"Hoot" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... farm, suppose my neighbors gather in conclave, and from such ample premises sagely infer, that since he is no longer my "hired" laborer, I rob him of his earnings, and with all the gravity of owls, they record their decision, and adjourn to hoot it abroad. My neighbors are deep divers!—like some theological professors, they not only go to the bottom, but come up covered ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... sovereignty of reason, hold at the will of some superior lord, to whom accident or inclination has attached them, and who, true to their vassalage, are resolute not to surrender, without express permission, their base and ill-gotten possessions. These, however habited, are the mob of mankind, who hoot and holla, hiss or huzza, just as their various leaders may direct. I challenge the whole Pannel as not holding by free tenure, and therefore not competent to the purpose either of condemnation or acquittal. But to the men of very ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... foot of the mountain Amanda did sigh At the hoot of an owl Or the catamount's cry; Or the howl of some wolf In its low, granite cell, Or the crash of some large Forest ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various
... for good business administration, nor a hoot for prosperity or peace or happiness. Liberty and the right to rule, the right to go risk one's neck ... to climb a mountain or cross a desert or explore a swamp, the right to aim one's sights at distant stars, ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... roofs could be seen, high, brown, thatched roofs with a line of sword-leaved irises growing along the roof-ridge like a crown. These native cottages looked like timid animals, cowering in their forms under the protecting trees. One felt that at any time an indiscreet hoot of the steamer might send them scuttering back to the forest depths. There were no signs of life in these submerged villages, where the fight between the forester's axe and primal vegetation seemed still undecided. Life was there; but it was hidden under the ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... Communication with Earth is so sparse and garbled. The public will only know there was an accident; who'll give a hoot about the details? We couldn't even prove anything in an asteroid court. The Navy would say, 'Classified information!' and that'd stop the proceedings cold. Sure, there'll be a board of inquiry—composed of naval officers. ...
— Industrial Revolution • Poul William Anderson
... This is an age of development. An era of movement. We're on the threshold of the big tomorrow, and we can't let it pass us by! We can't let the honor and the glory go to others while we sit on our hands and hoot from the gallery! Come alive, Lee! The world ...
— The Big Tomorrow • Paul Lohrman
... were looking in silence towards Marseilles, which, with its tangle of tall houses, its forest of masts, its long, ugly factories and workshops, now represented to them the whole of France. The bronchial hoot of the siren rose up menacingly. Suddenly two Arabs, in dirty white burnouses and turbans bound with cords of camel's hair, came running along the wharf. The siren hooted again. The Arabs bounded over ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... soul that lives for self, Should stand on some old musty shelf, Where spiders, rats, and vermin throng, And listen only to the song Of filing saw and creaky mill, And owlet's hoot and whip-poor-will. ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... nine; the traffic in the street overhead was beginning to diminish—the rumbling of drays or heavy four-wheelers had almost ceased, whilst the jingling of hansoms and even the piercing hoot-hoot and loud birr-birr of motors was fast becoming less and less frequent. I put out my candle and waited; and, as I waited, the hush and gloom of the house deepened and intensified, until, by midnight, all ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... the Senior Surgeon threw back his head in one wild hoot of joy. Infinitely more cautiously as the agonizing pang in his shoulder lulled down again he proceeded to argue the matter, but the grin in his face was ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... under Hugh's foot and the boys stopped short, their breath coming fast. The hoot of an owl directly overhead startled them violently and unconsciously they clutched each other's arm. The giant trees loomed black and forbidding in the darkness, and it was easy to imagine all kinds of things lurking behind ...
— Bob Cook and the German Spy • Tomlinson, Paul Greene
... and frightened the Union fleet into fits, just the way Merriman has been going down to Wall Street every morning and frightening us into fits? Well, instead of finishing the work then and there, she suddenly quit and steamed off up the river in the same insolent, don't-give-a-hoot way that Merriman comes up from Wall Street every afternoon. Of course, when the Merrimac came down to finish destroying the fleet the next day, the Monitor had arrived during the night and gave her ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... all I've got to say is that the first man that butts into my private office and starts unloading a cargo of grief on me, is going to get busted between the eyes with a paper weight. I'm through with grief and woe. I don't give a hoot what happens to the world or anybody in it. I want peace and a rest. I can afford it and wouldn't I be a first-class idiot not to take it while ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... from beneath the over-arching trees, emerging upon the high road that led from Great Mallowes to Perrythorpe. The hoot of a motor-horn caused Rupert to prick his ears, and his master reined him back as two great, shining head-lights appeared round a curve. They drew swiftly near, flashed past, and were gone meteor-like ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... The hoot of a motor startled her, and she ran to a window which commanded the drive. An open car was rapidly approaching. A girl was driving it, with a man in chauffeur's uniform sitting behind her. She brought ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... was relaxed, and a hundred voices were raised at once, discussing the sentence, the news of which had already gone forth; and outside the multitude began to hoot and ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... manhood and has courage to follow where his reason leads. Then the pious get together and repeat wise saws and exchange knowing nods and most prophetic winks. The stupidly wise sit owl-like on the dead limbs of the tree of knowledge, and solemnly, hoot. Wealth sneers, and fashion laughs, and respectability passes on the other side, and scorn points with all her skinny fingers, and, like the snakes of superstition, writhe and hiss, and slander lends her tongue, and infamy her brand, perjury her oath, and the law its power; and bigotry tortures ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... "Hoot, hoot!" exclaimed Muir; "do you call hitting the head of the nail respectable only, when it's the perfection of the art? Any one the least refined and elevated in sentiment knows that the delicate touches denote ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... springs Sweet waters shake a trembling sound, There flit the hoot-owl's silent wings, There hath his web ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume II. • Walter de la Mare
... the port-fog holds us tied, And the sirens hoot their dread! When foot by foot we creep o'er the hueless viewless deep To the sob of the questing lead! It 's down by the Lower Hope, dear lass, With the Gunfleet Sands in view, Till the Mouse swings green on the old trail, our own trail, the ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... fact that they are dishonorable, i.e., that they are relatively uncivilized. In the midst of all the puerile repressions and inhibitions that hedge them round, they continue to show a gipsy spirit. No genuine woman ever gives a hoot for law if law happens to stand in the way of her private interest. She is essentially an outlaw, a rebel, what H. G. Wells calls a nomad. The boons of civilization are so noisily cried up by sentimentalists that we are all apt to overlook its disadvantages. Intrinsically, it is a ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... deplorable follies proceed from wrong and unworthy apprehensions of God's providence, in his care of man, and government of the world. Surely no reasonable creature can ever imagine, that the all-wise God should inspire owls and ravens to hoot out the elegies of dying men; that he should have ordained a fatality in numbers, inflict punishment without an offence; and that being one amongst the fatal number at a table, should be a crime (though contrary to no command) not to ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... useless thing is envy; A foolish thing to boot. Why should a Fox who has a bark Want like an Owl to hoot? ...
— Whitefoot the Wood Mouse • Thornton W. Burgess
... that any fellow who could take that dive wouldn't likely let himself drown. I guessed, too, that if you heard me hoot—" ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... that the old girlie in the dollman is a mighty patron of this hospital, so everybody says I am in for nasty weather. But hoot! My heart's in the Hielan's, my heart is not here; my heart's in the Hielan's, ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... his own profession, while he thoroughly agrees with a denunciation of trade-unionism addressed to him as a railway shareholder or ratepayer. The same audience can sometimes be led by way of 'parental rights' to cheer for denominational religious instruction, and by way of 'religious freedom' to hoot it. The most skilled political observer that I know, speaking of an organised newspaper attack, said, 'As far as I can make out every argument used in attack and in defence has its separate and independent effect. They hardly ever meet, even if they are brought to bear upon the ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas
... obscured the faint light of the stars that struggled to peep through the nebulous masses. At another time the superstitious spirit of the girl would have shrunk from the noises of the wood, and found omens in the hoot of the owl, or the moaning of the wind as it sobbed fitfully through the trees. But now the screech of the night bird and the soughing of the wind fell upon deaf ears for she was so absorbed in the one idea of getting home that all ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... woods. Skookum whined in his sleep so loudly as to waken them once or twice. Near dawn they heard the howling of wolves and the curiously similar hooting of a horned owl. There is, indeed, almost no difference between the short opening howl of a she-wolf and the long hoot of the owl. As he listened, half awake, Rolf heard a whirr of wings which stopped overhead, then a familiar chuckle. He sat up and saw Skookum sadly lift his misshapen head to gaze at a row of black-breasted grouse partridge on a branch above, but the poor doggie ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... Touring Club de France at Les Andelys in good time, our provisions, our gasoline and oil, our river charts, our wraps and ourselves all stowed comfortably away in the eight metres of length of our little boat. Our siren gave a hoot which startled the rooks circling about the donjon walls of Chateau Gaillard over our heads, and we passed under the brick arches of the bridge for a twelve-mile run to the ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... would result in so strong an indication of a desire for flight that the conversation would be directed long distances away from Br'er Rabbit and the Tar Baby. He was a born story-teller, and had not the made author's owl-like propensity to perch upon high places and hoot his wisdom to the passing crowd. The expression "literary" as applied to him filled him with surprise. He called himself an "accidental author"; said he had never had an opportunity of acquiring style, and probably should not have taken advantage of it if he had. He was always as much astonished ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... three kinds in that valley. I wished to know exactly and, looking for further evidence, I found on a sapling near by a big soft, downy, owlish feather (m) with three brown bars across it; which told me plainly that a Barred Owl or Hoot Owl had been there recently, and that he was almost certainly the ...
— Woodland Tales • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... here. Men who steal gal leave him to watch. He stay. You know owl hoot. When you come back make owl hoot so Ben no think it somebody else an' shoot um. Must know what Merriwell him say. Must have ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish
... neighbourhood, for the purpose of bringing in farmers and others to hold up their hands against "HUNT." Many, who inquired what they were to oppose, were told by this worthy, that they were to hiss, hoot, and make a noise, when Hunt spoke, and to hold up their hands against any thing that he brought forward. I recollect Mr. Power coming, in the morning, to the door of my bed-room, to inform me of the character and disposition ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... agreed. "An owl gives a duller, slower hoot.... It really is like a signal, a hundred yards or so ahead of us.... Smugglers, of course, French ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... one—for the familiar redolences of naphtha and horse-dung and trodden turf. These were far away: they had quite forsaken her, or at best floated idly across her dreams. What held her to fortitude had been the drone and intermittent hoot of a steam-organ many streets away. It belonged to a roundabout, and regularly tuned up towards evening; so distant that Tilda could not distinguish one tune from another; only the thud of its bass mingled with the buzz of a fly on the window ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... succeeded!" exclaimed the Indian, listening to a singular kind of hoot, which sounded through the profound silence of the night and of ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... flag of England, fluttering on the spire top, grew ever fainter and fainter against the flying clouds—a black speck like a swallow in the tumultuous, leaden chaos of the sky. As the night fell the wind rose, and began to hoot under archways and roar amid the tree-tops in the valley below ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... friend, at whose house I am now visiting, has tried all the owls that are his near neighbours with a pitch-pipe set at concert pitch, and finds they all hoot in B flat. He will examine the nightingales ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... a whip like the one the Slave-driver has shouldn't I lash the boys who hoot my mamma! I wish I could turn boys into pumpkins. The Mountain Maid wore a beautiful muslin with gold lace, but she ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... clothing, with the thick tangled brush through which we had to pass, but considering this of minor importance we hurried on in silence, save when we intruded too near the nest of the nocturnal king of the forest, when a wild hoot made us start and involuntarily grasp our rifles. "Sit on this log and eat," said our red guide. Finding our appetites sharpened by vigorous exercise, we sat on the log and commenced our repast, when our guide suddenly sprang from his seat, and with a hideous yell bolted into the forest ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... acclamation, outcry, clamor, vociferation, yoicks, scream, shriek, howl, yell, proclamation; slogan, shibboleth; halloo, whoop, hoot: crying, weeping, wail, lamentation, mewl, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... care, you may laugh," said frank little Bess; "that is the reason—at least, one of them. He's nice; he don't stamp and hoot in the house, and he never says, 'Halloo Bess,' or laughs when I fall on ...
— The King's Daughter and Other Stories for Girls • Various
... here to-day and found how she stood. If it hadn't been for War Eagle Ivus and his buck sheep breakin' out, they'd have ambuscaded ye, surer'n palm-leaf fans can't cool the kitchen o' hell. But even as it is—hoot and holler now, and tag-gool-I-see-ye, they say they've got you licked, and licked in the open—that's what they say!" The man's tone was that of one announcing ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... fellow, in Scotland, creeping through the hedge of an orchard, with an intention to rob it, was seen by the owner, who called out to him, "Sawney, hoot, hoot, man, where are you ganging?" "Back ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... owl would only hoot once or twice now," whispered Shif'less Sol, "I think I'd jump right ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... into that spectral shadow-land and moved slowly on as before. The silence was most impressive. Now and then the faint yeap of some traveling bird would come from the air overhead, or the wings of a bat whisp quickly by, or an owl hoot off in the mountains, giving to the silence and loneliness a tongue. At short intervals some noise in-shore would startle me, and cause me to turn inquiringly to the silent figure ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... taff dyke, Hoot! grey owl in yon shaw, Howl out! ye auld moon-baying tyke, Ye winds mair keenly blaw, Till ye rouse to the rage o' a wintry storm The waves of the Solway sea, And wauken the brawnit connach worm ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... whose downy nest is no bigger than half an apricot, came and chirped in the plane-tree tops; the Scops made a habit of uttering his monotonous, piping note here, of an evening; the bird of Pallas Athene, the Owl, came hurrying along to hoot and hiss. ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... "Hoot, laird! nae offence!" returned Mrs Catanach. "It was yer ain wyte (blame). What gart ye stan' glowerin' at a body that gait, ohn telled (without telling) them 'at ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... along the slope of the lane, with his elbows back, and his body straight, as prize-runners run. The wagon, sideways, stretched across—a solid barrier, heaped up with fir boughs brought for firing from the forests; the mules stood abreast, yoked together. The mob following saw too, and gave a hoot and yell of brutal triumph; their prey was in their clutches; the cart barred his progress, and he must double like a fox faced with ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... another lonely spot on the south bank of the great somnolent river. It looked dead, deserted, a typical river town, unprodded even by the hoot ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... moon, and wondered what she was, and thought that she looked at him. And he watched the moonlight on the rippling river, and the black heads of the firs, and the silver-frosted lawns, and listened to the owl's hoot, and the snipe's bleat, and the fox's bark, and the otter's laugh; and smelt the soft perfume of the birches, and the wafts of heather honey off the grouse moor far above; and felt very happy. You, of course, would have been very cold ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... we've got to find him. But nothing's to be said, d'ye see? It's got to be done without fuss or scandal. But if there's any witness wanted, or anything of that kind, why, here you are; and,' he dropped his voice to an almost inaudible hoot, 'and well worth your while! You did see him, eh? Step into the trap, ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... dirty after that last cargo of creosoted piling; and it stands to reason, also, that the man Peasley slicked her up with white paint until she looked like an Easter bride. A Scandinavian doesn't give a hoot if his vessel is tight, well found and ready for sea; but a Yankee takes a tremendous pride in his ship and likes to keep her looking like a yacht. And just think, Skinner, how the man Peasley must have felt ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... "Protag." 319 C: "And if some person offers to give them advice who is not supposed by them to have any skill in the art (sc. of politics), even though he be good-looking, and rich, and noble, they will not listen to him, but laugh at him, and hoot him, until he is either clamoured down and retires of himself; or if he persists, he is dragged away or put out by the constables at the command of the prytanes" (Jowett). Cf. Aristoph. "Knights," 665, {kath eilkon auton ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... which it is focused. That is not to imply that the processes of evolution have brought all parts of the world into such interrelationships that a writer cannot depict the manners and morals of a community up Owl Hoot Creek without enmeshing them with the complexities of the Atlantic Pact. Awareness of other times and other wheres, not insistence on that awareness, is the requisite. James M. Barrie said that he could not write ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie
... hot, all hot," said a Black man, as he pushed in and out among the crowd; with "Hoot awa', the de'il tak your soul, mon, don't you think we are all hot eneugh?—gin ye bring more hot here I'll crack your croon—I've been roasting alive for the last half hoor, an' want to be ganging, but ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... fire was blazing in the ruins of an ancient chimney, and the tired travellers gathered about it for their evening meal. From the tower came the surprised hoot of a solitary owl, and bats, disturbed by the light, swooped in great circles about the little group as they silently ate their polenta. Even the monkey seemed to feel the weird spell of the place, for she cowered in a corner by the fire, chattering to herself, while from the banqueting-hall ...
— The Italian Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... monster penguins, wandered restlessly about, peering out to sea and listening. Every moment the bell at the end of the mole rang, and was answered by the pilot-boat's horn somewhere out in the fog over the sea, with a long, dreary hoot, like the howl of some ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... was largely composed of men, stared at them and grew suddenly silent. They recognized their wives and mothers in those serene faces, and manhood forbids that you should hoot at your own blood-and-bone kin womenfolk. So they changed the subject. They began to talk, a perfect hurricane of inconsequential comments on every imaginable subject except the subject of women and ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... Raven's croak, the chirping of the Sparrow, The scream of Jays, the creaking of Wheelbarrow, And hoot of Owls,—all join the soul to harrow, And grate the ear. We listen to thy quaint soliloquizing, As if all creatures thou wert catechizing, Tuning their voices, and their notes revising, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... walks into church, but it's no wrong to turn sometimes to the good Saint Nicholas. Tut! It's a likely story if one can't do that, without one's children flaring up at it—and he the boys' and girls' own saint. Hoot! Mayhap the colt is a ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... jargon half Gaelic, Exclaim'd, "Hoot awa, mon, you're a' gane astray"— And declared that "whoe'er might prefer the METALLIC, They'd shoe their ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... press, and ye'll get a pig fou o 't." Jock rose, and thrust his hand into the honey-pig for a nievefu' o 't, and he could not get it out. So he cam' awa' wi' the pig in his hand, like a mason's mell, and says, "Oh, I canna get my hand out." "Hoot," quo' she, "gang awa' and break it on the cheek-stane." By this time, the fire was dark, and the auld priest was lying snoring wi' his head against the chimney- piece, wi' a huge white wig on. Jock gaes awa', and gae him a whack wi' the honey-pig on the head, ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... cottage-door for nearly an hour, until Ingram, coming out, asked him why he had waited; whereupon he said, with an air of perfect indifference, "Oo, ay, there was something said about a dram; but hoot toots! it is of no consequence whatever!" And was it true that the sheriff of Stornoway was so kind-hearted a man that he remitted the punishment of certain culprits, ordained by the statute to be whipped with birch rods, on the ground that the island of Lewis ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... the Twins spent a busy afternoon. And after the toad was found it was no joke to try to keep it. It was a wonderful hopper and nearly got away twice. At dusk the crows flew away to their nests, and the children were alone in the field until the twilight deepened into darkness. Owls had begun to hoot and bats were flying about, when at last they saw three dim, shadowy figures coming ...
— The Spartan Twins • Lucy (Fitch) Perkins
... the company; the police insisted that the booth or hotel lobby in which they performed should be fireproof; the wife of the mining engineer fell in love with the barytone, and her husband hired a number of hoodlums to take their places in the gallery and hoot and hiss when the time came. And those who nag under any circumstances requested more cheerfulness. They found the "Czar and Zimmermann" too dull, the "Muette de Portici" too hackneyed. They insisted on "Madame Angot" and "Orpheus in the ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... meant; we are quite alone here. I have not heard a horse-hoof or a footstep or the hoot of a train for miles. So I think we might stop here ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... Dense clouds roll past. Heavy Gatling guns boom. Pandemonium. Troops deploy. Gallop of hoofs. Artillery. Hoarse commands. Bells clang. Backers shout. Drunkards bawl. Whores screech. Foghorns hoot. Cries of valour. Shrieks of dying. Pikes clash on cuirasses. Thieves rob the slain. Birds of prey, winging from the sea, rising from marshlands, swooping from eyries, hover screaming, gannets, cormorants, ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... shall answer this outrage, or may God desert me!" and passed along through the space; while a half-suppressed and exultant hoot from the ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... grandmother, "we will stay there long enough to get well rested and enjoy ourselves; but when the sun goes down and it grows dark, then we will go. Then all the little birds are silent in the trees and the old night-owl begins to hoot." ...
— What Sami Sings with the Birds • Johanna Spyri
... their dinner; and only the hinder parts were left, showing that owls like the head and brains best. I left them undisturbed and came away; for I wanted to watch the young grow—which they did marvelously, and were presently learning to hoot. But I have been less merciful to the great owls ever since, thinking of the enormous destruction of game represented in raising two or three such young savages, year after year, in ...
— Wilderness Ways • William J Long
... to gnaw through the sides of the ship that carries them; but these so-called wise men of the world have eaten away the walls of society in a thousand places, to the thinness of tissue-paper, and the great ocean is about to pour in at every aperture. And still they hoot and laugh their insolent laugh of safety and triumph above the roar of the greedy and boundless waters, just ready to overwhelm ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... word for "Return, price paid, reward, ransom, satisfaction for injuries received, reply." (Williams.) Sometimes corrupted by Englishmen into Hoot (q.v.). ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... As the hour was getting late and it was growing dark, I began advising him—with the hickory—that it was best to proceed, but he seemed to have hardened his heart, and his back also, and paid me no heed. There I sat—all was as still as the grave, save for the dismal hoot of the screech-owl. There I was, five and a half miles from home with no prospect ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... scusin' de hoot owls," he muttered. "Spec' hit's time Miss Celia bolt de do', 'long o' de sodgers an' all de gwines-on. Shoo! Hear dat fool chickum crow!" He shook his head, bent rheumatically, and seated himself on the veranda step, full in the moonlight. "All de fightin's an' de gwines-on 'long o' dis here ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... were there save here and there remote traces of man's hand. No men dwell there: nothing invites men there. A few birds and fewer animals hold absolute dominion. Wandering there, one's senses become intensely alert. But for the hoot of the owl, the caw of the crow, the scream of the eagle, the infrequent twitter of small birds, the mighty but subdued roar of insects, the rush of water over the rocks and the sigh and sough of the wind among the pines, the lonely wanderer has no sign of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... A hoot of laughter interrupted him. It reminded me of Jock, except that Mr. O'Brien's laugh had such a flavour of ill-nature. The man might or might not be what I suspected, but ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... me of the great hoot-owl, listening, after its booming cry, for the stir of its frightened prey. But we did not fir, and we moved only when he moved. And so we dodged about the deck, hand in hand, like a couple of children chased by a wicked ogre, till Wolf Larsen, evidently in disgust, left the deck for ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... 'Feeding Storm'; and while he yet stood blinking at the lamp, his feet were buried. He remembered something like it in the past, a street-lamp crowned and caked upon the windward side with snow, the wind uttering its mournful hoot, himself looking on, even as now; but the cold had struck too sharply on his wits, and memory failed him as to the date and ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... calcined earth which roams in sheets about the country, all the menagerie is let loose and gives battle. Bellowings, roarings, growlings, strange and savage; feline caterwaulings that fiercely rend your ears and search your belly, or the long-drawn piercing hoot like the siren of a ship in distress. At times, even, something like shouts cross each other in the air-currents, with curious variation of tone that make the sound human. The country is bodily lifted in places and ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... was broken by many a shout of exultation or banter, many a merry sound of jest or fun, as the back of the night's task was fairly broken. One husker mimicked the hoot of an owl in the thickets below; another sang a melody popular at the time, the ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... "Hoot, my wee lass," said he, "you're young yet. Come away wi' me," and she went out with him, leaving us ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... treatment from his playfellows. "For what reason," said he to himself, "could my little neighbour, who even lent me his hand to get out of the pond, throw the apple in my face, and set the boys to hoot me? Why has he so many good friends, while I have not ...
— The Looking-Glass for the Mind - or Intellectual Mirror • M. Berquin
... savage yell. Swift as the doe's Wiwaste's feet Fled away to the forest. The hunters fleet In vain pursue, and in vain they prowl And lurk in the forest till dawn of day. They hear the hoot of the mottled owl; They hear the were-wolf's[52] winding howl; But the swift Wiwaste is far away. They found no trace in the forest land; They found no trail in the dew-damp grass; They found no track in the river sand, Where they ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... at the top of his lungs to the crowd, which continued to hoot him, "we are going ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... 'Hoot, my lord! would I let you gang, when the Tutor spak to me as plain as I hear you now? "Take off Lord Malcolm," says he; "save him, and you save the rest. See him safe to the Earl of Mar." Those were his words, my lord; and if you wilna heed them, ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... I was safe from invasion by man or beast, and enjoyed the well-earned repose with a full feeling of security. The owl softly winnowed the air with his feathery pinions as he searched for his prey along the beach, sending forth an occasional to-hoot! as he rested for a moment on the leafless branches of an old tree, reminding me to take a peep at the night, and to inquire "what its signs of ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... They do not add to the sunshine of life. If they could have their way all the birds would stop singing, the flowers would lose their color and perfume, and all the owls would sit on dead trees and hoot, "Broad is the road ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... night they found nothing. Returning next day with Merrifield for the carcass of the elk however, they found that a grizzly had been feeding on it. They crouched in hiding for the bear's return. Night fell, owls began to hoot dismally from the tops of the tall trees, and a lynx wailed from the depths of the woods, but the bear ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... monkey, and RAONG, the toad, sat under a log complaining of the cold. "KR-R-R-H" went KRA, and "Hoot-toot-toot" went the toad. They agreed that next day they would cut down a KUMUT tree and make themselves a coat. of its bark. In the morning the sun shone bright and warm, and KRA gambolled in the tree-tops, while ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... aroused mixed emotions but Mr. Curtin came to the platform. Word having spread through the theater that he represented the "real Bolshevik outfit" in Seattle, a great many of the delegates began to hoot, jeer, and make ...
— The Story of The American Legion • George Seay Wheat
... there for a while, his bruised body refusing movement. A weary sailor with a bucket glared at him through dripping hair. His shout was dim under the hoot and skirl of wind: "If ye like it so well down ...
— The Valor of Cappen Varra • Poul William Anderson
... said Max, with laughter in his eyes; "And I do truly think that Eden bloom'd "Deep in the heart of tall, green maple groves, "With sudden scents of pine from mountain sides "And prairies with their breasts against the skies. "And Eve was only little Katie's height." "Hoot, lad! you speak as ev'ry Adam speaks "About his bonnie Eve; but what says Kate?" "O Adam had not Max's soul,' she said; "And these wild woods and plains are fairer far "Than Eden's self. O bounteous mothers they! "Beck'ning pale starvelings with their fresh, green hands, "And with ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... once impassioned will grow, until she has lost all her woman's nature. She kept the other four hours at her street-door, as if she were a public show. There was time to fetch a mob of Jesuits' followers, of honest Church artizans, to hoot and hiss, while children might help by throwing stones. For these four hours she was in the pillory. Some, however, of the more dispassionate passers-by asked if the Ursulines had gotten orders to let them kill the girl. We ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... time these juvenile demonstrations were allowed to pass with good-humoured forbearance by the town; but when presently, emboldened by their immunity, the schoolboys proceeded not only to hoot but occasionally to molest the opposite side, the young Shellporters began to resent the invasion. A few scuffles ensued, and the temper of both parties rose. The schoolboys waxed more and more outrageous, and the town boys more and more indignant, so that just about the ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... after "the missus" in so many words; although two days before a violent message had come down to complain of laxity in the gate-opening, owing to the missus' indisposition on an occasion when the official himself had been digging cabbages behind the Gothic lodge and the hoot of the ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... Hard hoot'd neives like thease o' mine. Surely ne'er wor made to press Hands so lily-white as thine; Nor should arms like thease caress One so slender, fair, an' pure, 'Twor unlikely, ...
— Yorkshire Ditties, Second Series - To which is added The Cream of Wit and Humour - from his Popular Writings • John Hartley
... people upon whom rank and worldly goods make such an impression, that they naturally fall down on their knees and worship the owners; there are others to whom the sight of Prosperity is offensive, and who never see Dives' chariot but to growl and hoot at it. Mrs. Newcome, as far as my humble experience would lead me to suppose, is not only envious, but proud of her envy. She mistakes it for honesty and public spirit. She will not bow down to kiss the hand of a haughty aristocracy. She is a merchant's wife and an attorney's daughter. There ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... strange and foreboding that night, like a spatter of blood in the sky, and through the long silent hours there was not even the hoot of an owl to give a sign that life still existed where yesterday had been a paradise of wild things. Kazan knew that there was nothing to hunt, and they continued to travel all that night. With dawn they struck a narrow swamp along the edge of the stream. Here beavers ...
— Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... Henry began to grow uneasy. Once or twice he thought he heard cries like the hoot of the owl or the howl of the wolf, but they were so far away that he was uncertain. Both hoot and howl might be a product of the imagination. He was so alive to the wilderness, it was so full of meaning to him that his mind could create sounds when none existed. He whispered to Tom, ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... not accompanied with a Djaour, Kafer, or Kelb, that is, impious, infidel, dog, expressions to which Christians are familiarized." Sir C. Fellows is an earnest witness for their amiableness; but he does not conceal that the children "hoot after a European, and call him Frank dog, and even strike him;" and on one occasion a woman caught up a child and ran off from him, crying out against the Ghiaour; which gives him an opportunity of telling us that the word "Ghiaour" means ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... opposition encountered by Ingersoll, his arguments were never met with physical violence. Halls were locked against him, newspapers denounced him, preachers thundered, but no mobs gathered to hoot him down. Neither did he ever have to excuse himself in the midst of a discourse, and go outside to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... circle of firelight. No second bullet followed him in his amazingly swift movements. He lay motionless, listening intently, but no sound broke the stillness of the evening except the distant wail of a coyote and the hoot ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... vast flocks upon the wild karoos of South Africa; are inoffensive animals, except when wounded; and then the old bulls are exceedingly dangerous, and will attack the hunter both with horns and hoot. They can run with great swiftness, though they scarce ever go clear off, but, keeping at a wary distance, circle around the hunter, curvetting in all directions, menacing with their heads lowered to the ground, ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... grown over them to hide their nakedness. Forlorn and lonely the ruined castle stands. Where once loud clarion rang, the night owls hoot; vulgar crowds picnic where once knights fought in all the pride and pomp of chivalry. Kine feed in the grass-grown bailey court; its glory is departed. We need no castles now to protect us from the foes of our own nation. Civil ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... o' this young limb,' said the navvy, when they had reached the bank of the pool. 'He shall nayther hoot nor run ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... "Hoot!" said Hannah; "I think it's rather demeaning of herself. Well, Miss Primrose, I suppose the poor dear will want a holiday the same as the rest of you. To tell the truth, Miss Primrose, my old eyes ache to see the darling, she was always such ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... gave a short, peculiar bark as we shut the gate behind us, but whether it was meant as a fond farewell, or a hoot of derision, I ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton
... owls delight to hoot, the bats go whirring past, the moonbeams surely cast their kindest rays; by day the pigeons coo from the topmost boughs their tales of love, while squirrels sit blinking merrily, or run their Silvios on their ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... principles, or those which he professed—for what? We'll suppose a government. What's the use of a government, if, the next day after you have received it, you are obliged for very shame to scurry off to it with the hoot of every honest man sounding in ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... when Bishop Bernard d'Elbene had celebrated mass, just as the regular preacher was about to begin his sermon, some children who were playing in the close began to hoot the 'beguinier' [a name of contempt for friars]. Some of the faithful being disturbed in their meditations, came out of the church and chastised the little Huguenots, whose parents considered themselves in consequence to have ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... crowd sensed what was occurring the radicals began to hoot and boo the officers. Clubs were drawn and the crowd was made to move. Then came the parade through the streets and cries of 'Down with the mayor!' 'Hang him!' 'To hell with the police!' and others ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... apparent murderer be caught, almost in the flagrant deed of his atrocity; let him, to the best of all human belief, have killed, disembowelled, and dismembered; let him have united the coolness of consummate craft to the boldest daring of iniquity, and straightway (though the generous crowd may hoot and hunt the wretch with yelling execration) he finds in law and lawyers, refuge, defenders, and apologists. Tenderly and considerately is he cautioned on no account to criminate himself: he is exhorted, even ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... merely have to stand the risks of a lottery of infamy, that ninety-nine out of every hundred should escape, and that the hundredth, perhaps the most innocent of the hundred, should pay for all. We remember to have seen a mob assembled in Lincoln's Inn to hoot a gentleman against whom the most oppressive proceeding known to the English law was then in progress. He was hooted because he had been an unfaithful husband, as if some of the most popular men of the age, Lord Nelson for example, had not been unfaithful husbands. We remember a still stronger case. ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... Mr. Mayor. You have had your own way, and I am going to have mine. Go and tell the town if you like that your wife has left you because you kidnapped her cousin, the boy she loved. You tell your story and I will tell mine. Why, the women in the town would hoot you, and you wouldn't dare show your face in the streets. You insist, indeed! Why, you miserable little man, my fingers are tingling now. Say another word to me and I will box your ears till you won't know whether you are standing on your head ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... queer little hoot of derision. "Does Ah look like peace?" he said. "Dis am a debbil-ship; Ah tells yoh dey can't be no peace in ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... great land was plunged in slumber under its mantle of snow. The few birds there were at the time were voiceless, like the partridges that only find a peep when fluffy broods follow them, or some of the larger fowl which only hoot or shriek. The sound-calls of the wilderness had been those of struggling waters, of cracking trees, of snow-masses violently displaced. But now birds were in full song everywhere, carrying trifles of stick and floss ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... dem nights she slept in de woods wus awful. She'd find a cave sometimes an' den ag'in she'd sleep in a holler log, but she said dat ever'time de hoot owls holler or de shiverin' owls shiver dat she'd cower down an' bite her tongue ter ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... to Tom's turn, he found it a very difficult place to get down in the semi-darkness, and two or three times he almost lost his footing. As soon as all were down they fell into Indian file, and crossed the valley to the rock, the chief giving the hoot of an owl twice as he approached it. Three men at once stepped out from ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... contained for the red man of the North the teachings and the voice of the Creator of all things. A wind had risen and was whispering over the plains; he heard the hushed voices of the quivering poplar boughs, and there came from far below him the soft, chuckling, mating hoot of an owl. Gradually his eyes closed, and he leaned more heavily upon the rock against which he had seated himself. After that he dreamed of what he had looked upon, while the fire at the camp died away, and Mukoki and Wabigoon ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood
... common home. And may all those children who read this short article ever recollect this important truth. When you behold a poor, unfortunate man, with torn and filthy garments, and perhaps intoxicated, reeling through the streets, do not hoot after, and throw stones at him, as I have known many boys do, but think within ...
— Small Means and Great Ends • Edited by Mrs. M. H. Adams
... flooding a field of young cotton on the other. Now they heard the distant baying of house-dogs, now the doleful call of the chuck-will's-widow; and once Mary's blood turned, for an instant, to ice, at the unearthly shriek of the hoot-owl just above her head. At length they found themselves in a dim, narrow road, and the ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... her mother, who, after alighting from the wagon, had set Nicolas on the ground. "You will end by making people hoot us." ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... subscribing a shilling amongst them to reward their rescuer, hurried up to the churchyard, where, of course, there was no sign of their party, then started as fast as they could to walk along the high road. They had gone perhaps half a mile when they heard a warning hoot behind them, and, looking round, what should Merle see but the little Deemster car with Dr. Tremayne at the driving-wheel. She shouted wildly ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... "Hoot awa, wuman! dinna tak on like that," returned her husband. "The laddie's like the lave o' laddies! They're a' jist like pup-doggies till their een comes oppen, and they ken them 'at broucht them here. He's bun' to mak a guid man in time, and he canna dee that ohn learnt ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... white man or red. The trapper listened intently, then he bethought him, for the first time, of giving the signal which, at setting out on their journey, they had agreed to use in all circumstances of danger. It was the low howl of a wolf followed immediately by the hoot of an owl. The reply to it was to be the hoot of the owl without the cry of the wolf when danger should be imminent and extreme caution necessary, or the howl of the wolf alone if ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... other ryveres meten hem there, and gon in to that ryvere. And sum men clepen it Ganges; for a kyng that was in Ynde, that highte Gangeres, and that it ran thorge out his lond. And that water is in sum place clere, and in sum place trouble: in sum place hoot, and in sum place cole. The seconde ryvere is clept Nilus or Gyson: for it is alle weye trouble: and Gyson, in the langage of Ethiope, is to seye trouble: and in the langage of Egipt also. The thridde ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt
... on the sand within the curve. Two lay on their rifles under the upper point, a hundred and twenty paces from Whispering Smith. The third man, Seagrue, less than fifty yards away, had got off his horse and was laying down his rifle, when the hoot-owl screeched again and he looked uneasily back. They had chosen for their halt a spot easily defended, and needed only darkness to make them safe, when Smith, stepping out into plain ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... are laying down and you explode the shell, we'll be at a disadvantage, losing precious seconds in springing to our feet. I suggest you and I stay close together, and a few seconds before you are going to explode the shell, give me two taps on the shoulder. Then I can give the cry of a hoot owl, and each man can jump to his feet to be ready when the shell lights up ...
— The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers • Claude A. Labelle
... an arduous day for the tribe of Cadge, excepting, of course, its head. Not until the first star came out and the owls began to hoot along the Catnip did he declare himself satisfied with the day's work and proceed homeward to supper. Widow Pipkin's wall was ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... her Cecilia. He might have done so had not her husband been present, but he was ashamed to do it before him. "He is a night bird, Harry," said she, speaking of her brother, "and flies away at nine o'clock that he may go and hoot like an owl in some dark city haunt that he has. Then, when he is himself asleep at breakfast time, his hootings are being heard ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... "The good-night hoot of an owl or some other sound awakened me just as the first streaks of the dawn began to flush the face ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin
... afterglow had now faded from the west. It was already as dark as a summer midnight. Small and continuous sounds came floating up from the city beyond. Immediately below he heard the occasional voices of students passing on the stone walk, and from the meadows on the west came the melancholy hoot of ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... then the silence was broken by the far off echoing scream of a prowling coyote or the distant hoot of an owl. But the Overlanders did not hear. They were sleeping soundly, storing up energy for the coming day, a day that was destined to be filled with hardships and excitement ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert • Jessie Graham Flower
... well known paths of history, where every one can read the finger posts carefully set up to advise them of the right turning; and the very boys and girls, who learn the history of Britain by way of question and answer, hoot at a poor author ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... Waterton 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 ...
— Mamma's Stories about Birds • Anonymous (AKA the author of "Chickseed without Chickweed")
... comforted by the doctor's visit, but nex' mornin' things looked purty gloomy ag'in. That little foot seemed a heap worse, an' he was sort o' flushed an' feverish, an' wife she thought she heard a owl hoot, an' Rover made a mighty funny gurgly sound in his th'oat like ez ef he had bad news to tell us, but didn't have the courage to ...
— Sonny, A Christmas Guest • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... insects that had been hovering all day round the battlements were now swept away by the freshness of a rising breeze. The two owls in the chamber beneath Donatello's uttered their soft melancholy cry,—which, with national avoidance of harsh sounds, Italian owls substitute for the hoot of their kindred in other countries,—and flew darkling forth among the shrubbery. A convent bell rang out near at hand, and was not only echoed among the hills, but answered by another bell, and still another, which doubtless had farther ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... that Pontecoulant was in the theatre, and perhaps she hoped that he, at least, would champion her. But when she understood that in that crowd, among whom many perhaps had loved her, no one now would defend her, she rose and left her box, while some of the most excited hustled into the corridor to hoot her in passing. She at last escaped and got to her house in the Rue Guilbert, and the next ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... and solemnity, now glorious in resplendent autumn color of pearly beauty. Here — thrilling sound to huntsman — echoes the wild melody of the hound, awakening the solitude with deep-mouthed bay as he pursues the swift career of deer. The quavering note of the loon on the lake, the mournful hoot of the owl at night, with rarer forest voices have also to the lover of nature their peculiar charm, and form the wild language ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... seas; but it was in the night that he loved best to ride forth, when the soft moon shone on the silvery lake and quiet forest; when the stars gazed calmly on the earth, as if seeking to penetrate its future, and mourning over its past; when the hoot of the owl and the cry of the beast of prey were the only sounds to be heard, besides the tread of his own charger, when he left the forest glade for the more ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston |
