys, don't you want company? I have got my sap all boiled in, and as I felt kinder lonesome, I thought I would come across, and sleep by your shanty fire." The old man enquired why I seemed so much terrified, and my brothers told him that I would persist in calling a screech-owl, a catamount. Old Rufus did not often laugh, but he laughed heartily on this occasion, and truly it was no wonder, and when he corroborated what my brothers had already told me, I decided that what he said must be true. His presence at once gave me a feeling of protection and security, ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... came from the ante-chamber the sound of swiftly moving feet, and the clash of steel mingling with cries. The sound heartened him. He conceived that someone came to his assistance. He raised his voice in a desperate screech: ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... mate's legs were working like the flying pistons of a locomotive, and his bush hair and beard were streaming aft in the breeze as he neared the corner. Suddenly he stopped, turned about, and dashed right into the foremost of the crowd, letting out a screech ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... the chase law and the rights of others; and the big cat felt it. He was hungry for fish; but, big as he was, his every movement showed that he was ready to take to his heels before the first little creature that should rise up and screech in his face: "This is mine!" Later, when he grew accustomed to things and the fishhawks' generosity in providing a feast for all who might come in from the wilderness byways and hedges, he would come in boldly enough and claim his own; but now, moving stealthily about, halting and listening ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... ye black horrors of midnight's midnoon' Ye fairies, goblins, bats, and screech-owls, hail! And, oh! ye mortal watchmen, whose hoarse throats Th' immortal ghosts dread croakings counterfeit, All hail!—Ye dancing phantoms, who, by day, Are some condemn'd to fast, some feast in fire, Now play in churchyards, ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... and made it fast to the well-known iron ring. They now landed, and lighting the lantern gathered their various implements and proceeded slowly through the bushes. Every sound startled them, even that of their own footsteps among the dry leaves, and the hooting of a screech owl, from the shattered chimney of the neighboring ruin, made ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... never really coming to blows. We never had the pleasure of seeing a stranger among us. We might hear him approaching, nearer and nearer, till, just as the eager listener fancied he might alight in sight, there would burst upon the air the screech of a jay or the war-cry of a robin, accompanied by the precipitate flight of the whole clan, and away would go the stranger in a most sensational manner, followed by outcries and clamor enough to drive off an army of feathered brigands. This neighborhood, if the accounts of his character are ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... to wring necks, gouge eyes, spit on faces. He shook a dirty pair of meagre fists at the smoking lights. "Ye're no men!" he cried, in a deadened tone. No one moved. "Yer 'aven't the pluck of a mouse!" His voice rose to a husky screech. Wamibo darted out a dishevelled head, and looked at him wildly. "Ye're sweepings ov ships! I 'ope you will all rot before you die!" Wamibo blinked, uncomprehending but interested. Donkin sat down heavily; he blew with force through quivering nostrils, ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... much for the terrified darkey; with an awful screech he rushed to the side of the boat resolved to drown rather than undergo ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... though, without having seen it, you never can quite know how perfectly terrible it was. Just as Dora and Snip were in the very middle of the board, and all of us were on it, Randolph, who was standing in the water, gave a most unearthly screech, and at that very minute— But, mercy me! there's the tea-bell, and you must excuse me, my lamb, for leaving you right here, for how can I help it when I smell waffles?—waffles, ...
— Harper's Young People, July 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... a drive to remember. We came to a big hill, and as we were going down it at a smart pace the coach began to sway, then the ladies began to screech, and even the men looked so scared that I laughed outright. Lord Dereham was perfectly tipsy and he did not know the road a bit, but he drove in beautiful style and was extraordinarily amusing; as soon as the coach ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... "He gave one screech and fell on his face and groveled. Thought it was a lightning bolt, I figure; decided I had been stealing Norhala's stuff. 'Yuruk,' I told him, 'that's what you'll get, and worse, if you lay a finger on ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... that noise," Septimus explained when it was over. "Once I tried to work out an invention for modifying it. It was a kind of combination between a gramaphone and an orchestrion. You stuck it inside somewhere, and instead of the awful screech a piece of music would come out of the funnel. In fact, it might have gone on playing all the time the train was in motion. It would have been so cheery ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... perfectly preserved as if it had been embalmed. The sight had a most cruel fascination; and while one of the horror-seekers stood helplessly conjuring to his vision that scene of unknown dread,—the shrinking, shrieking woman dragged to the block, the wild, shrill, horrible screech following the blow that drove in the spike, the merciful swoon after the mutilation,—his companion, with a sudden pallor, demanded ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... Since Goodloe had not cut off the connection, the mingled clamor of the station came to the listening ear; the incessant clicking of the telegraph instruments on Goodloe's table, the trundling roar of a baggage-truck on the station platform, the cacophonous screech of the passenger-engine's pop-valve. With the phut of the closing safety-valve came the conductor's cry of "All aboard!" and then the long-drawn sobs of the big engine as Cranford started the train. Judson knew that in all human probability ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... not go out to hunt for a job in the morning. It was late afternoon before he came out of his delirium and gazed with aching eyes about the room. Mary, one of the tribe of Silva, eight years old, keeping watch, raised a screech at sight of his returning consciousness. Maria hurried into the room from the kitchen. She put her work-calloused hand upon his hot ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... beside a fire no larger than his two hands, and at his side, watching him, stood a girl with two braids of black hair rippling down her back. It was Nawadlook who turned first and saw who it was with Mary Standish, and from his right came an odd little screech that only one person in the world could make, and that was Keok. She dropped the armful of sticks she had gathered for the fire and made straight for him, while Nawadlook, taller and less like a wild creature in the manner of her coming, ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... to a scream, as if the old building had found voice and protested against invasion, caused a recoil of the invaders. Girls brought up in neighborly relations with the wilderness, however, could be only a moment terrified by the screech-owl. But at no previous time in its history, not even when it was captured as a fort, had the Jesuit College inclosed such a cluster of wildly beating hearts. Had light been turned on the group, it would have shown every girl shaking her hand ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... 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 on Neewa's spine. And Noozak paid no attention to this. Neewa observed these things. His eye was on her, and instinct had already winged his legs with the readiness to run if his mother should give the signal. In his funny little head it was developing very quickly that ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... was far more so), his divination." [507] Some of it, however, was derived from his friendship in early days with the painter-astrologer Varley. If a horse stopped for no ascertained reason or if a house martin fell they wondered what it portended. They disliked the bodeful chirp of the bat, the screech of the owl. Even the old superstition that the first object seen in the morning—a crow, a cripple, &c.—determines the fortunes of the day, had his respect. "At an hour," he comments, "when the senses ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... seen. He swung round and struck out with the sword Silence. The assassin was far from him, still the tip of the long steel reached the outstretched murderous hand, and from it fell a broken knife, while he who held it sped on with a screech of pain. Martin darted back and seized the knife, then he leapt into the boat and pushed off. At the bottom of it lay Foy, who had fallen straight into the arms of Red Bow, dragging her ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... a motor horn hooted near the entrance, and quite close at hand a horse's hoofs clattered and rang on the cobbled paving-stones. The persistent hiss of escaping steam at the far end of the station seemed to fill the air until it was presently drowned by the ear-piercing screech of an engine: high up in the darkness ahead one of a bright cluster of red lights holding their own against the fog, changed to green. The whistle stopped abruptly, and the voice of a boy, passing along the crowded platform, claimed all ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... their white cloths, and dropped into slumber. 'Toby,' 'Nettle,' 'Whisky,' 'Pincher,' and my other terriers, resembled so many curled-up hairy balls, and were in the land of dreams. Occasionally an owl would give a melancholy hoot from the forest, or a screech owl would raise a momentary and damnable din. At intervals, the tinkle of a cow-bell sounded faintly in the distance. I tossed restlessly, thinking of various things, till I must have dropped off into an uneasy ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... the scenes to me dyin' day. The men used to be stripped to the waist and tied on a triangle and walloped till they was cut to pieces, till they screamed like little children for mercy, and poor old wretches that had roamed the world for sixty years used to screech Mother! Mother! like little children. It was heart-renderin'! An' what used they be flogged for, do you think?—for the piggishness of the swells mostly. I'll tell you. There was a old feller lived out at Kaligiwa—that's ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... "Arise!"—At the word, with a bound, to their feet spring the vigilant Frenchmen; And the dark, dismal forests resound to the crack and the roar of their rifles; And seven writhing forms on the ground clutch the earth. From the pine-tops the screech owl Screams and flaps his wide wings in affright, and plunges away through the shadows; And swift on the wings of the night flee the dim, phantom forms of the spirit. Like cabris [80] when white wolves pursue, fled the four yet remaining Dakotas; Through ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... the stillness of the country and the loneliness of the dark road. She hurried her steps, jumped at every sound and grew cold from pure terror as the awful stillness and emptiness closed in about her. She stood still every few minutes, staring at blurred bushes beside the road. The screech of an owl almost made her scream. And in the dark the hard lumpy road hurt her feet cruelly. The little slippers were never meant for dark country roads. So Jocelyn had to pick her steps, and with every ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... important particulars. Of the six pirates named above, as executed on June 30, Lambert was a Salem man, Peterson apparently a Swede, Roach Irish, Quelch and the other two English. Judge Sewall records that "When the Scaffold was let to sink, there was such a Screech of the Women that my wife heard it sitting in our Entry next the Orchard, and was much surprised at it; yet the wind was sou-west. Our house is a full mile from the place." In 1835 the editor's grandfather saw the six pirates of the Mexican, almost the last of their ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... sarabandes in the snow, howling like so many devils, shrieking and showing their long white teeth, and demanding in unmistakable terms something or somebody to devour; their yells, their cries of rage, of victory, and of love, intermingled with the funereal song of the screech-owl, and the lugubrious melodies which the current from the blast without caused in the large open chimneys,—was the concert, which from December to April lulled the inmates of St. Hibaut to sleep; music that would I doubt not have reduced even the formidable proportions of the inimitable Lablache, ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... signs no mind—nuver paid no 'tention to all dem 'stitions an' sich lak." He didn't have any superstitions to tell only he did hear "ef a screech owl fly 'cross yo' do' hits er sign of a death in dat house, an' ef a whippowill calls at de' do' hit's er sign of death. Dat's what folks say, I don't ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... believe in 'em 'cause I done seen 'em work for all dese years. De Lawd give de peoples a sign for all things. De moon an' de stars, dey is a sign for all them what can read 'em an' tells you when to plant de cotton an' de taters an' all your crops. De screech owls, dey give er warnin' dat some one gwine to die. About de best sign dat some person gwine die 'round close is for a cow to git to lowin' an' a lowin' constant in de middle of de night. Dat is ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... woodland, the proposed cover of the column. Ten minutes before this point was reached a tiny puff of smoke showed on the brow of the hostile ridge; then, at an interval of several seconds, followed the sound of a distant explosion; then, almost immediately, came the screech of a rifled shell. Every man who heard it swiftly asked himself, "Will it strike me?" But even as the words were thought out it had passed, high in air, clean to the rear, and burst harmlessly. A few faces turned upward and a few eyes ...
— The Brigade Commander • J. W. Deforest
... Mr. Howitt told of his meeting with the strange boy, and their conversation. When he had finished, the big man smoked in silence. It was as if he found it hard to begin. From a tree on the mountain side below, a screech owl sent up his long, quavering call; a bat darted past in the dusk; and away over on Compton Ridge a hound bayed. The mountaineer spoke; "That's Sam Wilson's dog, Ranger; must a' started a fox." The sound died away in the distance. Old ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright
... of them were partial to the Puritan discipline; nor did they like Harry the worse for not being the least of a milksop. Manners, you see, were looser a hundred years ago; tongues were vastly more free-and-easy; names were named, and things were done, which we should screech now to hear mentioned. Yes, madam, we are not as our ancestors were. Ought we not to thank the Fates that have improved our morals so prodigiously, and made us so ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... promised commendation to the printer. They both, however, found their affairs must needs wait. Orders for weapons for the tilting-match had come in so thickly the day before that every hand must be employed on executing them, and the Dragon court was ringing again with the clang of hammers and screech of grind-stones. ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and eyes, speaking always in that loud, shrill, theatrical tone with which a puppet-master supplies his puppets. I all the time sat like a mouse. My father asked, "Which of those ladies, madam, do you think is your sister authoress?"—"I am no physiognomist"—in a screech—"but I do imagine that to be the lady," bowing as she sat almost to the ground, and pointing to Mrs. Edgeworth. "No, guess again."—"Then that must be she" bowing to Charlotte. "No."—"Then this lady," looking forward to see what sort of ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... these bards. It was while the poetic gentleman was passing by Taffy's house. He heard the jolly fellow inside singing, first at the top and then at the bottom of the scale. He would drop his voice down on the low notes and then again rise to the highest until it ended in a screech. ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis
... a funeral marriage crave, Nor grudge my cold embraces in the grave. I have too just a title in the strife; By me, unhappy me, he lost his life: I called him hither, 'twas my fatal breath, And I the screech-owl that proclaimed ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... to return home to receive him. They were about a mile from the house. They had not gone far before the rear-guard intermitted blackberrying for an instant, and uttered an eldrich screech; then proclaimed, "Another coach! another coach!" It was a light break coming gently along, with two showy horses in it, and ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... shrill screech, Smarlinghue sprang from his chair, and clawed like a demented man at the other's hands for possession of ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... the strand, They only, each by each; Home, her home, was close at hand, Utterly out of reach. Her mother in the chimney nook Heard a startled sea-gull screech, But never turned her head to look Towards the darkening beach: Neighbors here and neighbors there Heard one scream, as if a bird Shrilly screaming cleft the air:— That ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... coal between the ends of two sticks, and holding it firmly in that manner, walked a little distance among the trees. Then swinging the sticks he hurled the coal far up among the boughs. There was an angry screech and whirr and Robert saw a swift shadow passing between ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... by unsightly mounds and changed into foul stagnant pools, the snug country tavern deserted for a huge hideous barn-like depot, and all the lovely sights and sweet harmonies of nature defaced and drowned by the deformities consequent on a railroad, by the disgusting roar and screech of the steam-engine. One word to the wise! Let no man be deluded by the following pages, into the setting forth for Warwick now in search of sporting. These things are strictly as they were twenty years ago! Mr. Seward, ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... a saint would have been wild. The girl vows she won't live with me as my wife. Well, I shall hold Ahmara as a threat over her head till she sees the error of her ways. It's the one thing to do, as I look at it. Besides, if I try to pack Ahmara back to Touggourt she'll screech like a hen with her head cut off. I won't be made a laughing stock before my men, at the start, before I've shown them what sort of a leader they've got. Ahmara comes from the south. If Sanda decides to behave herself I'll drop the dancer at her own place, en route. Meanwhile, ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... taken!—St. Vincent taken!—French fleets blocked up! English fleets triumphant! Bravo! Up we go! up, up, up!—Imperial Annuities! Imperial! Imperial!—Get out of my sunshine, Moses, you d—d little Israelite!—Consols! Consols! &c.' ... The noise of the screech-owl, the howling of the wolf, the barking of the mastiff, the grunting of the hog, the braying of the ass, the nocturnal wooing of the cat, the hissing of the snake, the croaking of toads, frogs, and grasshoppers—all these in unison could not ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... unless it were Granny, who had detained Master Rowland to the last moment, or Uncle Rowland himself, for riding his horse too near the edge of the sandpit, and endangering his neck as well as his shin-bones. However, Mistress Betty did not cry out that she had been deceived, or screech distractedly, or swoon desperately (though the last was in her constitution), neither did she seem to be ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... so small a list of casualties. The fact is that, until the introduction of fire-arms, Indian open fighting was not very deadly. They might yell and screech and shoot arrows at each other for hours, with very little loss. Surprises and ambuscades were their ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson
... could hear the screams down the chimney, then the tug at his window-pane, the rattling clutch upon the wood, then the sweep under the bed and the rush up the wallpaper, until at last, from behind some badly defended spot where the paper was thin, there would come a wailing, whistling screech as though someone were being murdered in the next room. On other days Jeremy, when he heard this screech, shivered with a cosy, creeping thrill; but now he put his head under the bedclothes, shut his eyes very tight, ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... under him and his balance perfect, and the red fire blazed in his eyes and his big muscles quivered. Then he hurled himself forward—one, two, a dozen mighty bounds through flying snow, and he landed with a screech on the dome of a beaver house. There he jumped about, shaking an imaginary beaver like a fury, and gave another screech that made one's spine tingle. That over, he stood very still, looking off over the beaver roofs that dotted ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... shop. Although several persons might have heard him, but not understood him, it is true, he appeared so much pleased that he could not help saying to his companion, "Come, toss off your tipple, Nick! the old girl's toddled into the trap; she'll meet Screech Owl; Mother Martial will give us a lift in squeezing the sparklers out of her, and then we will carry the cold meat away ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... minutes past eleven by the ship's clock the Adventurer gave a prolonged screech and, moorings cast off, edged her way out of the basin and dipped her nose in the laughing waters of the bay, embarked at last on a voyage that was destined to fully vindicate ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... yellow body, spread out like a panther in his spring, descended with a crash upon Deering and Girty. The girl fell away from the renegade as he went down with a shrill screech, dragging Deering with him. Instantly began a terrific, whirling, ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... hide yourself, and get ready for a screech. When you see the Ratura dogs come in sight, give it out—once—only once,—and if you don't screech well, I'll teach you how to do it better afterwards. Wait then till you hear and see me and my men come rushing down the track, and then screech a second time. Only once, ...
— The Madman and the Pirate • R.M. Ballantyne
... traction engine wanted to marry my daughter or anybody's daughter. The tactless beast got up steam and proposed for her the day after I had offered him the living. He had never given so much as a preliminary screech on the subject, never blown a horn to show what his horrid intentions were—I only hope that if I had known I should still have had the moral courage to appoint him. The Archbishop assures me I should—but I doubt it. ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... the stage, a cricket sang and a katydid answered, and a wood pewee wrung the heart with its lonesome cry. Then a night hawk screamed, a whip-poor-will complained, a belated killdeer swept the sky, and the night wind sang a louder song. A little screech owl tuned up in the distance, a barn owl replied, and a great horned owl drowned both their voices. The moon shone and the scene was warm with mellow light. The bird voices died and soft exquisite melody began to swell and roll. In the centre of the stage, piece by piece the grasses, mosses ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... and the wind blew louder, rushing amongst the branches of the old pines, and making them moan more and more sadly. The cries of strange weird birds were heard, probably the shrieks of the ill-omened screech-owl, and the place seemed more and more remote from all human sympathy. Genji could only helplessly repeat, "How could I have chosen such a retreat." While Ukon, quite dismayed, cried pitifully at his side. To him it seemed even that this girl might become ill, might die! ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... pirate, to show Hook's method. Skylights will do. As they pass, Skylights lurches clumsily against him, ruffling his lace collar; the hook shoots forth, there is a tearing sound and one screech, then the body is kicked aside, and the pirates pass on. He has not even taken ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... he "nuver paid signs no mind—nuver paid no 'tention to all dem 'stitions an' sich lak." He didn't have any superstitions to tell only he did hear "ef a screech owl fly 'cross yo' do' hits er sign of a death in dat house, an' ef a whippowill calls at de' do' hit's er sign of death. Dat's what folks say, I ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... my breath an' figger out what he meant by 'rush' an' 'rough house' he had knocked over a table an' crowded some Greaser half off the map. One little funny man leaped up like a wild monkey an' began to screech. An' in another second he was in the air upside down. When he lit, he laid there. Then, quicker'n I can tell you, the young man dove at Rojas. Like a mad steer on the rampage he charged Rojas an' his men. ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... but she now understood what they said, and each cried, "I am a raven-mother; I am a raven-mother!" And Anne Lisbeth thought that they were taunting her. She fancied that she might, perhaps, be changed into such a dark bird, and might have to screech like them, if she could not get the grave ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... 'n' begun to cry, 'n' at that the deacon put his arm around her 'n' give her a hug, an' Gran'ma Mullins looked up just in time to see the arm 'n' the hug. It seemed like it was the last hay in the donkey, for she give a weak screech 'n' went right over on Mr. Dill. She had such a grip on Hiram that if it had n't been for Lucy he 'd have gone over, too, but Lucy just hung on herself that time, 'n' Hiram was rescued without nothin' worse than his hair mussed 'n' one sleeve a little tore. Mr. Sperrit 'n' Mr. Jilkins ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Neighbors' Affairs • Anne Warner
... what the river is talkin' about, in its calm gentle moods or its voylent ones. Who knows what the loud angry scream and screech of the deep waves say as the tempest and storm presses down on 'em and the Deep answers back in a voice of thunder, with its great heart beatin' and heavin' up and throbbin' in its mad pain and frenzy? Who knows what it is roarin' out, as it meets opposin' forces, wave and rock, and ...
— Samantha at Coney Island - and a Thousand Other Islands • Marietta Holley
... words, but pint o' fact it tethers The spoutin' gift to hev your words tu thick sot on with feathers, An' Choate ner Webster wouldn't ha' made an A 1 kin' o' speech Astride a Southun chestnut horse sharper 'n a baby's screech. Two year ago they ketched the thief, 'n' seein' I wuz innercent, They jest uncorked an' le' me run, an' in my stid the sinner sent To see how he liked pork 'n' pone flavored with wa'nut saplin', An' nary social priv'ledge but a one-hoss, starn-wheel ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... back from the latch as though it were red hot. He was not the kind of a man to make a good eavesdropper, and he wished he had knocked sooner. He pulled himself together and struck the door like a battering ram. Mary jumped and opened it with a screech. ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... and let out a screech of anger, and the creature rose on two pencil-thin legs and scuttled off with a half-terrified, half defiant squeak. It darted past us into the darkness too quickly even for Tweel, and as it ran, something waved on its body like the fluttering of a cape. Tweel ...
— Valley of Dreams • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum
... whatever in the discussion of an inspiration, "like God's omnipotence, not limited to the few writers claimed by the Jews, Christians and Mohammedans, but as extensive as the race;"[121] or perhaps as extensive as all creation, and leading us to regard even "the solemn notes of the screech owl" as inspired.[122] What manner of use could the Bible be to an ignorant soul groping its way to truth and holiness, or to a dying sinner hastening to the judgment seat of God, if it were true, that "the Bible's own teaching on the subject is that everything ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... piercing eyes, sharp enough to see through everything, and it seemed as if they changed from bird's eyes to human eyes—the very eyes of his godmother, whom he had not seen for ever so long. But the minute afterward she became only a bird, and with a screech and a chatter, spread her wings ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik
... acted according to orders. Three wide steps and he was in the waggon, and with one screech like a p'izened bob-cat, he fairly lifted the cayuses over the first ridge. Nobody never saw him any ...
— Red Saunders • Henry Wallace Phillips
... as a car came up the street and stopped with a screech of brakes in front of the Bullfinch house. Here were Mr. and Mrs. Bullfinch home ...
— Jerry's Charge Account • Hazel Hutchins Wilson
... thing on which the wedge-tailed eagle really insists when in his summer quarters, is his daily spray bath from a hose. When his keeper goes in to give the daily morning wash to the cage, the eagles perch close above his head and screech and scream until the spray is turned upon them. Then they spread their wings, to get it thoroughly, and come out thoroughly soaked. When the spray is merely turned upon their log instead of upon the birds as they ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... said to me, knowing me very well, "I'm in burning pain all withinside of me, Thady." I could not speak, but my shister asked him would he have this thing or t'other to do him good? "No," says he, "nothing will do me good no more," and he gave a terrible screech with the torture he was in—then again a minute's ease—"brought to this by drink," says he; "where are all the friends?—where's Judy?—Gone, hey? Ay, Sir Condy has been a fool all his days," said he; and there was the ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... resent your intrusion on the privacy of its sanctuary, it is very rare for one to attack you. I remember, however, a boy who once had the bad manners to put his hand into a {26} Cardinal's nest and had a finger well bitten for his misdeed. Beware, too, of trying to caress a Screech Owl sitting on its eggs in a hollow tree; its claws are very sharp, and you will need first-aid attention if you persist. Occasionally some bird will let you stroke its back before deserting its eggs, and may even let you take its photograph while you are thus engaged. On one occasion I ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... successfully than the cordial. He was propped up on a bed-rest, and always had his gold-headed stick lying by him. He seized it now and swept it backwards and forwards in as large an area as he could, apparently to ban these ugly spectres, crying in a hoarse sort of screech— ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... heard Polynesia, who was in the rigging keeping a look-out for land or passing ships, screech down to us, ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... I did; and now that we know it was a man who got the scare I reckon he gave a little screech. I thought it was a yelp from some wild animal at the time, but it could have been an exclamation ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... A screech owl called and startled her; Tory had a sudden attack of nerves; running ahead a few yards, she stumbled. The footsteps ...
— The Girl Scouts in Beechwood Forest • Margaret Vandercook
... whereas, man resists or submits in silence, except, perhaps, for a few bad words ground out between his teeth. Therefore, when the legal owner of the —— which I was in the act of unfastening, suddenly splintered the firmament with a double-barrelled screech, the thought flashed on my mind that he was one of those De Lacy Evanses we often read of in novels; and in two seconds I was fifty yards away, trying to choose between the opposing anomalies of the case. A little reflection showed the balance of probability strongly against ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... day. Apropos of this, we are great drinkers of these welcome stimulants; we seldom halt drinking until we have each had six or seven cups. We have also been able to provide ourselves with music, which, though harsh, is better than none. I mean the musical screech of ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... considerable individual differences. Colonel Sykes remarks that the domestic Kulm cock in India has not the shrill clear pipe of the English bird, and "his scale of notes appears more limited." Dr. Hooker was struck with the "prolonged howling screech" of the cocks in Sikhim.[427] The crow of the Cochin is notoriously and ludicrously different from that of the common cock. The disposition of the different breeds is widely different, varying from the savage and defiant temper of the Game-cock to the extremely peaceable temper ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... this same parapet, low down, Briggs beheld a black and gaping aperture — plainly a loophole of some kind. Without a moment's hesitation, Briggs hurled a Mills grenade straight through the loophole, and, forgetting for the moment that others of his troop were not with him, uttered a wild screech! ...
— The Boy Allies with Haig in Flanders • Clair W. Hayes
... (Angus M'Veecar was his name, and a fine young lad he was) I dreamt I saw one. As big as three hills it was, with an awful starin' white face, and a tail on it near as long as from Portree to Sligachen. It give a great screech, and a wallop in the face of me, and jumped into the loch, and by milkin'-time next morning—a Thursday it was—ma sister Maggie came into the door cryin', 'Och and och, ma poor man, and him so kind and so young,' and fell on the floor as stiff as ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... in de world habin' a conferince right dar. Seem' like all de ghosteses whut yever was am havin' a convintion on dat spot. An' dat li'l' black Mose so skeered he jes fall' down on a' old log whut dar an' screech' an' moan'. An' all on a suddent de log ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... companions outside, greatly to the disgust of Toyatte and Kadachan, who regarded the Kakes as mannerless barbarians. A little girl, frightened at the strange exercises, began to cry and was turned out of doors. She cried in a strange, low, wild tone, quite unlike the screech crying of ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... up a live coal between the ends of two sticks, and holding it firmly in that manner, walked a little distance among the trees. Then swinging the sticks he hurled the coal far up among the boughs. There was an angry screech and whirr and Robert saw a swift shadow passing between his eyes and ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... perches, before they saw a bear walk into the brush on one side of the valley. We waited quietly, in the midst of mosquitoes, but nothing came in sight. It was already after 10 o'clock, and so dark that the men gave up their watch, and came down to join me. Suddenly we heard a sharp screech up the stream, and when it was repeated, Vacille said it must be a young bear crying because its mother would not feed it fast enough. Here Vacille ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... with an awning, it is not so uncomfortable, but it is not well adapted to a long journey as it is slow and toilsome. When the mud is deep, progress is almost impossible. Moreover, the labour of the barrow-men constantly excites the sympathy of the humane traveller and the dismal screech of the wheel revolving upon its unoiled axle is worse than the rasp of filing a saw. The Chinese depend upon the shrieks of the wheel to tell them how the axle is wearing, but the disconsolate foreigner finds that his nerves wear ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... of rapid steps, Gianbattista turned his head and a part of his body to see what had happened. The sudden movement shifted the weight, and definitely destroyed the balance of the ladder. With a sharp screech, like that of a bad pencil scratching on a slate, the lower ends of the uprights slipped outward from the pillar. Gianbattista clutched at the metal bars desperately, but the long screw-driver in his hands impeded him, ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... — N. cry &c v.; voice &c (human) 580; hubbub; bark &c (animal) 412. vociferation, outcry, hullabaloo, chorus, clamor, hue and cry, plaint; lungs; stentor. V. cry, roar, shout, bawl, brawl, halloo, halloa, hoop, whoop, yell, bellow, howl, scream, screech, screak^, shriek, shrill, squeak, squeal, squall, whine, pule, pipe, yaup^. cheer; hoot; grumble, moan, groan. snore, snort; grunt &c (animal sounds) 412. vociferate; raise up the voice, lift up the voice; call out, sing out, cry out; exclaim; rend the air; thunder at the top of one's ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... latter had barely parted to parrot the bid when Victor sprang to his feet, his features working, his limbs shaking so that the legs of the chair beside him, whose back he seized, chattered on the floor, while the high-pitched voice broke into a screech: ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... saw his barn owl fly off with a rat he had just shot. And at another time she plunged into the water and brought up in her claws a fish, which she carried away to her nest. The Barn Owl is white, and does not hoot, at least by many this is thought to be the case. The Brown Owl is the hooting or screech owl, and makes a very ...
— Mamma's Stories about Birds • Anonymous (AKA the author of "Chickseed without Chickweed")
... away! You can't come in. I won't let you in. You're a wicked girl, Miss Sisily, and I won't let you in. You killed your father, and you'd like to kill me, but I'll keep you locked out. Go away!" Her voice rose to a screech. ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... off easily with the screech of old nails pulling loose. In a few moments enough boards were pulled away to allow them to enter on hands and knees. A top board was pulled off to admit light, and they went in together, ...
— The Blue Ghost Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... to Circumcision and to Baptism: or else it denotes those who would fly by contemplation, yet dwell in the waters of sensual delights. The hawk, which helps men to seize the prey, is a figure of those who assist the strong to prey on the poor. The screech-owl, which seeks its food by night but hides by day, signifies the lustful man who seeks to lie hidden in his deeds of darkness. The cormorant, so constituted that it can stay a long time under water, denotes the glutton who plunges into the waters of pleasure. The ibis is an ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... phial after phial. The boy, being light, was strewed afar, but in a squatting posture; so that they sat in a sequence, like graduated specimens, the smaller howling. But soon the doctor's face filled with horror, and he uttered a far louder and unearthly screech, and kicked and struggled with wonderful agility for ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... found their affairs must needs wait. Orders for weapons for the tilting-match had come in so thickly the day before that every hand must be employed on executing them, and the Dragon court was ringing again with the clang of hammers and screech of grind-stones. ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Gerster, are sick when a black cat with a long red dress comes out and murders the same pieces the prima donnas have sung. We have seen a colored girl attempt a selection from some organ-grinder opera, and she would howl and screech, and catch her breath and come again, and wheel and fire vocal shrapnel, limber up her battery and take a new position, and unlimber and send volleys of soprano grape and cannister into the audience, ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... the maiden applied her delicate ear to the window, catching eagerly at every strange sound muttered forth by the growing storm. She had resumed her seat many times, when the castle-bell tolled eleven, and almost at the same moment the cry of a screech-owl was distinctly heard. The expectant damsel glided on tiptoe to the window, and listened eagerly. The cry was repeated. Emma's eye sparkled at length with joy, a deep blush overspread her cheeks, and she produced from an aperture a ladder of twine, which she fastened to the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... the tallow dip and sprang to the door. The cat passed me like a demon, and the tallow dip went out, but my long knife flew swifter than she, and I heard her screech, and I knew that my knife had found her. For a moment I listened to her tumbling and thumping about in the darkness, and then when her frenzy ceased, I lighted a lamp and raised it over my head. Mr. Wilde lay on the floor with ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... turning off the light, dashed outside just as the second went over. I naturally looked skyward, but there was not a sign of anything and, stranger still, not even the throb of an engine. A third went over with a loud screech, and my hair was blown into the air by the rushing wind it caused. I saw a flash from the sea and Thompson said she was wakened by my voice calling, "I say, come out and see this new stunt." Soon everyone was up and the shells came on steadily, blowing ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... flush of pride at these words from a man whose name was honoured wherever trader or trapper smoked round a camp fire. He was about to make some answer when a dreadful cry broke suddenly out of the woods, a horrible screech, as from some one who was goaded to the very last pitch of human misery. Again and again, as they stood with blanched cheeks in the darkness, they heard that awful cry swelling up from the night and ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the doorway a minute ago?' 'Young lady,' Ban. Do you get that? So I says, 'You're lucky, Bud. When I get 'em, it's usually snakes and bugs and such-like rep-tyles. Besides,' I says, 'your train is about to forgit that you got off it,' I says. With that he gives another screech that don't even mean as much as Ohio and tails onto the back platform just ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... afraid I would try to take it away from him. I had to make an effort to free my eyes from his gaze and attend to the steering. With one hand I felt above my head for the line of the steam whistle, and jerked out screech after screech hurriedly. The tumult of angry and warlike yells was checked instantly, and then from the depths of the woods went out such a tremulous and prolonged wail of mournful fear and utter ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... they gathered up their supplies and moved along the hollow to where a passage had been cut through. They had gone barely a hundred yards when a screech, like a buzz-saw when it strikes a nail, sounded overhead. Looking up they saw a black disk hurtling through the air, to drop almost where they had been standing a moment before. There was a terrific explosion that sent debris to ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross • Edith Van Dyne
... and begun to cry, an' at that the deacon put his arm around her an' give her a hug, an' Gran'ma Mullins looked up just in time to see the arm an' the hug. It seemed like it was the last hay in the donkey, for she give a weak screech an' went right over on Mr. Dill. She had such a grip on Hiram that if it hadn't been for Lucy he'd have gone over, too, but Lucy just hung on herself that time, an' Hiram was rescued without nothin' worse than his hair ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... gentle feminine girl, with a most lovely and winning countenance, and I did inherently like to hear her pronounce the word "Jack"—it was so different from the boisterous screech of the Eton boys, or the swaggering call of my boon companions ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... been all the time perched in a conspicuous place—on the top of the signal-staff. Perhaps I only fancied him larger on account of the position in which he was placed; but I noticed that before any of the others took to flight, he had shot upward with a screech, as if it were a command for the rest to follow example. Very likely he was either the sentinel or leader of the flock; and this little bit of tactics was no other than I had often seen practised by a flock of crows, ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... me had an umbrella in her hand. I made a snatch at this and dropped off that gate like a shot. I didn't stop to think about anything except that beautiful picture was on the point of being swallowed up, and with a screech I dashed at those hogs like a steam engine. When they saw me coming with my screech and the umbrella they didn't stop a second, but with three great wiggles and three scared grunts they bolted as fast as they ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton
... nuisance now-a-days, because of the trouble of having them reset for summer and winter time. Peacocks at any rate are beautiful, and, if their voices are apt in England to become a little hoarse, that is only because they screech when the weather is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 29, 1920 • Various
... close at hand a horse's hoofs clattered and rang on the cobbled paving-stones. The persistent hiss of escaping steam at the far end of the station seemed to fill the air until it was presently drowned by the ear-piercing screech of an engine: high up in the darkness ahead one of a bright cluster of red lights holding their own against the fog, changed to green. The whistle stopped abruptly, and the voice of a boy, passing along the crowded platform, claimed ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... stature and in a stooping posture, gave him just the chance he needed. His single arm was extended with the quickness of lightning and he fired. The bullet bored its way through the bronzed skull of the Indian, who, with an ear-splitting screech, flung his arms aloft, leaped several feet from the ground, toppled sideways over the edge of the trail and went tumbling, rolling and doubling down the precipice far beyond sight, into the almost ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... at bay, as the laughter at his expense increased, was fairly frantic. He lost what he had hitherto retained, his self-possession. "I tell you I did!" he suddenly screamed out, in a sweet screech, like an angry bird, which commanded the ears of the crowd from its strangeness. "I tell you I did have an elephant, I did ride him, and I did have a circus every Saturday afternoon, ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... flash out their signals, like beacon lights in the darkness, while, ringing up from the valley, the call of the whip-poor-will echoes clear and sweet, each syllable pronounced as distinctly as if uttered by a human voice. In a tree overhead a screech owl emits his evening call in a clear, vibrating tremolo, as if to warn the smaller birds that he is on watch, and considers them his lawful prey. The night hawk wheels in his tireless flight, graceful as a thistledown, soaring through space without a seeming motion of the wings, emitting ...
— Byways Around San Francisco Bay • William E. Hutchinson
... was won. By the time I had explained to LeConte why I had given him the order, and he had filled the cabin two or three times with the screech, the Orconite was ready to speak. He trembled in his seat. His mouth twisted with pain, and a look of agony seared his eyes. He burst into fluent Orconese speech. Then he made a swift pass with one hand at the black box on his chest, touched a switch there, and began ...
— The Winged Men of Orcon - A Complete Novelette • David R. Sparks
... blood!' ..." Not unsuccessfully does the spouse of Lady Hannah attempt to render the recurrent hiccough and the whooping screech of hysteria. "'Damn it, my dear!' I said, tryin' to reason with her, 'what else did you expect the fellow had got in him? Sawdust?' That seemed to rouse her like nothing else.... Turned on me like a tigress, by the living Tinker!—called me ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... ill at ease.... With suppressed excitement and the tail of my eye, I watched him bear down upon one of the stumbling-blocks to which Berry had referred. The accuracy with which he approached it was almost uncanny. I found myself standing upon one leg.... The screech of anguish with which he hailed the collision, no less than the precipitancy with which he dropped the guitar, sat down and began to rock himself to and fro, ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... to reach the trenches, and not very far from the bit of trench in which I was singing, there was a railroad bridge of some strategic importance. And now a shell hit that bridge—not a whizz bang, but a real, big shell. It exploded with a hideous screech, as if the bridge were some human thing being struck, and screaming out its agony. The soldiers looked at me, and I saw some of them winking. They seemed to be mighty interested in the way I was taking all this. I looked back at them, and then at a Highland colonel who ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... an her; and they said how it was the speerit of the ould Judge that was tormentin' her; and she used to be roaring and yelling out to hould back the big ould fellow with the crooked neck; and then she'd screech 'Oh, the master! the master! he's stampin' at me, and beckoning to me! Mother, darling, don't let me go!' And so the poor crathure died at last, and the docthers said it was wather on the brain, for it was all ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 1 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... Paquita's intense excitement and infuse a little courage into her, was too much amazed to speak; and in another moment our visitors were in the room. Paquita started up tearful and trembling; then her two young friends, after staring at her for a few moments, delivered a screech of astonishment and rushed into her arms, and all three were locked together for some time in ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... vice in our dailies and weeklies, till we almost lose the savor of virtue, and till the last degraded end comes of it all, and blatant young America thrones herself on the shores of Britain and sends her eagle screech of conquest echoing ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... should they find but a nasty dead dog?—on which they all set to work, pecking and gobbling and cawing and quarrelling to their hearts' content. But the moment afterwards, they all threw up their bills into the air, and gave one screech; and then turned head over heels backward, and fell down dead, one hundred and twenty-three of them at once. For why? The fairy had told the gamekeeper in a dream, to fill the dead dog full of strychnine; and so ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... table cry: 'Fetch my belongings for me; I am bare.' A clatter! Something in the attic falls. A ghost has lifted up his robes and fled. The loitering shadows move along the walls; Then silence very slowly lifts his head. The starling with impatient screech has flown The chimney, and is watching from the tree. They thought us gone for ever: mouse alone Stops in the middle of the floor to see. Now all you idle things, resume your toil. Hearth, put your flames on. Sulky ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 • Various
... throat-splitting screech of rage and hate, Bat twisted to safety between her boots. She pressed with thumb and forefinger, firing at the spacealls. The material turned to powdery flakes of ash—except for certain bits which still flapped from the scorched seat—as if something had ...
— All Cats Are Gray • Andre Alice Norton
... made the best of the oil-lamps in the steep and narrow streets, he usually fell over the cliff at an early age. Now, gas and electricity run to the very water's edge, and the South-Eastern Railway Company screech at us in the ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... this spot, this wilderness, that resounds with the screech of owls and teems with spirits and Yakshas and Rakshasas. Terrible and awful, its aspect is like that of a mass of blue clouds. Casting off the dead body, finish the funeral rites. Indeed, throwing away the body, accomplish those rites before the sun sets and before the points of the horizon become ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... fair, I refuse you for my master! I won't go with you!" By that outbreak she had attracted the attention of everybody about. Nancy, too, set up a screech and everybody crowded about them. Sir Tristram dared not say a word to help himself, because if he should really displease Lady Harriet he knew it would be ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... me. Well, her name is Musetta Her surname is Temptation. As to her vocation: Like a rose in the breezes, So she changes lover for lover without number. And like the spiteful screech owl, A bird that's most rapacious, The food that most she favors is the heart! Her food the heart is; Thus have I now none left! (to his friends, concealing his agitation) So ...
— La Boheme • Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica
... were safely in their own Apartments, the beautiful Bride began to do Flip Flops and screech ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... really coming to blows. We never had the pleasure of seeing a stranger among us. We might hear him approaching, nearer and nearer, till, just as the eager listener fancied he might alight in sight, there would burst upon the air the screech of a jay or the war-cry of a robin, accompanied by the precipitate flight of the whole clan, and away would go the stranger in a most sensational manner, followed by outcries and clamor enough to drive off an army of feathered brigands. This neighborhood, ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... in darkness. The silence was broken, even at this early hour, only by the distant, faint screech of street-car wheels against the rails, or the far sound of an automobile horn down in the town, or the rattle of a sick man's cough on one of the sleeping porches. There was something uncanny, Bristow thought, in the velvet blackness and ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... weapons from men and officers, tomahawked those that resisted, and, seizing upon shrieking women and children, dragged them off or murdered them on the spot. It is said that some of the interpreters secretly fomented the disorder.[523] Suddenly there rose the screech of the war-whoop. At this signal of butchery, which was given by Abenaki Christians from the mission of the Penobscot,[524] a mob of savages rushed upon the New Hampshire men at the rear of the column, and killed or dragged away eighty of them.[525] ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... city was silenced. There were no outward signs of despair nor of violent terror, but many of the voices that had swelled the busy hum of men were already hushed in death, and the survivors, so used to scream and screech in their earnestness whenever they bought or sold, now showed an unwonted indifference about the affairs of this world: it was less worth while for men to haggle and haggle, and crack the sky with noisy bargains, when the great commander was there, who could ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... away, as if its office were now completed; and none of the dark sounds and sights of hideous Night yet dared to triumph over the death of Day. Unseen were the circling wings of the fell bat; unheard the screech of the waking owl; silent the drowsy hum of the shade-born beetle! What heart has not acknowledged the influence of this hour, the sweet and soothing hour of twilight! the hour of love, the hour of adoration, the hour of rest! when we think of those we ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... dream. And this, while the potent draught seemed still to be making its way through his system; and the frightened apothecary thought that he intended a revengeful onslaught upon himself. Finally, he uttered a loud unearthly screech, in the midst of which his voice broke, as if some unseen hand were throttling him, and, starting forward, he fought frantically, as if he would clutch the life that was being rent away,—and fell forward with a dead thump upon ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... battery, who paid a great deal of attention to us yesterday, banged away at us in fine style, and a number of shells burst around us. Finally, when I had them entirely off my mind and was paying attention only to the torpedo-boat destroyers, came a tremendous screech, and everybody on the forecastle dodged. It was their last; it fell about two hundred yards to our right. We did not reply as we came along. I thought it a waste of material, and thought they might have their amusement so long as they ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis
... winter night, when you camp in the wilderness, and the snow is sifting down into your fire, and the woods are all still, a fierce screech breaks suddenly out of the darkness just behind your wind-break of boughs. You jump to your feet and grab your rifle; but Simmo, who is down on his knees before the fire frying pork, only turns his head to listen a moment, and says: "Upweekis catch-um rabbit dat time." Then he gets closer to ...
— Wilderness Ways • William J Long
... not condescend to make any answer, but recommenced her leisurely counting; and then Miss Ruff uttered that terrific screech which had peculiarly ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... to wit, that at this day the whole circumference of the world that is without the walls and privileges of this city, it shall be but like an old ruinous house, in which dwells nothing but cormorants, bitterns, owls, ravens, dragons, satyrs, the screech-owl, the great owl, the vulture, and the like most doleful birds. All their princes shall be nothing, saith the prophet, and when they call their nobles to the kingdom, none shall be there. In their very palaces shall be thorns, and nettles, and brambles; ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... into slumber. 'Toby,' 'Nettle,' 'Whisky,' 'Pincher,' and my other terriers, resembled so many curled-up hairy balls, and were in the land of dreams. Occasionally an owl would give a melancholy hoot from the forest, or a screech owl would raise a momentary and damnable din. At intervals, the tinkle of a cow-bell sounded faintly in the distance. I tossed restlessly, thinking of various things, till I must have dropped off into an uneasy fitful sleep. I know not how long I had been dozing, but of a sudden I felt myself ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... heard him. He only hugged his knees tighter, and slowly turned up his face, wrung into ten thousand horrid puckers, to the sky, till his chin stood as high as his forehead, with his teeth and eyes shut, and he uttered a sound like a half-stifled screech; and, indeed, looked very black ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... of the wheel. All this Philip could see; the greater part of her face was lost to him as she half averted it, with a shy dislike to the way in which she knew from past experience that cousin Philip always stared at her. And avert it as she would she heard with silent petulance the harsh screech of Philip's chair as he heavily dragged it on the stone floor, sitting on it all the while, and felt that he was moving round so as to look at her as much as was in his power, without absolutely turning his back on either her father or mother. She got herself ready for the first ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... one-handed horseman in faded pink, who, on his bang-tailed black mare, had a knack of getting so well away. One of the whips, a little dark fellow with smouldery eyes and sucked-in weathered cheeks, dashed out of covert, rode past, saluting, and dashed in again. A jay came out with a screech, dived, and doubled back; a hare made off across the fallow—the light-brown lopping creature was barely visible against the brownish soil. Pigeons, very high up, flew over and away to the next wood. The shrilling voices of the whips ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... so it appeared to me, for the Germans were dropping their shells from the southeast, at least one kilometer over range. We were standing beside a strawstack and looking due south, watching the just discernible line of French guns, when we heard the ominous whistling screech of an approaching shell. Down on our faces behind the stack, down we went like lightning, and over to the left, not 200 yards away, rose a huge column of black smoke and earth, and just afterward a very loud boom. A big German gun had come into action, slightly ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... what is the matter?" said Percy; "you look as if this world was a howling wilderness, and you wanted to howl too. What, crying over that bird? Poh! I can buy you a screech-owl any time, that will make twice the noise he could in his best days. Come, hurry, ...
— Little Prudy's Sister Susy • Sophie May
... dis do, an' de ooman she fotched a yell an' cried out, she did, 'Lan' er de mussiful! W'at cur'ous sort er wood is dish yer dat ac' lak dis?' De Owl he wuz startle' an' he look roun' suddint, dis-a-way, over his shoulder, an' de wimmins dey let out a turr'ble screech, 'kase dey seed 'twa'n't nuttin' but a big ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... smile of guilty embarrassment upon their vis-a-vis' face had begun to swell into the cringing leer familiarly precedent to an appeal for leniency, when the fellow leaned forward, stared fearfully at the Judge, and, dropping the pullet with a screech, recoiled against the wall. ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... fro, striving at every coign to pierce with my eyesight the white drift. I pushed back my hat; I gnawed my knuckles; I felt that I could not stay still, yet knew not for what point to make. Almost I felt that in another moment I should screech out—when a breath of sea air caught the skirt of the cloud, and rolled the bulk of it up ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... deductions—was devoted, for some little while longer, to the discussion of their various necessities and plans for the future. The night had considerably advanced in this way, when, of a sudden, their ears were assailed with an eldritch screech, like that of the owl, issuing from one of the several cells ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... indentations at the corners of her mouth. She had eyes singularly clear, like a child's, and a voice so nasal, so strident, so dreadful that when she parted her pretty lips and spoke, the sound shocked you like a peacock's raucous screech. ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... the old warrior, as he pointed out the blackened ruins, "here stood our home, where now the screech owl haunts, and the wolf has its den. There, where the broken shaft yet remains, was the chamber in which thou first sawest the light, and wherein thy mother died there, where snake and toad have their home, was the great hall. Surely the ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... help. They said the little thing used to stand on a chair and wash dishes, and they'd seen her carrying in sticks of wood most as big as she was many a time, and they'd heard her mother scolding her. The woman was a fine singer, and had a voice like a screech-owl ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... heard her aunt's voice, Mrs. Catherine was aware of her situation; and when her companion retired, and the landlady, with much officiousness, insisted on removing her hood, she was quite prepared for the screech of surprise which Mrs. Score gave on dropping it, exclaiming, "Why, law bless us, it's ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... between his teeth. "Throw her head back. Fill the eye-baths; turn him upsides-down over her open eyes. Drown them turn-turn-about in my mixtures. Drown them, I say, one-down-todder-come-on, and if she screech never mind it. Then bring her to me. For the lofe of Gott, bring her to me. If you tie her hands and foots, bring her to me. What is the womans stopping for? ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... fifth act comes right side up at last, When the young couple, old folks, rogues, and all, Join hands, so happy at the curtain's fall. —Here suffering virtue ever finds relief, And black-browed ruffians always come to grief. —When the lorn damsel, with a frantic screech, And cheeks as hueless as a brandy-peach, Cries, "Help, kyind Heaven!" and drops upon her knees On the green—baize,—beneath the (canvas) trees,— See to her side avenging Valor fly:— "Ha! Villain! Draw! Now, Terraitorr, yield or die!" —When the poor hero flounders in despair, Some dear ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... containing thistles and burdocks, and the other fuming acid. Other side dishes, of turtles, rats, bats and moles, were garnished with live coals. For the fish course he ate a dish of snakes in boiling tar and pitch. His roast was a screech owl in a sauce of glowing brimstone. The salad proved to be spider webs full of small explosive squibs, a plate of butterfly wings and manna worms, a dish of toads surrounded with flies, crickets, grasshoppers, church beetles, spiders, and caterpillars. He ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... to remember. We came to a big hill, and as we were going down it at a smart pace the coach began to sway, then the ladies began to screech, and even the men looked so scared that I laughed outright. Lord Dereham was perfectly tipsy and he did not know the road a bit, but he drove in beautiful style and was extraordinarily amusing; as soon as the coach took to ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... hollow sound, By the thunder's dreadful stound, Yells of spirits underground, I charge thee not to fear us; By the screech-owl's dismal note, By the black night-raven's throat, I charge thee, Hob, to tear thy coat With thorns, if thou come ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... weird screech, and the beast whirled around and around on the rocks, coming closer and closer to our hero. Once it clawed savagely at Dave, but he shoved the creature off before any damage was done. Then it fell down in a cleft of some rocks, where it snapped and snarled ...
— Dave Porter in the Gold Fields - The Search for the Landslide Mine • Edward Stratemeyer
... which the blue flax and golden rye grow, about the bluish line of forest on the horizon, about the wide, wide stretches of heath, where the bees buzz busily over the blooming heather and the fen-fowls screech near the quiet waters in the evening, when the sky and the sun ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... and of a merely anthropoidal profile, was driving me along shore in search of a sea-side hotel when we came upon a weak-minded young chicken in the road. The natural expectation is that any chicken in these circumstances will wait for your vehicle, and then fly up before it with a loud screech; but this chicken may have been overcome by the heat (it was a land breeze and it drew like the breath of a furnace over the hay-cocks and the clover), or it may have mistimed the wheel, which passed over ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... cry came from the house, a hoarse, screeching cry in a voice which might have been either man's or woman's, but was as mad and as desperate and as horrible in that still night as the screech of a tortured animal—or of a maniac. It came again and again, and ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... was not easily frightened; the only time I ever saw him seriously disturbed was at the sight of a stuffed screech-owl, which I brought into the room without thinking of its probable effect. I placed it on a shelf in a closet, and I soon noticed that the moment the closet door was opened the grosbeak became greatly ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... grayest, most shaggy part of the woods, I come suddenly upon a brood of screech owls, full grown, sitting together upon a dry, moss-draped limb, but a few feet from the ground. I pause within four or five yards of them and am looking about me, when my eye lights upon these gray, motionless figures. They sit perfectly upright, ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... eight, was only a few seconds behind time. As the screech of the approaching engine rung out from the dark wood-land, Margaret and her father exchanged rapid glances. It would take Richard ten minutes to walk from the railway station to the house,—for ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... a very long time, quite an hour, during which the couriers flew incessantly to and fro, and Bevis, lying on his back on the moss under the oak, tried which could screech the loudest, himself or the jay. Bevis would easily have won had he been able to resist the inclination to pull the jay's tail, which made the latter set up such a yell that everybody started, Bevis shouted with laughter, and even the fox lost ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... the mares and promptly camped beside a brawling stream from which he whipped two trout at a time. Here, Saxon caught her first big trout. She had been accustomed to landing them up to nine and ten inches, and the screech of the reel when the big one was hooked caused her to cry out in startled surprise. Billy came up the riffle to her and gave counsel. Several minutes later, cheeks flushed and eyes dancing with excitement, Saxon dragged the big fellow carefully from the water's edge into the dry sand. ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... "I never heard that it liked music; and I don't think it can know much about music, for this is not at all sweet. There again! That was a sort of screech. O, how stupid I am!" thought he again. "So much for my head being full of Nipen! It is only Hund, tuning his violin, because they have all done supper. They will be waiting for me. I wish this Nipen would make haste. It can't be very ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... after noticing "the wild and squalid features" of Marat, who "lay concealed in some obscure garret or cellar, among his cut-throats, until a storm appeared, when, like a bird of ill omen, his death-screech was again heard," thus states the death of another of the murderers of the Malherbes:—"Robespierre, in an unsuccessful attempt to shoot himself, had only inflicted a horrible fracture on his under-jaw. In this situation they were found ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... hesitation in firing at the one on his right, and immediately after at his companion, whose superior speed had placed him considerably in advance. As a consequence, he missed the latter, while the first emitted a screech, leaped high in air and sprawled forward on his face as ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... their friend had a pleasant home, and then Miranda heard them plunge into a political discussion again and she felt that they were safe for a while. She stole out into the dewy dark to see if there were yet signs of the home-comers. A screech owl hooted across the night. She stood a while by the back fence looking out across the dark sea of whispering wheat. By and by she thought she heard subdued voices above the soft swish of the parting wheat, and by the light ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... skipper. Harriet instantly obeyed the command. Then the gale was upon them with a screech and a roar. A volume of water that threatened to swamp them rolled toward the stern, but before it had done so Harriet, acting upon a sharply uttered command, had swung the sloop about until its nose met the oncoming ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... with both hands. He turned. Without speaking, without looking at her again he walked away. She watched him with a desperate feeling of being abandoned, of losing something powerful and valuable. The faint, thin screech of a locomotive from a station far down the line made him pause, and turn, and gaze under his hand in the strong sun. So for a moment she saw him, a lowering, peering figure moving away from her over the lawn between broad flower-beds. Then he ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... all calm around, A pulseless silence, dread, profound, More awful than the tempest's sound. The diver steered for ORMUS' bowers, And moored his skiff till calmer hours; The sea-birds with portentous screech Flew fast to land;—upon the beach The pilot oft had paused, with glance Turned upward to that wild expanse;— And all was boding, drear and dark As her own soul when HINDA'S bark Went slowly from the Persian shore.— No music timed her parting oar,[244] Nor friends upon the lessening strand ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... was still as perfectly preserved as if it had been embalmed. The sight had a most cruel fascination; and while one of the horror-seekers stood helplessly conjuring to his vision that scene of unknown dread,—the shrinking, shrieking woman dragged to the block, the wild, shrill, horrible screech following the blow that drove in the spike, the merciful swoon after the mutilation,—his companion, with a sudden pallor, demanded ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... reprovingly, 'Georgie's not frightened at such a little thing!' Five minutes after, we were sitting on the doorsteps, and, wearing a low-necked dress, I felt on my shoulder some stirring creature; it was a caterpillar, and, with the inevitable privileged feminine screech on such occasions, I dashed it off; then, turning, I met the usually grave gray eyes kindling with mischievous triumph: 'Aunty's frightened of a little sing,' says Georgie, with ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... laughed like the screech of a rusty hinge— Laughed and laughed till his face grew black; And when he choked, with a final twinge Of his stifling laughter, he thumped his back With a fist that grew on the end of his tail Till the breath came back to ...
— Riley Child-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley
... the porter, as if saying, "You ask me too little. Why will you not ask for a white elephant so that I may prove my devotion?" And within five seconds the screech of a whistle sped through the air to the cab-stand ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... filled the perspective before her. The way was lonely; the hard road echoed under the old cart-horse's hoofs; many a black and desolate tract of forest lay across their twenty miles' ride; more than once the tremulous shriek of a screech-owl smote ominously on Sally's wakeful sense, and quavered away like a dying groan; more than once a mournful whippoorwill cried out in pain and expostulation, and in the young leaves a shivering wind foreboded evil;—but they ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... which had flown Down on the Castle wall Thus spake: "Why what a simple drone "You are to sit and bawl! "Though you presume an Owl to be, "It's not a bit of use! "Your body though folks cannot see "They know the diff'rence—pardon me! "Betwixt the screech of Owl up tree "And ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... Decoy-pond, each Pops up his head, as fir'd with British blood, Hears once again the Ministerial screech, 45 And once more seeks ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... did not. The knowledge that we were under shell fire and the unforeseen events that the immediate future held in store for me so weighed upon my mind that I could scarcely close my eyes. I really do not understand how any of the boys slept. We could hear the screech of the shells as they whizzed by, but, fortunately, none of them hit near us. Only a few days before several hundred American boys were gassed in this same woods, and our gas guard kept a ...
— In the Flash Ranging Service - Observations of an American Soldier During His Service - With the A.E.F. in France • Edward Alva Trueblood
... to be quartered, every sound of nature, at that witching hour, fluttered his excited imagination—the moan of the whip-poor-will from the hillside, the boding cry of the tree toad, that harbinger of storm, the dreary hooting of the screech owl, to the sudden rustling in the thicket of birds frightened from their roost. The fireflies, too, which sparkled most vividly in the darkest places, now and then startled him, as one of uncommon brightness would stream across his path; and if, by chance, a huge blockhead of a beetle came ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... the shed was a tiny wharf, and behind it were stacks and stacks of tree trunks cut in short lengths and built as if for seasoning. Decauville tramways radiated from the shed, and the men were running in timber in the trucks. From the mill came the hard, biting screech of ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... far away were in the likeness of the coney, the bear, the heron, and the lizard. They waited, and no sign came. With all the noises of the wind in the abyss, no noise was like the thump that the coney makes, nor the bear's growl, nor the heron's screech, nor the rustle of the ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany
... the Fool]. Silence, you screech-owl.— Come strew flowers, fair ladies, And lead into her bower our fairest bride, The cynosure of love and beauty here, Who shrines heaven's graces in ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... what do you suppose they did? The beast they tied on in front turned short round, stared Lawless in the face, and stood up on its hind legs like a kangaroo, while the other animal would not stir a peg, but, laying down his ears, gave a sort of a screech, and kicked out behind. 'Pretty, playful things,' said Lawless, flipping the ashes off the end of his cigar. 'Put his head straight, William. Chut! chut! 'But the more he chutted the more they wouldn't go, and began tearing and rampaging about the yard till I thought they'd be over me, so I ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... poisonous weeds in yon blue fire, These screech-owl's feathers and this prickling briar, This cypress gathered at a dead man's grave, That all my fears and cares an end ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... of the noisy screech-owl and a pregnant bitch, or a tawny wolf running down from the Lanuvian fields, or a fox with whelp conduct the impious [on their way]; may the serpent also break their undertaken journey, if, like ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... down the creature, seated himself on a stone, and waited. But every time he looked at the creature he nearly fell to the ground with terror. If only a breeze sprung up, it went through the marrow of his bones, and if only the screech-owl cried afar off, he thought he heard the croaking of the creature, and the blood froze in his veins. Morning came at last, and he seized the creature, ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... on, the men panting in their excitement. Then came the screech of a bullet, and the shout on Philip's lips froze into silence. At first he thought the bullet had struck. But it had gone a little high. A second—a third—and the biting dust of a shattered rock spat into their faces. With a strange thrill Philip saw that the fire was not coming from ...
— God's Country—And the Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... in her placid voice, to enumerate for the hundredth time her reasons for happiness, her renown, her genius, her beauty, all men at her feet, the handsomest, the most powerful; oh! yes, the most powerful, for that very day—But an ominous screech, a heart-rending wail from the jackal, maddened by the monotony of her desert, suddenly makes the studio windows rattle and sends the terrified old chrysalis back ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... suspicion, conscious that his business was unfit for any other eye. As He stood in hesitation, He heard the melancholy shriek of the screech-Owl: The wind rattled loudly against the windows of the adjacent Convent, and as the current swept by him, bore with it the faint notes of the chaunt of Choristers. He opened the door cautiously, as if fearing to be overheard: He entered; ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... orchards and the groves as silent as a pickpocket; he is robbing birds'-nests, and he is very anxious that nothing should be said about it, but in the fall none so quick and loud to cry "Thief, thief!" as he. One December morning a troop of jays discovered a little screech owl secreted in the hollow trunk of an old apple-tree near my house. How they found the owl out is a mystery, since it never ventures forth in the light of day; but they did, and proclaimed the fact with ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... "They shall screech, that they shall," replied Hannah; "and the bacon, it shall be done as tasty and sweet as bacon can be. I'll give the last bit of my own little pigeen, with all the heart in the world, for the ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... pinned forcibly against the rack by acceleration, as Donna made the ship dodge aside. From one side, he heard a screech of grating metal. The fresh missiles must have jammed halfway out of ...
— This World Must Die! • Horace Brown Fyfe
... differences. Colonel Sykes remarks that the domestic Kulm cock in India has not the shrill clear pipe of the English bird, and "his scale of notes appears more limited." Dr. Hooker was struck with the "prolonged howling screech" of the cocks in Sikhim.[427] The crow of the Cochin is notoriously and ludicrously different from that of the common cock. The disposition of the different breeds is widely different, varying from the savage and defiant temper of the Game-cock ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... honey-gathering insect that will not be here to feed on the ivy's sweetness. And behind the blossoming curtain, alive with the minute, multitudinous, swift-moving, glittering forms, some nobler form will be hidden in a hole or fissure in the wall. Here on many a night I have listened to the sibilant screech of the white owl and the brown owl's ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... Willie, indignantly. "They are neither one nor the other. If she isn't black she's near it; and I never said she had red eyes and a blue tongue; but if you two were to hear her screech and howl, as I have, you'd confess fast enough that she was a witch." And Willie turned back to his book with the air of ...
— Mountain Moggy - The Stoning of the Witch • William H. G. Kingston
... next to me had an umbrella in her hand. I made a snatch at this and dropped off that gate like a shot. I didn't stop to think about anything except that beautiful picture was on the point of being swallowed up, and with a screech I dashed at those hogs like a steam engine. When they saw me coming with my screech and the umbrella they didn't stop a second, but with three great wiggles and three scared grunts they bolted as ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton
... allow, that fotches us to the hoss-lifting," he said, in his slow drawl. Then he laid his commands upon us. "Ord'ly, and in sojer-fashion, now; no whooping and yelling. If the hoss-captain's got scouts out a-s'arching for us, one good screech from these here varmints we're a-going to put out'n their mis'ry 'u'd fix our flints for kingdom come. I ain't none afeard o' your nerve,"—this to Richard and me—"leastwise, not when it comes to fair and square sojer-fighting. ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... a tiny torpedo-shaped object that moved freely at the end of a long, jointed metal arm. He moved it tentatively toward Weaver's left shoulder. Outside, the hovering aircar duplicated the motion: the grinder at its tip bit with a screech into the side of the ...
— The Worshippers • Damon Francis Knight
... round corners. They arrived at 'The Moorings' exactly as the town-hall clock was chiming the quarter after four. Mr. Vicary, his face a study of patience, was standing by the side of the 'sardine-tin,' which was already packed for transit, and whose occupants set up a joyful screech of welcome. ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... To tell you the truth, I have a queer feeling that scares me, makes my flesh creep. While I was straining the milk just now, a screech-owl flew on the top of the dairy, and its awful death-warning almost froze the blood in my veins. How I do wish Miss Elise was here! I hope it is not a sign of a railroad accident to her, or that the vessel is lost that carried ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... rather with the, first grey of dawn—they had crept through the brushwood as stealthily as Indians themselves, only to be made aware shortly that something horrible and terrible was going on. Yells and war whoops and the screech of Indian voices rose and clamoured through the silence of the forest, mingled with the shrieks of victims brutally massacred, and the shouts and entreaties of the French officers, who ran hither and thither seeking ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... know their times: Deep night, dark night, the silent of the night, The time of night when Troy was set on fire, The time when screech-owls cry and ban-dogs howl And spirits walk and ghosts break up their graves, That time best fits the work we have in hand. Madam, sit you and fear not; whom we raise, We will make fast within a ...
— King Henry VI, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... bestir yourself! Help this rascal to set up the coach," said the hobgoblin to me; then, with a terrific screech at three countrymen at a distance, "Here, you fellows, ain't you ashamed to stand off when a poor ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... didn't he screech, much worse than my father when his legs were broken. And didn't everybody else roar and shout, and didn't I dance? Off I went right over the fat boy, who had tumbled down, up to the end of the field, then so bewildered was I with shock ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... through the volcanic wilderness; always the same rigid mamane, (Sophora Chrysophylla?) the same withered grass, and the same thornless thistles, through which the strong wind swept with a desolate screech. ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... him! nothing but screech-owls? do, do, call again; you had best part them now in the sweetness of their love!—I'll be hanged if this AEneas be the son of Venus, for all his bragging. Honest Venus was a punk; would she have parted lovers? ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... head— The lapwing striking the air with long-drawn, weak blows And the plover, that comes like a bullet, cutting the night with its whistle; And I hear the wild geese higher again with their rough screech. But I do not hear any other sound, it is that increases my grief— Not one other cry but the cry and the call of the ...
— Poets and Dreamers - Studies and translations from the Irish • Lady Augusta Gregory and Others
... and the voice of a man intoning an Ivizan romance. He hesitated from time to time as if undecided, repeating the same verses over and over until he managed to pass on to new ones, uttering at the end of each strophe, according to the custom of the country, a strange screech like a peacock, a harsh and strident trill like that which accompanies the ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... assembled aft, on deck, under the awnings; the flute, the asthmatic melodeon, and the consumptive clarinet crippled "The Star-Spangled Banner," the choir chased it to cover, and George came in with a peculiarly lacerating screech on the final note and slaughtered it. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... up and threw a big eel into the back. When poor old Mrs. Carr was driving up the hill by Ingleside that eel came squirming out between her feet. She thought it was a snake and she just give one awful screech and stood up and jumped clean over the wheels. The horse bolted, but it went home and no damage was done. But Mrs. Carr jarred her legs most terrible, and has had nervous spasms ever since whenever she thinks of the eel. Say, it was a rotten trick to play ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Black Joe, and me White Joe, by way of distinction and for the convenience of his boss (my uncle), and my aunt, and mother; so, when we heard the cry of "Bla-a-ack Joe!" (the adjective drawn out until it became a screech, after several repetitions, and the "Joe" short and sharp) coming across the flat in a woman's voice, Joe knew that the missus wanted him at the house, to get wood or water, or mind the baby, and he kept carefully out of sight; he went at once when uncle called. And when we heard the cry of "Wh-i-i-te ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... with what I intended to be an awe-inspiring screech; but, owing to the flutter of my breath, the effort ended in a curious ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes
... once when the wind went "Yooooooo!" And the raven croaked in the tangled tarn— When, with a wail, the screech-owl flew Out of her lair in the haunted barn— There came three burglars down the road— Three burglars skilled in arts of sin, And they cried: "What's this? Aha! Oho!" And straightway tackled the bank ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... "detestable screech-owl! it is then thou who art come to exult over the ruins thou ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... away. When the wound has not proved instantly fatal, they have been known to stop the flow of blood by pressing with the hand upon the part, and when this did not succeed, to apply leaves and grass.... When shot, they give a sudden screech, not unlike that of a human being ...
— Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature • Thomas H. Huxley
... became nervously wakeful. His eyes distended and his face lighted with strange animation. He walked hither and yon. He fairly arched his neck. And sometimes, when some ordinary incident struck his peculiar humor, he would throw back his head, open his great mouth, and utter a screech of wild laughter for all the world like the yowl ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... She adds stones fetched from the most distant East, and sand, which the ebbing tide of the ocean has washed. She adds, too, hoar-frost gathered at night by the light of the moon, and the ill-boding wings of a screech owl,[36] together with its flesh; and the entrails of an ambiguous wolf, that was wont to change its appearance of a wild beast into {that of} a man. Nor is there wanting there the thin scaly slough of the Cinyphian water-snake,[37] and the liver of the long-lived stag;[38] to which, besides, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... and Stedman joined in the conversation, and endeavored to make this midnight volley of talk the occasion for a treaty. This was received with inextinguishable laughter, which echoed through the woods like a concert of screech-owls, ending in a charivari of horns and hallooing. The colonel, persisting, offered them "life, liberty, victuals, drink, and all they wanted;" in return, they ridiculed him unmercifully. He was a half-starved Frenchman, who had run ...
— Black Rebellion - Five Slave Revolts • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... China is surely in process of being awakened: there are numerous schools wherein European missionaries are teaching the German language, and enterprise greets the eye everywhere. Locomotives "Made in Germany" screech warnings to Chinese yokels to clear the way for trains heavy with merchandise of German origin—and this is but an incident in the great scheme of Germanizing the Chinese Empire. Incidentally, it is provided by the agreement between the Pekin and Berlin governments that a native land-owner in the ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... incomparable diary, which we never see without forgetting the vices of his heart In the imbecility of his intellect minuting down his dreams, counting the drops of blood which fell from his nose, watching the direction of the salt, and listening for the note of the screech-owls. Contemptuous mercy was the only vengeance which it became the Parliament to take on ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... dead-white in a sightless orbit. The sideward and downward streams had left him with a dangling atrophied arm and a scalded hip, so that he came down on me, with my preconceived ideas about him, like an actual lop-sided demon. I let out one screech, and fled; but even in the act of flight I saw the poor fellow's face, and read in it the bitter regret he felt that the disaster which had befallen him should have made him unbearable to the imagination of ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... crashed without, and the footsteps of men were heard coming along the corridor. They stopped in front of Otto's cell; he heard the jingle of keys, and then a loud rattle of one thrust into the lock of the heavy oaken door. The rusty bolt was shot back with a screech, the door opened, and there stood Baron Henry, no longer in his armor, but clad in a long black robe that reached nearly to his feet, a broad leather belt was girdled about his waist, and from it dangled a short, heavy ...
— Otto of the Silver Hand • Howard Pyle
... living and growing things; now, he was like an old man, longing for death but afraid to lose his life. There were stars above him, but no moon, and the tall trunks of the trees stood up like black phantoms before him, moaning and crying in the wind. He could hear the screech-owls hooting in the dark, and the lonely yelp of a ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... a yowl and a screech that was enough to make your blood run cold. But he couldn't do a thing, though he tore the ground up with his great claws and pulled with all his might. You see, old King Bear was very big and very heavy, and Mr. Lynx couldn't budge his tail a bit. ...
— Mother West Wind "How" Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... it, it's very plain,' said the other, looking at the bird, which was making a feeble attempt to spread out its wings and screech contemptuously ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... in Spanish speech, The bird in Spanish speech replied; Flapp'd round the cage with joyous screech, Dropt ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... the blue sky. The relieved men, who plainly showed their delight at getting away from this God-forsaken, tedious outpost, made themselves comfortable in the shade afforded by the sail, and began to chat with the crew of the Mindoro about the commonplaces of military service. A shrill screech from the whistle of the Mindoro resounded from the mountain side as a farewell greeting to the little troop that was climbing slowly upward, followed by the baggage-carts. The Mindoro cast off from the pier, ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... Quassia did screech and laugh. 'Good Lord!' says she, 'how foolish white folks is! Somebody went past you? Was't ...
— Oldtown Fireside Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... buggy and then a clattering group of horsemen, and indeed everything heralded its approach at a great distance. She missed the stillness of the hills, for on the night air were the barking of dogs, whinny of horses, lowing of cattle, the song of a night-prowling negro, and now and then the screech of a peacock. She missed Jason wretchedly, too, for there had been so much talk of him during the day, and she went to sleep with her lashes wet with tears. Some time during the night she was awakened by pistol-shots, and her dream of Jason made her think that she was at home again. But no ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... was kneeling beside a fire no larger than his two hands, and at his side, watching him, stood a girl with two braids of black hair rippling down her back. It was Nawadlook who turned first and saw who it was with Mary Standish, and from his right came an odd little screech that only one person in the world could make, and that was Keok. She dropped the armful of sticks she had gathered for the fire and made straight for him, while Nawadlook, taller and less like a wild creature in the manner of her coming, was only a moment behind. ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... said: "So let it be and may it mean so; for never come you here but to stir in me anger or mourning. Ever were you the screech owl or the Osprey that boded ill when you spoke of Tristan; what ...
— The Romance Of Tristan And Iseult • M. Joseph Bedier
... other won't leave the carcass. Besides, the cat's in the trap, I reckon, by the rattling." For the jingling of the chain could still be heard over the howling they were making. But ere the fight had lasted many seconds, a suppressed screech, followed by a crunching sound, told ill for one or the other of the combatants. "The cat's got his death hug," ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... They have just placed two shells, one fifty yards in front of it, and the other fifty yards behind; one of them burst on impact, the other didn't. The progress of a shell sounds far off like the hum of a mosquito, rising as it nears to a hoarse screech, and then "plump." We mind them very little now. There is great competition for the fragments, as "curios." It is cold, grey, and sunless today. Last night there was heavy rain, and our blankets are ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... open all the night sounds came to them with startling distinctness;—the cry of the nighthawk and the chirping of a cricket, the peeping of hylas and the croaking of frogs and the wild, tremulous, mournful cry of the screech-owl. ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... a joyous grab at the horn, which he immediately put to his lips; but before it could emit its ear-piercing screech, ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... death. The bird not only fluttered about the lighted window, but also made a screeching noise whilst there, and also as it flew away. The bird, singled out for the dismal honour of being a death prognosticator, was the tawny, or screech owl. Many are the instances, which have been told me by persons who heard the bird's noise, of its having been the precursor of death. This superstition is common to all parts ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... of the coxswain swept upward in a shrill scream. A gun boomed; the air rocked with the screech and ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... domain; The sky in sullen drops of rain Forewept the morn, and through the air, Which, opening, laid its bosom bare, Loud thunders roll'd, and lightning stream'd; The owl at Freedom's window scream'd, The screech-owl, prophet dire, whose breath Brings sickness, and whose note is death; 160 The churchyard teem'd, and from the tomb, All sad and silent, through the gloom The ghosts of men, in former times, Whose public virtues were their crimes, ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... the swamp, branches closed over the narrow trail road, screening off the sky and hiding the thin slice of moon. The girl hung close to his elbow. A screech owl hooted in the trees, and a thousand frogs clamored in the blackness. Once the scream of a panther split the night, and the girl sobbed as if echoing the cry. They hurried ahead through ...
— Collectivum • Mike Lewis
... not fear this audience, I make free With them, but then this is no place for thee! The thunder-phrase of the Athenian, grown Up out of memories of Marathon, Would echo like his own sword's grinding screech Braying a Persian shield,—the silver speech Of Sidney's self, the starry paladin, Turn intense as a trumpet sounding in The Knights ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... underneath our feet. With a sound that was not a groan and not a screech, the Italian reeled back against the heated iron of the brazier. Starting from that fiery contact with an unearthly shriek, he threw up his arms and dashed away into the darkness. The sound of his madly hurrying footsteps ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... the sheet, though I advised against it. He said the rope was rough an' cut his hand. There was a fresh breeze, an' he went on talking rather high flown, an' I felt some interested. All of a sudden there come up a gust, and he gave a screech and stood right up and called for help, 'way out there to sea. I knocked him right over into the bottom o' the bo't, getting by to catch hold of the sheet an' untie it. He wasn't but a little man; I helped him right up after the squall passed, and ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett
... before this point was reached a tiny puff of smoke showed on the brow of the hostile ridge; then, at an interval of several seconds, followed the sound of a distant explosion; then, almost immediately, came the screech of a rifled shell. Every man who heard it swiftly asked himself, "Will it strike me?" But even as the words were thought out it had passed, high in air, clean to the rear, and burst harmlessly. A few faces turned upward and a few eyes glanced ...
— The Brigade Commander • J. W. Deforest
... time she plunged into the water and brought up in her claws a fish, which she carried away to her nest. The Barn Owl is white, and does not hoot, at least by many this is thought to be the case. The Brown Owl is the hooting or screech owl, and makes a ...
— Mamma's Stories about Birds • Anonymous (AKA the author of "Chickseed without Chickweed")
... could have heard mamma's screech when he talked so coolly of my going out to fight! "What! send him abroad, across the horrid, horrid sea—to be wrecked and perhaps drowned, and only to land for the purpose of fighting the wicked Frenchmen,—to be wounded, and perhaps kick—kick—killed! Oh, Thomas, ...
— The Fatal Boots • William Makepeace Thackeray
... fluttering to and fro over his head and crying incessantly with their sharp, small voices: "Herr Studiosus, Herr Studiosus, don't be in such a hurry! Don't peep into the clouds so! You may fall on your nose—He, he! Herr Studiosus, put your powder-mantle on; cousin Screech-Owl will frizzle your toupee." And so it went along, in all manner of stupid chatter, till ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... round the table. Starting up furiously, Percy aimed a blow at the crow. But the bird eluded him and scaled out of the door with a triumphant screech. Budge proffered mock consolation. ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... their way to the courtyard hand in hand, taking some comfort because the night was very favourable to their project. The snow had melted, and a great gale blew from the sou'-west, boisterous but not cold, which caused the tall elms that stood about to screech and groan like things alive. In such a wind as this they were sure that they would not be heard, nor could they be seen beneath that murky, starless sky, while the rain which fell between the gusts would wash out the footprints of ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... them race about, squealing piteously. Then he seized hold of the bundle of rags containing the black baby, and began to drag it over the ground, to the no small astonishment of the baby, who added his screech to the charivari of the pigs. With loud shouts of laughter, Mr. Jackson cheered on the rough animal, and was so much entertained by the scene, that he seemed to have forgotten the traveller entirely. When at last ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... At the first screech of the cat, Jim's whole attitude had changed. Amusement and wild-eyed wonder had given way to a shocking realization of the wicked cruelty. He sprang at Hall and struck him with all the best vigour of his baby fists. "Let my kitty go, you!" and he kicked ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... we were in earnest. I nodded to Elerson, who drew the noose tight; the prisoner's knees gave way, and he screamed; but Mount and Murphy jerked him up, and the rope strangled the screech in ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... ideas respectin' his property never come upon him so strong as when he sat upon a barrel-organ, and had the handle turned. Arter the wibration had run through him a little time he would screech out, 'Toby, I feel my property coming—grind away! I'm counting my guineas by thousands, Toby—grind away! Toby, I shall be a man of fortun! I feel the Mint a-jingling in me, Toby, and I'm swelling out into the Bank of England.' Such is the influence ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... them high- pressure steamboats we hev on the Mississippi—whar you run the chance of getting busted up regular every trip—and thar I turned out of my cabin slick for anything, so I wer able to help miss, har, in shaking down that dreadful old screech-owl yander, and ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... conditions the screech-owl would not dare to forsake its hollow in the olive-tree. The butterfly, better endowed with its faceted eyes than the owl with its single pupils, goes forward without hesitation, and threads the obstacles without contact. So well it directs its tortuous flight that, ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... mixture of dancing and by-play as fantastic as the music. The pianist seems to get excited and to want to prove himself a Hans von Bulow of rapid execution. The fiddler weaves excitedly over his fiddle. The cornetist toots in a screech like a car-engine whistle. The movements of the dancers grow licentious and more and more rapid. They have begun the Cancan. Feet go up. Legs are exhibited in wild abandon. Hats fly off. There are occasional ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... all?" he asked. But before the enemy could reply there came a shout from Tom, a howl from Yaspard, a screech from the Harrisons, and loud laughter from Gloy in ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... voice grew in energy for a while as he proceeded, but at last gave way utterly under the fervour of imprecation, and ceased. Then, as if in an agony of foiled hate, he sent from chanter and drone a perfect screech of execration, with which the instrument dropped from his hands, and he fell back in his ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... The hen, feverish and unhappy from the loss of her hope of progeny, had gone to the but to sip a little water. Tommy, appearing on the wall above her, startled her. She, flying up with a screech, startled Tommy, and became her own ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... sir," said George, advancing with a miniature pitchfork or "tormentor" in his hand; "pardon my interrupting you, sir,—I did hear the screech, but as I couldn't say exactly for certain, you know, that it was a Kafir, not havin' seen one, I thought it best not to alarm you, sir, an' ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... a little: "Take thou heed; from thee hath issued a bird of harm, in choler a wild screech-owl, ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... sleep, and screeching in the night time, wid dhrames and frights that cum an her; and they said how it was the speerit of the ould Judge that was tormentin' her; and she used to be roaring and yelling out to hould back the big ould fellow with the crooked neck; and then she'd screech 'Oh, the master! the master! he's stampin' at me, and beckoning to me! Mother, darling, don't let me go!' And so the poor crathure died at last, and the docthers said it was wather on the brain, for it was ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 1 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... Captain Pharo, rising. "Plackards said 'twas goin' to be a re'listic play—and here, by clam! I've rode twelve miles over a hubbly road an' waited 'round here all day, jest t' hear a spear o' female grass screech, an' see a pint bottle o' water busted! ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... is the screech-owl's cry. Foul bird of night! What spirit guides thee here? Art thou instinctive drawn to scenes of horror? I've heard of this. [Pauses and listens.] How those fallen leaves so rustle on the path, With whispering noise, as though the earth around me Did utter secret ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... Bainton, though kindly enough—"You'll soon part with all the breath you've got in yer body if ye makes a screech owl of yerself like that in the night air! You's done enough for once in a way,—keep easy an' quiet while we carries ye back to the village—ye weighs a hundred pound 'eavier if ye're noisy,—ye ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... on!' said that lady defiantly; 'I've heard it all before; I'm used to it; but here I sit until you tell me where my lodger is;' and suiting the action to the word, Mrs Cheedle sat down in a chair with such a bang that Billy gave a screech of ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... though not so loud as a screech owl, and then she tottered, swayed, and lost her senses. If she'd fallen to the left no harm had overtook her; but to the right she fell and dropped unconscious, ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... don't you want company? I have got my sap all boiled in, and as I felt kinder lonesome, I thought I would come across, and sleep by your shanty fire." The old man enquired why I seemed so much terrified, and my brothers told him that I would persist in calling a screech-owl, a catamount. Old Rufus did not often laugh, but he laughed heartily on this occasion, and truly it was no wonder and when he corroborated what my brothers had already told me, I decided that what he said must be true. His presence at once gave me a feeling of protection and ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... to help the ladies. He was nearly taken from his feet by a wild-cat yell, and a moment later that result was actually accomplished by a rush of men that tossed him bodily onto its shoulders. At the same moment, the mill and tug whistles began to screech, miscellaneous fire-arms exploded. Even the locomotive engineer, in the spirit of the occasion, leaned down heartily on his whistle rope. The saw-dust street was filled with screaming, jostling men. The homes of the town were brilliantly draped ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... to this is that saying of the prophet, to wit, that at this day the whole circumference of the world that is without the walls and privileges of this city, it shall be but like an old ruinous house, in which dwells nothing but cormorants, bitterns, owls, ravens, dragons, satyrs, the screech-owl, the great owl, the vulture, and the like most doleful birds. All their princes shall be nothing, saith the prophet, and when they call their nobles to the kingdom, none shall be there. In their very palaces shall be thorns, and nettles, and brambles; for all among them that are princes and ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... from the house, a hoarse, screeching cry in a voice which might have been either man's or woman's, but was as mad and as desperate and as horrible in that still night as the screech of a tortured animal—or of a maniac. It came again and again, ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... probably associated with the screech-owl (Aluco candidus) of the Philippines. It is a bird of ill-omen. Compare A. Newton, Dictionary of ...
— Philippine Folk-Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss, Berton L. Maxfield, W. H. Millington,
... chuck! Whir-r-r-ur," and a blackbird flew out, dashing in the Captain's face; while, at the same time, another piercing screech came ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... of his door turned; he could not distinguish it in the uncertain light, yet he knew it was turning by a peculiarly faint screech—almost so faint as to be indistinguishable. One would not notice it except at the ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... of midnight, gave him a glimpse of the heroic matron who stood with her piece cocked and leveled directly at his breast. Brandishing his tomahawk he rushed towards her yelling so as to disconcert her aim. The brave woman with unshaken nerves pulled the trigger, and the savage fell back with a screech, dead upon the floor. Almost simultaneously with the report of the gun, a triumphant war-whoop was sounded outside the cabin, and peering through the aperture in the direction from which it proceeded she saw three savages rushing toward the door. Rapidly loading her piece she took her ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... I then first observed that the city was silenced. There were no outward signs of despair nor of violent terror, but many of the voices that had swelled the busy hum of men were already hushed in death, and the survivors, so used to scream and screech in their earnestness whenever they bought or sold, now showed an unwonted indifference about the affairs of this world: it was less worth while for men to haggle and haggle, and crack the sky with noisy bargains, when the great commander was there, who could “pay all their debts with ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... that creaked dismally, uttering a pitiful cry of complaint. If it hadn't been Sunday, I would have coaxed Aaron to pour some oil on its turbulence; but since Sunday it was, I was to be content to let it screech on. It was not a "sheep fallen into a pit," only a disturbed well-sweep. Do well-sweeps feel, I wonder? Why not? Mr. Axtell asked how I knew that the dead ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... characters. I know that she is writing about lively and entertaining people because there emerges, now and then, a page of dialogue that is witty and alive; and I know that her story is dramatic because she tells us now that someone "let out a screech," and now that he "uttered sharp little sounds remarkably like oaths." I know, too, that the sea is encroaching upon somebody's dwelling-place, and that someone else tries to keep the waves in their ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, June 10, 1914 • Various
... "They'd not screech that way for the judges, my boy. It's the traversers—that's Dan and the rest of 'em. They're coming into court. Thank God, they'll soon be ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... was standin' in the doorway a minute ago?' 'Young lady,' Ban. Do you get that? So I says, 'You're lucky, Bud. When I get 'em, it's usually snakes and bugs and such-like rep-tyles. Besides,' I says, 'your train is about to forgit that you got off it,' I says. With that he gives another screech that don't even mean as much as Ohio and tails onto the back platform just ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... to make any answer, but recommenced her leisurely counting; and then Miss Ruff uttered that terrific screech which had peculiarly excited Miss ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... this yere paraira, as I diskivered, when I got to the top o' that risin' ground yonder, some elk a feedin' down hyar. There was a herd of seven of 'em or more, an' soon as I gets near enuf I lets drive at 'em; and just then, hullabaloo! I heart a screech like somethin' awful, an' a Injun starts up, just like a deer a ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... to come out here to meet Jim, an' run up against a totally different proposition—hey, miss?" he said grimly. "However, this ain't goin' ter be no love affair—not yit, at least. If I wuz you I wouldn't try makin' no run fer it; an' if yer let out a screech, I'll hav' ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... back a week now, and even the screech of the L trains sounds good. Everything looks good, and smells good, and feels good. You don't have to pinch yourself to find out whether or not you're alive. You know all the time that you're in New York, where there's somethin' doin' ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... talking and laughing and the formless progress of the mob hushed the nearer night voices of the fields and woods; but from a distance the shuddering cry of a screech-owl could be heard; and the melancholy call of a killdee in a pasture beside the creek. The people, friends and foes together, made their way unlighted except by the tin lantern which some one had caught from where it stood on ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... spit on faces. He shook a dirty pair of meagre fists at the smoking lights. "Ye're no men!" he cried, in a deadened tone. No one moved. "Yer 'aven't the pluck of a mouse!" His voice rose to a husky screech. Wamibo darted out a dishevelled head, and looked at him wildly. "Ye're sweepings ov ships! I 'ope you will all rot before you die!" Wamibo blinked, uncomprehending but interested. Donkin sat down heavily; he blew with force through quivering nostrils, he ground ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... dammed by unsightly mounds and changed into foul stagnant pools, the snug country tavern deserted for a huge hideous barn-like depot, and all the lovely sights and sweet harmonies of nature defaced and drowned by the deformities consequent on a railroad, by the disgusting roar and screech of the steam-engine. One word to the wise! Let no man be deluded by the following pages, into the setting forth for Warwick now in search of sporting. These things are strictly as they were twenty years ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... the dame's fright was painful to behold. She would not scream—her organs of screech seemed to have lost their power—nor, as a rule, would she curse; she would just address herself to silent prayerful speed, with every symptom ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... scratching of glass with a nail. In this case, the relative difference in hardness between the two is small, so that the glass can only be scratched and not "cut" by the nail; it is too hard for that, so the noise is much greater and becomes a screech. Experience, therefore, makes it possible to tell to a trifle, at the first contact, of what the stone is composed, and in which class it should be placed, by the mere "feel" of the scratch, the depth of it, the amount and kind of powder it leaves, and above all, ...
— The Chemistry, Properties and Tests of Precious Stones • John Mastin
... the bottom, most likely, quicksand. Out of the blackness of the opposite shore came a soft, high-pitched, quavering, long-drawn, smothered moan of woe, the call of that snivelling little sinner the screech-owl. Ferry murmured to me to answer it and I sent the same faint horror-stricken tremolo back. Again it came to us, from not farther than one might toss his cap, and I followed Ferry down to the water's edge. The grapevine guy swayed at our side, we heard the scow slide from the sands, and in a ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... gave it, as it sat in its usual place beside the fire fore-nint her. But it wos all thrown away, it wos, for there wosn't another pig in all the length o' Ireland as had sich a will o' its own; and it had a screech, too, when it wosn't plaazed, as bate all the steam whistles in the world, it did. I've often moralated on that same, and I've noticed that, as it is wid pigs, so it is wid men and women—some of them at laste—the more advice ye give them, ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... being light, was strewed afar, but in a squatting posture; so that they sat in a sequence, like graduated specimens, the smaller howling. But soon the doctor's face filled with horror, and he uttered a far louder and unearthly screech, and kicked and struggled with wonderful agility for one of ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... never get over it. She ought never to get over it. Then what would become of the farm and the sawmill? And instantly everything was unreal again; he could hear the hum of the driving-wheel and the screech of the saw tearing through a log; how fragrant the fresh planks were, and the great heaps of sawdust—but the noise made his head ache; and—and ...
— The Way to Peace • Margaret Deland
... he screech, much worse than my father when his legs were broken. And didn't everybody else roar and shout, and didn't I dance? Off I went right over the fat boy, who had tumbled down, up to the end of the field, then so bewildered was I with shock and the ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... nothink in our house), went up to Mrs. Deuceace at onst, and held out her arms—she had a heart, that old Kicksey, and I respect her for it. The poor hunchback flung herself into Miss's arms, with a kind of whooping screech, and kep there for some time, sobbing in quite a historical manner. I saw there was going to be a sean, and so, in ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... there he heard the long screech of the whistle of the Overland Express announcing its approach at Green River, and a few minutes later its whistle that it was on its way. He had just reached Bubbly Spring and concealed himself in the bushes when the whistle gave a ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... ever-shifting gold sparks, and the broad, pale flashes of heat lightning which from time to time illumined the horizon. There was no motion in the heavy black foliage, but it was filled with the shrill droning of the summer insects, and high in the branches a screech-owl pierced the air ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... handsomely dressed member of his family, the crested flycatcher has, nevertheless, an air of pensive melancholy about him when in repose that can be accounted for only by the pain he must feel every time he hears himself screech. His harsh, shrill call, louder and more disagreeable than the kingbird's, cannot but rasp his ears as it does ours. And yet it is chiefly by this piercing note, given with a rising inflection, that we know the bird is in our neighborhood; for he is somewhat ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... sharp scratch in the tree above—and in the next instant a brown furry shape dropped upon him noiselessly, bearing him to the ground. This thing was a mass of teeth and claws and terrific muscles. It gave one sharp screech as the dog's yelping howl arose, then made no sound but a spitting growl as it bit and ripped. From the first the brindled mongrel had no ghost of a chance; and the struggle was over in three minutes. As the cook, astonished by the ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... far more than a producer, contrasts the uniformity in its own products. The albumen in the egg of the Ostrich or the Chaffinch, the casein in the milk of the Cow or the Ass, the muscular flesh of the Wolf or the Sheep, the Screech-owl or the Field-mouse, the Frog or the Earth-worm: these remain albumen, casein or fibrin, edible if not eaten. Here are no excruciating condiments, no special acridities, no alkaloids fatal to any stomach other than that ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... jack at the port-hole. A white jack means that she hath hauled down her colours. Nombre de Dios, when I was a powder-boy in the old ship Lion, the day that we engaged the Spiritus Sanctus of two tier o' guns—the first time that ever I heard the screech of ball—my heart never thumped as it does now. What say ye if we run back with a fair wind and ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a car came up the street and stopped with a screech of brakes in front of the Bullfinch house. Here were Mr. and Mrs. ...
— Jerry's Charge Account • Hazel Hutchins Wilson
... set outside de door thar, very late o' nights. It 'peared like I was 'spectin to see her lean on her stick, and come out every minute. Well, one night I was sure I hear somethin thar. I listened, and then somethin gin a kind o' screech, sounded like de little niggers when Aunt Peggy used to gin 'em a lick wid her switch. Arter a while I see de curtain lifted up. I couldn't see what it was, but it lifted it up. I hearn some more noise, ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... adapted to a long journey as it is slow and toilsome. When the mud is deep, progress is almost impossible. Moreover, the labour of the barrow-men constantly excites the sympathy of the humane traveller and the dismal screech of the wheel revolving upon its unoiled axle is worse than the rasp of filing a saw. The Chinese depend upon the shrieks of the wheel to tell them how the axle is wearing, but the disconsolate foreigner finds that his nerves wear out much faster than the wooden axle. ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... "Screech owl holler? Women and men turn socks and stockings wrong side out quick, dat they did, do it now, myself. I's black as a crow but I's got a white folks heart. Didn't ketch me foolin' 'round wid niggers in radical times. I's ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 1 • Various
... now I will explain to you—perhaps you've guessed before The lesson that I always strive with might and main to teach— If you would frighten timid folk, alarm them with a roar, A happy, yappy, yip-ky, oodle-doodle, and a screech. ...
— The Tale of Benny Badger • Arthur Scott Bailey
... moment the fiddles finished off with a screech, and the serpent emitted a last note that nearly lifted the roof. When, from the comparative quiet within, the mummers judged that the dancers had taken their seats, Father Christmas advanced, lifted the latch, and put his head ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... a prefatory screech, In a florid Western speech, Said the engine from the West, "I am from Sierra's crest, And if Altitudes' a test, Why I reckon its confessed, That I've done my level best." "Said the engine from the East, They who work best, talk the least, Suppose you whistle down ...
— The Story of the First Trans-Continental Railroad - Its Projectors, Construction and History • W. F. Bailey
... precisely in the manner of a human being, to have him desist and go away. When the wound has not proved instantly fatal, they have been known to stop the flow of blood by pressing with the hand upon the part, and when this did not succeed, to apply leaves and grass.... When shot, they give a sudden screech, not unlike that of a human being ...
— Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature • Thomas H. Huxley
... maybe needing me as she'd never needed any one before—and I looked at that stinking cat that meant to keep me from her. I made one jump at him—'stead of him at me—and at the same time I let out the big breath I'd drawn in a screech that very likely ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... the coarse jokes of these men and women. He had long since grown painfully accustomed to it. His poor brain understood that there was no difference between the monotonous unchanging screech of a turning wheel and the shrill voice of ...
— Romance of the Rabbit • Francis Jammes
... is over now, and long has been. To-day the iron horse, with its rattling train, carries such travellers by a different route—the screech of its whistle being just audible to wayfarers on the old road, as in mockery of their crawling pace. Of its ancient glories there remain only the splendid causeway, still kept in repair, and the inns encountered at short ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... A frenzied screech went up as the mob topped the ridge and regained sight of them. Charlie, having all he could do to breathe in the thin air, tried to shake his wrist loose. Now that they were descending the slope, he saw where the water was. ...
— Flamedown • Horace Brown Fyfe
... among rats, which are not my subject. I am writing in the hope that this may be an opportune time to put in a plea for a much persecuted native of this and many other countries, whose principal function in the economy of nature is to kill rats and mice. The barn, or screech, owl, which is found over a great part of Europe and Asia and also in America, was once very common in Britain, inhabiting every "ivy-mantled tower," church steeple, barn loft, hollow tree, or dovecot, in which it could get a lodging. But it was never welcome. Like the Jews in the ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... their signals, like beacon lights in the darkness, while, ringing up from the valley, the call of the whip-poor-will echoes clear and sweet, each syllable pronounced as distinctly as if uttered by a human voice. In a tree overhead a screech owl emits his evening call in a clear, vibrating tremolo, as if to warn the smaller birds that he is on watch, and considers them his lawful prey. The night hawk wheels in his tireless flight, graceful as a thistledown, soaring through space without a ...
— Byways Around San Francisco Bay • William E. Hutchinson
... together on the strand, They only, each by each; Home, her home, was close at hand, Utterly out of reach. Her mother in the chimney nook Heard a startled sea-gull screech, But never turned her head to look Towards the darkening beach: Neighbors here and neighbors there Heard one scream, as if a bird Shrilly screaming cleft the air:— That was all ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... to fall. The woods became alive with night creatures, and the most harmless made the most noise. The owls began to hoot, and soon we heard the wildcat, whose cry—a screech like that of a lost and panic-stricken child—is one of the most appalling sounds of the forest. Later the wolves added their howls to the uproar, but though darkness came and we children whimpered around her, our mother still ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... this unexpected manner. Jack, therefore, had no hesitation in firing at the one on his right, and immediately after at his companion, whose superior speed had placed him considerably in advance. As a consequence, he missed the latter, while the first emitted a screech, leaped high in air and sprawled forward on his face as ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... new lecture completed I wouldn't hesitate a moment, but really isn't "Cussed Be Canaan" too old? You know that lemon, our African brother, juicy as he was in his day, has been squeezed dry. Why howl about his wrongs after said wrongs have been redressed? Why screech about the "damnable spirit of Cahst" when the victim thereof sits at the first table, and his oppressor mildly takes, in hash, what he leaves? You see, friend Twain, the Fifteenth Amendment busted "Cussed Be Canaan." I howled feelingly on the ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... pennies he had. And now he came to a great plain overgrown with moss. There he sat down and began to see if his money was all right. Suddenly a beggarman appeared before him, so tall and big that when he got a good look at him and saw his height and length, the lad began to scream and screech. ...
— East O' the Sun and West O' the Moon • Gudrun Thorne-Thomsen
... heard a sound—and got to the gate in two leaps, scattering her spools and scissors and pieces of pink calico on the grass. When she saw the horses, she stood stock-still for a minute, and stared with all her eyes. Then she gave a screech like a wild Indian, and stooped and grabbed Pa's umbrella from where I had thrown it on the ground, and rushing into the middle of the road, she opened and shut it as fast as she could work her arms, and shouted as loud ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... apron to her eyes, and there's no telling what "foolishness" she might have committed had it not been that suddenly, right at her side, arose a most jubilant screech. ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... him in that marble where he lies, The moulder'd pile with its entombed Crime Passed to the keep of a brave new-fledged lord, Who, liking much the sane and wholesome air That bent the boughs and fanned the turret's top, Cried, "Here dwell I!" So fell it on a day The stroke of mallets and the screech of saws In those bleak chambers made such din as stopped The careful spider half-way up his thread, And panic sent to myriad furtive things That dwelt in wainscots and loved not the sun. Vainly in broken phalanx clamorous Did the scared rooks protest, and all in vain The moths on ...
— Wyndham Towers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... does believe in 'em 'cause I done seen 'em work for all dese years. De Lawd give de peoples a sign for all things. De moon an' de stars, dey is a sign for all them what can read 'em an' tells you when to plant de cotton an' de taters an' all your crops. De screech owls, dey give er warnin' dat some one gwine to die. About de best sign dat some person gwine die 'round close is for a cow to git to lowin' an' a lowin' constant in de middle of de night. Dat is a sign I hardly is ever seen fail ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... embowered by trees, and made it fast to the well-known iron ring. They now landed, and lighting the lantern gathered their various implements and proceeded slowly through the bushes. Every sound startled them, even that of their own footsteps among the dry leaves, and the hooting of a screech owl, from the shattered chimney of the neighboring ruin, made their ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... into the house, got his whip, and charged the marauders. The lash curled about the legs of the nearest—a greedy ten-year-old—before they knew they were discovered. His screech gave warning; and the flock scampered for the fence like a drove of /javelis/ flushed in the chaparral. Dry Valley's whip drew a toll of two more elfin shrieks before they dived through ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... did not descend. Shu[u]zen's arm was held fast. By the outraged wife, O'Kiku, as later tradition would assert? At this pass Sampei used his dagger. Plunged straight into the belly of Shu[u]zen with it he disembowelled him. Abandoning hold on his weapon, with a screech Aoyama fell, twisting and writhing in the pool of his blood. When the kerai, roused by the disturbance, the shouts and the clashing of swords, fell on Sampei, to disarm and make short work of him, the karo[u] Makishima Gombei prevented them. With difficulty he dragged Shu[u]zen's ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... the Goanese joined in the shout, the dark man setting up such an ululating screech that the very storm dwindled into second place in comparison. It was true, the unearthly yelling was carried out over the water, and very likely not a sound of it reached twenty yards inland; but it rattled our nerves, nevertheless. The skin grew prickly all up and down my backbone, ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... the town, the screech of a railway whistle resounded towards the right,—a long train rushed from the jaws of a tunnel and shot ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... de ghostes in de world havin' de conferince right dar. Seem like all de ghosteses whut yever was am havin' a convintion on dat spot. An' dat li'l black Mose so skeered he jes fall down on e' old log whut dar an' screech an' moan! An' all on a suddent de log up and ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... minutes before this point was reached a tiny puff of smoke showed on the brow of the hostile ridge; then, at an interval of several seconds, followed the sound of a distant explosion; then, almost immediately, came the screech of a rifled shell. Every man who heard it swiftly asked himself, "Will it strike me?" But even as the words were thought out it had passed, high in air, clean to the rear, and burst harmlessly. A few faces turned upward and a few eyes glanced backward, as if to see the invisible enemy. ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... little thing!' Five minutes after, we were sitting on the doorsteps, and, wearing a low-necked dress, I felt on my shoulder some stirring creature; it was a caterpillar, and, with the inevitable privileged feminine screech on such occasions, I dashed it off; then, turning, I met the usually grave gray eyes kindling with mischievous triumph: 'Aunty's frightened of a little sing,' says Georgie, with ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... like a swarm of ants sweltering in endless confusion on their tiny hill! How petty seems the work on which they are hurrying and skurrying! How childishly they jostle against one another and turn to snarl and scratch! They jabber and screech and curse, but their puny voices do not reach up here. They fret, and fume, and rage, and pant, and die; "but I, mein Werther, sit above it all; I am alone ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... Sir Adam Fergusson and his company of men were sheltered in a hollow at the battle of Talavera. Sir Adam read the battle-scene from "Marmion" aloud to pass away the time; and the reclining men cheered lustily, though at intervals the screech of the French shells sounded overhead. It may be said that the publication of a new work by Dickens was a national event only a quarter of a century ago. True; but somehow even Dickens was not regarded with that grave critical interest which private citizens of the ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... touch her hand. Their decent and sparing adieux had been made in the house. As Miss Maria returned to the door, the hens, cowering conscience-stricken under the lilacs, sprang up at sight of her with a screech of guilty alarm, and flew out ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... and get ready for a screech. When you see the Ratura dogs come in sight, give it out—once—only once,—and if you don't screech well, I'll teach you how to do it better afterwards. Wait then till you hear and see me and my men come rushing down ...
— The Madman and the Pirate • R.M. Ballantyne
... then he would wake with a start to find that after all it was only a dream, and would see the bright moonlight shining on the dewy grass, and hear afar off the hoarse trill of the night-jar, or the boding screech ...
— What the Blackbird said - A story in four chirps • Mrs. Frederick Locker
... their speed is tempered there to the prevalent pace. They add to the general noise the shuddering bursts of their swift percussions, and make the soul shrink from a forecast of what the aeroplane may be when it shall come hurtling overhead with some peculiar screech as yet unimagined. The motor plays an even more prominent part in the country than in London, especially in those remnants of time which the English call weekends, and which stretch from Friday afternoon to the next Monday morning. It is within these limits that people are ordinarily "asked ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... begun to cry, 'n' at that the deacon put his arm around her 'n' give her a hug, an' Gran'ma Mullins looked up just in time to see the arm 'n' the hug. It seemed like it was the last hay in the donkey, for she give a weak screech 'n' went right over on Mr. Dill. She had such a grip on Hiram that if it had n't been for Lucy he 'd have gone over, too, but Lucy just hung on herself that time, 'n' Hiram was rescued without nothin' worse than his hair mussed 'n' one sleeve a little tore. Mr. Sperrit ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Neighbors' Affairs • Anne Warner
... refreshed them during the day, died away, as if its office were now completed; and none of the dark sounds and sights of hideous Night yet dared to triumph over the death of Day. Unseen were the circling wings of the fell bat; unheard the screech of the waking owl; silent the drowsy hum of the shade-born beetle! What heart has not acknowledged the influence of this hour, the sweet and soothing hour of twilight! the hour of love, the hour of ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... if it had been the first of the series instead of the last. One may express the thing briefly by saying that, as far as Bream was concerned, Sam's unconventional appearance put the lid on it. He did not hesitate. He did not pause to make comments or ask questions. With a single cat-like screech which took years off the lives of the abruptly wakened birds roosting in the neighbouring trees, he dashed away towards the house and, reaching his room, locked the door and pushed the bed, the chest of drawers, two ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... the tree tops and we listened strangely moved, for it was like the music of an exquisite contralto voice. At last it ceased but, ere the echoes had reached the valley, the jungle was ringing with an unlovely siren screech. ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... he was pinned forcibly against the rack by acceleration, as Donna made the ship dodge aside. From one side, he heard a screech of grating metal. The fresh missiles must have jammed halfway out ...
— This World Must Die! • Horace Brown Fyfe
... trouble. He loves flying around! He's a sweet thing," said Miss Cornelia, with smiling recollection, "but he's not my Chubb! I'm sorry he couldn't stay to tea, for he's real amusing when he once gets started. He'd have made you screech with laughter." ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... and as I felt kinder lonesome, I thought I would come across, and sleep by your shanty fire." The old man enquired why I seemed so much terrified, and my brothers told him that I would persist in calling a screech-owl, a catamount. Old Rufus did not often laugh, but he laughed heartily on this occasion, and truly it was no wonder, and when he corroborated what my brothers had already told me, I decided that what he said must be true. His presence at once gave me a feeling of protection ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... him down dead at my feet.' Then she paused, and rose from her chair, and looked at him. 'Do you wonder that that is a story that a woman should hesitate to tell? But not from shame. Do you suppose that the sight of that dying wretch does not haunt me? that I do not daily hear his drunken screech, and see him bound from the earth, and then fall in a heap just below my hand? But did they tell you also that it was thus alone that I could save myself,—and that had I spared him, I must afterwards have destroyed ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... something shortening: is administered to these young creatures many times a day. An unnatural and artificial thirst is first awakened in these infants by meals of salt beef, bacon, anchovies, sardines, red herrings, shrimps, olives, pea-soup, and that description of diet; and when they screech for drink, in accents that might melt a heart of stone, which they do constantly (I allude to screeching, not to melting), this liquid is introduced into their too confiding stomachs. At such an early age, and to so great an extent, is this custom of provoking thirst, then quenching ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
... zis night,' he said, 'will be hissed. You will hear a chorus of screech-owls to each song of that poor Irma, whom the Italian people call "crabapple." Well; she pleases German ears, and if they can support her, it is well. But la Vittoria—your Belloni—you will not hear; and why? She has been ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... sang and a katydid answered, and a wood pewee wrung the heart with its lonesome cry. Then a night hawk screamed, a whip-poor-will complained, a belated killdeer swept the sky, and the night wind sang a louder song. A little screech owl tuned up in the distance, a barn owl replied, and a great horned owl drowned both their voices. The moon shone and the scene was warm with mellow light. The bird voices died and soft exquisite melody began to swell and roll. In the centre of the stage, ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... slept he didn't know, but he was awakened by a terrible screech, and, opening his eyes, say Henry sitting bolt upright, with trembling limbs and distended eyeballs, gazing fearfully at a tall, muscular-looking Indian, who had just stepped into the cabin through ...
— The Young Musician - or, Fighting His Way • Horatio Alger
... shoulder Nilo, looking lovely in a "strucca" striped olive-green and mulberry-red. The dear little fellow knew me at once, and almost sprang to my arms, whereupon the good housewives of Cetigna uttered a screech of delight, closed round me and kissed my cloak, hands, and even lips with a fervour I could ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... awful woodland, to the farmhouse where he happened to be quartered, every sound of nature, at that witching hour, fluttered his excited imagination—the moan of the whip-poor-will from the hillside, the boding cry of the tree toad, that harbinger of storm, the dreary hooting of the screech owl, to the sudden rustling in the thicket of birds frightened from their roost. The fireflies, too, which sparkled most vividly in the darkest places, now and then startled him, as one of uncommon brightness would stream across his path; and if, by chance, a huge blockhead ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... tipsy-topsy-turvy feeling stopped, the cook opened her eyes, gave one sounding screech and shut them again, and Anthea took the opportunity to get the desperately howling Lamb ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... heart-shaped. There were little indentations at the corners of her mouth. She had eyes singularly clear, like a child's, and a voice so nasal, so strident, so dreadful that when she parted her pretty lips and spoke, the sound shocked you like a peacock's raucous screech. ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... the open all the night sounds came to them with startling distinctness;—the cry of the nighthawk and the chirping of a cricket, the peeping of hylas and the croaking of frogs and the wild, tremulous, mournful cry of the screech-owl. ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... was over twelve or thirteen years of age. I met some of them afterward, and learned that they had just arrived that day over the hill, and that they hailed from Denver and Salt Lake City.) Our pack flings forward. The baby wolves squeal and screech and fight like little demons. All about the drunken man rages the struggle for the possession of him. Down he goes in the thick of it, and the combat rages over his body after the fashion of the Greeks and Trojans over the body and armor of a fallen hero. Amid cries and tears and wailings the ...
— The Road • Jack London
... freaks he bounces, Crack goes the twig, and in he flounces! Down the swift stream the wretch is borne; Never, ah never, to return! Zounds! what a fall had our dear brother! Morbleu! cries one; and damme, t'other. The nation gives a general screech; None cocks his tail, none claws his breech; Each trembles for the public weal, And for a while forgets to steal. Awhile all eyes intent and steady Pursue him whirling down the eddy: But, out of mind when out of view, Some other mounts the twig anew; And business on each monkey shore ...
— English Satires • Various
... Low Country was the hyena. The voice of this beast is horrible; it begins with a guttural growl and ends with a high-pitched screech. Although cowardly to a degree, hyenas would often come to within less than a hundred yards of the fire. Occasionally they might be heard on several sides at once, uttering their unspeakable yells. We always noticed that the smell of roast meat ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... (solus). Hail! ye black horrors of midnight's midnoon' Ye fairies, goblins, bats, and screech-owls, hail! And, oh! ye mortal watchmen, whose hoarse throats Th' immortal ghosts dread croakings counterfeit, All hail!—Ye dancing phantoms, who, by day, Are some condemn'd to fast, some feast in fire, Now play in churchyards, ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
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