"Shrill" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... drinking nightly, and doing mere tacenda. Our larders are reduced to leanness, Jew harpies and unclean creatures our purveyors; in our basket is no bread. Old women with their distaffs rush out on a distressed Cellarer in shrill Chartism. 'You cannot stir abroad but Jews and Christians pounce upon you with unsettled bonds;' debts boundless seemingly as the National Debt of England. For four years our new Lord Abbot never went abroad but Jew creditors ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... floor before her, ascending slowly upward, as if driven aloft by some invisible force. A sharp shock of the sense of the supernatural deprives her of ordered reason. Throwing forward her arms, and uttering a shrill scream, she rushes towards the door. But she never reaches it: midway she falls prostrate over some object, and knows no more; and when, an hour later, she is borne out of the room in the arms of Randolph himself, the blood is dripping from a fracture of ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... admission of one, creeping along somewhat tardily with satchel on back, and "shining morning face." What a sudden burst of sound was emitted—what harmonious discord—what a commixture of all the tones in the vocal gamut, from the shrill treble to the deep under-hum! A chord was touched which vibrated in unison; boyish days and school recollections crowded upon me; pleasures long vanished; feelings long stifled; and friendships—aye, everlasting friendships—cut asunder by ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... notes, soft notes and shrill notes, all travel at the same rate. If bass notes traveled faster or slower than soprano notes, or if the delicate tones of the violin traveled faster or slower than the tones of a drum, music would be practically impossible, ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark
... It was a shrill yell, and it traveled fast. Coburn jerked his head upright from the hood of the car. A whiskered villager with flapping trousers came pounding up the single street. His eyes were panic-stricken and his mouth ...
— The Invaders • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... skirts. She brushed back her matted hair from her swollen face and clasping her hands over her knees, she filled the small dark room with a sharp ringing laugh. It was something horrible to hear—a voice once so soft and plaintive, now grating out shrill accents in ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... devoted himself to playing the organ at the Elevation, what an organ! A false, screaming instrument, which had no wind except for the purpose of being out of tune. Nevertheless, YOUR LITTLE ONE [votre petit] made the most of it. He took the least shrill stops, and played Les Astres, not in a proud and enthusiastic style as Nourrit used to sing it, but in a plaintive and soft style, like the far-off echo from another world. Two, at the most three, were there who deeply felt this, and ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... setting forth of the benefits and dangers attendant upon passing the bill, there was an unusual and solemn silence. Dr. Gillett says if the bill had been promptly put to vote it would probably have been passed, but the churchlike silence was broken by a shrill voice piping forth, "Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, what shall we sing?" The laughter which followed broke the orator's charm and sealed the ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.
... to transport these most important questions of his time, away from the shrill contact with contemporary disputes, into the harmonious domain of the Muses. He, and his friends and patrons, did not look upon the subjects discussed in this tragedy with the passionless, indifferent eyes of our century. Many men, no doubt, ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... the light couldst see, Sorrows laid up and stor'd for thee; Thou suck'dst in woes, and the breasts lent Their milk to thee but to lament; Thy portion here was grief, thy years Distill'd no other rain but tears, Tears without noise, but—understood— As loud and shrill as any blood. Thou seem'st a rosebud born in snow, A flower of purpose sprung to bow To headless tempests, and the rage Of an incensed, stormy age. Others, ere their afflictions grow, Are tim'd and season'd for the blow, But thine, as rheums the tend'rest part, Fell on a young and ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... mother! cease thy wailings drear; 25 Ye babes! the unconscious sob forego; Or let full Gratitude now prompt the tear Which erst did Sorrow force to flow. Unkindly cold and tempest shrill In Life's morn oft the traveller chill, 30 But soon his path the sun of Love shall warm; And each glad scene ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Escape from Heaven, the beauty that goes with thee. Here is an insolence! Hast thou not wonder'd, Vashti, what gave thee into such a love, That in the brain of me, the chosen king, It is so loud, so insolent, thy love? O this shrill ...
— Emblems Of Love • Lascelles Abercrombie
... Isis! If I had told them right out directly why we came, I suppose that their virtue would have made as much noise as a bronze shield under the blow of a club. And I did not dare to tell! Wilt thou believe, Vinicius, I did not dare! Peacocks are beautiful birds, but they have too shrill a cry. I feared an outburst. But I must praise thy choice. A real 'rosy-fingered Aurora.' And knowest thou what she reminded me of too?—Spring! not our spring in Italy, where an apple-tree merely puts forth a blossom here and there, and olive groves grow ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... the wooden thuds of rockers. Street after street he could recall, from the square about the "depot" to the outskirts, and through them all the dusty heat, the rockers, gigglers, the rustle of a shirt-sleeved father's newspaper, and the shrill coo-ees of the younger children. Finally, the piano—for he looked back farther than the all-conquering phonograph. He heard "Nita, Juanita;" he heard ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... belonged naturally enough objected, and collected a number of men who linked themselves together with ropes and surrounded the field. The horse took no notice but continued browsing. The ring gradually contracted on him. Kynaston saw the proceeding from his eyrie, and uttered a shrill whistle. At once the gallant steed pricked up his ears, snorted, ran, leaped clean over the head of a man, and scrambled up the stair in the cliff, to his master's shelter. On another occasion a ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... the last shrill exclamation, broken only by the hoarse rushing of the waters, whose wild, continuous roar, booming hollowly and dismally in the ear, might be heard at a great distance over all the country. But a new sensation soon invaded the multitude; for after the lapse of about half a minute, ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... a vast crowd flocked to the gates to welcome him. So great a concourse had not assembled to greet the emperor himself. The excitement was intense, and from the midst of the throng a shrill and plaintive voice chanted a funeral dirge, as a warning to Luther of the fate that awaited him. "God will be my defense," said he, as he ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... for silence. The hush was instantaneous. Then as she held the goblet high aloft, her clear, shrill voice rang out in the ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... [17] sails in his gold canoe, The spirits [18] walk in the realms of air With their glowing faces and flaming hair, And the shrill, chill winds o'er the prairies blow. In the Tee [19] of the Council the Virgins light The Virgin-fire [20] for the feast to-night; For the Sons of Heyka will celebrate The sacred dance to the giant great. ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... was too late to save her victim, deceitfully raised a shrill scream, that attracted the attention of the people in the large boat, which was immediately rowed in the direction of ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... wore on in peace, until midnight, when a low chattering, like that of a squirrel, was heard in the valley below; while a shrill whistling, resembling that ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... where he, a young lieutenant, is leading a little column of white-coats through a forest defile in America. The Indian scouts suddenly come gliding in, the fire of an enemy is heard, little spots of smoke burst on the mountain side and dissolve again. Shrill yells resound on every hand, brown arms brandish flashes of brightness. The young commander rises to the emergency. His white-coats are rapidly placed in position behind trees, ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... swept down from a bluff above us, on the Georgia side, a mingling of shout and roar and rattle as of a tornado let loose; and as a storm of bullets came pelting against the sides of the vessel, and through a window, there went up a shrill answering shout from our own men. It took but an instant for me to reach the gun-deck. After all my efforts the men had swarmed once more from below, and already, crowding at both ends of the boat, were loading and firing with inconceivable rapidity, ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... the poor slave yet cowers! Call off the bloodhounds! Men, can ye rest in peace While the cursed lash sounds? Woman's shrill shrieks and wails Quick conquest urges; Bleeding and scourged and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... where the great woods deepen, and the gloomy shadows lie darkly all through the long afternoons, a small party of hideously painted savages skulked silently in ambush. Suddenly to their strained ears was borne the sound of horses' hoofs; and then, all at once, a woman's voice rang out in a single shrill, startled cry. ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... boulders are all strung out along the arroyo? It's there. Brocky and a lot of cowboys are making a stand there, heading off the Kid and del Rio. So they can't get with the others, you know. . . . Why didn't somebody tell me about this?" he broke off, his voice shrill. "I haven't a rifle, just a cursed revolver. Who ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... to the ground, and there never was agitation like that of this poor lad, as he saw the blood in my hair. He thought he had killed me. He threw himself upon me, and clasped me eagerly in his arms, while his tears poured down his cheeks, and he uttered shrill cries. I returned his embrace with all my force, weeping like him, in a state of confused emotion which was not without a kind of sweetness. Then he tried to stop the blood which kept flowing, and seeing that our two handkerchiefs ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... the lark ne'er floats To this region of sunless cloud; Nor hath eagle bird the silence stir'd, With his screaming, shrill and loud. ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... murmur from the grandstand. Buster snorted and turned. Without moving, Judith gave a shrill whistle. Buster wheeled and came back to his first position, where he stood trembling. On came Sioux, his hoofs rocking the echoes, and with every apparent intention of goring his mistress. But ten feet from Judith he pulled up with a jerk and with stiffened ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... as he leaped through the window. She saw him take the slope of the roof with one stride; she heard the thud of his feet on the ground below. Then a yell from without, shrill and ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... more roots, and gave his mother some, and then, as he was moving to another part of the jungle, there suddenly sounded through the forest a loud, shrill cry. ...
— Umboo, the Elephant • Howard R. Garis
... a pause, then came a shrill piping over the wire, startled and inquiring. Scanlon saw the ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... was a battered little barn in the depths of Chelsea, with the usual dull scent of stale paint and staler tobacco, and very little else; it was quite devoid of the ordinary artistic trappings. From the window shrill cries were heard from the ragged children, who fought and played in the gutter of a sordid street. Woodville ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... papa let down the glass and looked out upon the rabble with his droll formidable face, bitter and smiling, as they said he sometimes looked when he gave sentence, Archie was for the moment too much amazed to be alarmed, but he had scarce got his mother by herself before his shrill voice was raised demanding an explanation: why had they called papa ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the roof," said Marcella, patiently mopping. It was three o'clock: the shrill hum of mosquitoes made them afraid to put out the light, since they had no mosquito nets. After a while they stood by the window watching the water running along the street as high as the ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... entered the court-room. Vinet was alone. This contrast struck the minds of those present. The lawyer, who still wore his robe, turned his cold face to the judge, settled his spectacles on his pallid green eyes, and then in a shrill, persistent voice he stated that two strangers had forced themselves at night into the Rogron domicile and had abducted therefrom the minor Lorrain. The legal rights were with the guardian, who now demanded the ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... they were in the middle of a skirmish as to the reality of influence, Madame de Netteville paradoxically maintaining that no human being had ever really converted, transformed, or convinced another, the voice of young Wishart, shrill and tremulous, rose above the general level ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... shrill screams, bursting suddenly from the throat of the chained form, seemed to thrust me violently back. For a brief moment I hesitated— I trembled. Unsheathing my rapier, I began to grope with it about the recess; ...
— The Raven • Edgar Allan Poe
... to her feet again and shouted, inarticulately and gladly through her tears. She could see him. It was Gardley. He was riding fast toward her, and he shot three shots into the air above him as he rode, and three shrill blasts of his whistle rang out on the still ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... guitar is in all South America what the bag-pipes are to Scotland-the national musical instrument of the people. The Criollo plays mostly plaintive, broken airs—now so low as to be almost inaudible, then high and shrill. Here and there he accompanies the music with snatches of song, telling of an exploit or describing the dark eyes of some lovely maiden. The airs strike one as being very strange, and decidedly unlike the rolling ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... my hands," she began in a shrill voice, "an' he's as much as I can 'tend to, an' a long sight mo' than I care to 'tend to. He never had the spunk to fight anythin' except his wife, but I reckon he's better off now than them that had; it's the coward that gets the best ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... the unrecognized, the white-eyed vireo, or flycatcher, deserves particular mention. The song of this bird is not particularly sweet and soft; on the contrary, it is a little hard and shrill, like that of the indigo-bird or oriole; but for brightness, volubility, execution, and power of imitation, he is unsurpassed by any of our northern birds. His ordinary note is forcible and emphatic, but, as ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... heard a shrill, jubilant shout. A boy of eight or ten years was running along the ridge as fast as he could go. Outlined against the sky, he reminded me of silhouettes I had seen in Paris shops, of children dancing, the ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... landing upon the island the solemn tolling of the great bell at St. James, and as he paused for an instant to listen, peal upon peal followed the first until its brazen thunder rolled in one long booming echo through the forests of the Mormon kingdom. There came a shrill cry at his back and he whirled about to see the councilor standing in the center of the big room, his arms outstretched, his face lifted as it had been raised in prayer at the tolling of that same bell the night before—but ...
— The Courage of Captain Plum • James Oliver Curwood
... one of the saleswomen hands you up a check and some ribbon you must measure the ribbon carefully to see that the firm is not being cheated," she explained in a shrill voice, "and if one of the girls makes a mistake report it ...
— For Gold or Soul? - The Story of a Great Department Store • Lurana W. Sheldon
... thou traitor knave!" cried the Friar. "Then, marry, look to thyself!" So saying, he straightway clapped the hawk's whistle to his lips and blew a blast that was both loud and shrill. And now there came a crackling of the bushes that lined the other side of the road, and presently forth from the covert burst four great, shaggy hounds. "At 'em, Sweet Lips! At 'em, Bell Throat! At 'em, Beauty! At 'em, Fangs!" cried the Friar, ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... luggage," said Anna-Rose, turning to Mr. Sack on getting inside the room, her voice gone a little shrill in her determined cheerfulness. "Can it ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... little dwarf going about with a heavy basket, winding in and out among the people, helps not a little. You can hear his shrill cry above all the other sounds, "Pypen en tabac! Pypen ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... when he has most need of quiet; instead of her being under covert-baron, to be under covert-femme myself; to have my body disabled, and my head fortified; and, lastly, to be crowded into a narrow box with a shrill treble, That with one blast through the whole house does bound, And first taught speaking-trumpets how to ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... within the shelter of the storm door waiting to be let in, the voices of the young Sheltons reached him, all talking at once in voluble excitement, and then a hand was laid on the inside knob and advice offered in a shrill treble. ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... Winds whistle shrill, Icy and chill, Little care we; Little we fear Weather without, Sheltered ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various
... standpoint has been unjustly described as "clashing cymbals, twanging guitars, harsh flageolets, and shrill flutes, ear-splitting and headache-producing to the foreigner." Such general condemnation shows deplorable ignorance.[2] The writer had apparently never attended an official service in honor of Confucius, held biennially during the whole of the Ching dynasty at 3 A.M. ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... of the absence of bird voices,—so silent the fields and groves and orchards were, compared with what she had been used to at home. The most noticeable midsummer sound everywhere was the shrill, brassy ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... voiceless, their voices differ in volume. Some are organs that fill the air with glorious and continuous music; some are trumpets blowing a ringing peal, then sinking into silence; some are harps of melancholy but faint vibration; still others are flutes and pipes, whose sweet or shrill note has a dying fall. Some are heard as the wind or sea is heard; some like the rustle of leaves; some like the chirp of birds. Some are heard long and far away; others across the field; others hardly across the street. Fame is perhaps but the term of a longer or shorter ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... evening. There were examination papers to be gone over, and experience had demonstrated that the only place where she could be free from interruptions was the schoolroom itself. At the perfect boarding house the shrill tones of Keturah's voice and those of Miss Phinney and Mrs. Tripp penetrated through shut doors. It is hard to figure percentages when the most intimate details of Bayport's family life are being recited and gloated over on the other side of a thin partition. And when Matilda undertook to ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... suddenly, as a scream pealed through the moat-house—a wild shrill cry, which, coming from somewhere overhead, seemed to fill the dining-room with the shuddering, despairing intensity of its appeal. It was the shriek ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... behind in this literal race for life, starving and weak, and getting daily weaker because it could not run fast enough to insist on being fed, again and again ran off pursuing with the rest. Again and again it stumbled and fell, persistently whining out its hunger in a shrill and melancholy pipe, till at last the race was given up. Forced thus by sheer exhaustion to stop and rest, it had no chance of getting food. Each hurrying parent with its little following of hungry chicks, intent on one thing only, rushed quickly ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... the brightness of his glory reached up to the high heaven. Into his shrine he hastened, and on the altar he kindled the undying fire, and his bright arrows were hurled abroad, till all Krisa was filled with the blaze of his lightnings, so that fear came upon all, and the cries of the women rose shrill on the sultry air. Then, swift as a thought of the heart, he hastened back to the ship; but his form was now the form of a man in his beauty, and his golden locks flowed over his broad shoulders. From the shore he called out to the men in the Cretan ship, and said "Who ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... resounded with the shrill little cries of swallow babies, who alighted on the low trees on the border while their busy parents skimmed over the bay, or the marshy shore, and every few minutes brought food to their clamorous offspring. I had a remarkably ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... hue overspread the country; the thunder yet roared in distant peals, and the lightning came down in such vast sheets that the carriers were often obliged to set down their burden, and cover their eyes to regain their sight. A shrill wind pierced the slight covering of the litter, and blowing it aside, discovered the mist; or the gleaming of some wandering water, as it glided away over ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... the last of its solo performance. It persevered with undiminished ardour; but the Cricket took first fiddle, and kept it. Good Heaven, how it chirped! Its shrill, sharp, piercing voice resounded through the house, and seemed to twinkle in the outer darkness like a star. There was an indescribable little trill and tremble in it at its loudest, which suggested its being carried off its legs, ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... for his own. The voice of Thor resounds again on high, While arm'd Valkyries ride from out the sky: The Gods of Asgard all their pow'rs release To rouse the dullard from his dream of peace. Awake! ye hypocrites, and deign to scan The actions of your "brotherhood of Man." Could your shrill pipings in the race impair The warlike impulse put by Nature there? Where now the gentle maxims of the school, The cant of preachers, and the Golden Rule? What feeble word or doctrine now can stay The tribe whose fathers own'd Valhalla's sway? Too long restrain'd, the bloody tempest breaks, And ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... said Madame Bernier, with a shrill kind of laugh. 'A man who owed you a grudge of this kind would just come up and stab you, I suppose, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... thou hard of heart: They who go forth to battle, are led on With sprightly trumpets and shrill clam'rous clarions! The drum doth roll its double notes along, Echoing the horses' tramp; and the sweet fife Runs through the yielding air in dulcet measure, That makes the heart leap in its case of steel; Thou—shalt be knell'd unto thy death by bells, Pond'rous and brazen-tongued, whose sullen ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 538 - 17 Mar 1832 • Various
... for Eustace to come back to the office. He heard Mrs. Burke's voice sounding shrill outside, but not clear enough for him to distinguish what she was saying. Then the buggy started and drove ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... time in their neighbors' houses, chatting, joking, bantering one another with witticisms, sharp, broad, and in no sense delicate, yet always taken in good part. Every village had its adepts in these wordy tournaments, while the shrill laugh of young squaws, untaught to blush, echoed each hardy ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... orders!" cried Nelson, snatching it up and fumbling with it in his awkward, one-handed attempt to break the seals. Lady Hamilton ran to his assistance, but no sooner had she glanced at the paper inclosed than she burst into a shrill scream, and throwing up her hands and her eyes, she sank backwards in a swoon. I could not but observe, however, that her fall was very carefully executed, and that she was fortunate enough, in spite of her insensibility, ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... shrink and his voice grew shrill and wild. It was too much for Blenkiron. He indulged in a torrent of blasphemy such as I believe had ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... sometimes ride him, but most of my outings are on the electric cars. I might as well be on them, since I have to hear their buzz and clang both day and night from our rooms here in the hotel. The other morning, as I was returning from a ride across the river to Council Bluffs, I heard the shrill notes of a calliope that reminded me that Forepaugh's circus was to be in town that day, and that I had promised to go to the afternoon performance with a party of friends. But soon there were other sounds and other thoughts. Above ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... their arms and whispers: and every one is in love with her, and she has the greatest success. So I can't think, Mamma, why you have always told me never to do any of these things, when you want me to be a success so much. Her voice is dreadfully shrill, and such an odd pronunciation, but no one seems to mind that. I rather like her, she is so jolly but some of the women of the party won't speak to her, except to say disagreeable things. Jane Roose is here, she has been here since she left Nazeby (Violet is at the ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... people dancing upon the fair green holm became 'ware of Harold's presence, and were afeared, so that, ceasing from their sport, they made haste down to the shore and did on the skins and dived into the waters with shrill cries. But there was one of them that could not do so, because Harold bore off that skin wherewith she was wont to begird herself, and when she found it not she wailed and wept and besought Harold to give her that skin again,—and, lo! it was Eleanor, the ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... the village, to guard it from any act of treachery or violence on the part of their malicious rivals, who, it was now evident, were still lurking in the neighborhood; and, while Mooanam was selecting his party, and arranging his plans, a clear shrill voice was heard from the margin of the lake, crying, 'The canoes! the canoes! ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... Room held a caged comrade; for, when it was too cold or wet to open the windows, the doves came and tapped at the pane, the chippies sat on the ledge in plump little bunches as if she were their sunshine, the jays called her in their shrill voices to ring the dinner-bell, and the robins tilted on the spruce boughs where lunch was always to ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... Shrill cries arose in every quarter. Not a single scout now but who was wide-awake, and endeavoring to pull on his clothes in haste. That former experience had at least taught them a lesson; and much confusion ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... came the shrill sound of the whistle. The Col. Phillips—the last boat for the night—was giving out its warning. The Chautauqua bells began their parting peal. Not even for his own convenience would that marvel of punctuality have the bells tarry a ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... figures so habited and accoutred, as at once moved the most severe countenance to mirth, and the most cheerful heart to sadness; it seemed impossible that such messengers could bring less than a defiance. The men, without any circumstance of duty or good manners, in a pert, shrill, undismayed accent, said that they brought an answer from the godly city of Gloucester; and extremely ready were they, according to the historian, to give insolent and seditious replies to any question; as if their business ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... Irma's shrill crescendos and octave-leaps, assisted by her peculiar attitudes of strangulation, came out well in this scene. The murmurs concerning the sour privileges to be granted by a Lazzeruola were inaudible. But there ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... were wide awake again, for just in the darkest part, where the trees met together across the road, a shrill clear whistle rang out, which made all draw rein and listen to the sound of horses' hoofs clattering upon the hard road they had ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn
... one of Tulipa's friends. Hearing a mocking-bird in the garden, she went to the window and taxed his powers to the utmost, by running up and down difficult roulades, interspersed with the talk of parrots, the shrill fanfare of trumpets, and the deep growl of a contra-fagotto. The bird produced a grotesque fantasia in his efforts to imitate her. The peacock, as he strutted up and down the piazza, trailing his gorgeous plumage in the sunshine, ever and anon turned his glossy neck, and ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... a Chinaman sitting with two others in a little low room separated by translucent paper windows from a noisy street of shrill-voiced people. The three had been talking of the ultimatum that Japan had sent that day to China, claiming a priority in many matters over European influences they were by no means sure whether it was a wrong or a benefit ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... dogs or children!" Mary Rose's voice was shrill with astonishment and her eyes were as big as saucers. "Why, everybody has children! They always have had. Don't you remember, even Adam and Eve? In Mifflin everyone ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... about this, and, the lady of the house having appointed herself time-keeper and having promised to have a large tea ready for us when we returned, I was sent on my way with a bag of paper and many shrill shouts ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 7, 1914 • Various
... running after. She did not seem to be watching the hill, while she was apparently absorbed in dodging Josef, but Johnny gathered from her gestures that the man was still coming and that he was making for the cabin. He was wondering what she meant by suddenly sinking to the ground in shrill laughter, when he heard a step behind him. He whirled, startled, his hand jerking back ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... have made some real advance in art, even he played only on one pipe or one trumpet. Hyagnis was the first to separate his hands when he played, the first to fill two pipes with one breath, the first to finger stops with either hand and make sweet harmony of shrill treble and booming bass. Marsyas was his son, and though he possessed his father's skill upon the pipe, he was in all else a barbarous Phrygian, with a filthy beard and the grim and shaggy face of ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... the dense, sweet fume Of nutty, acrid scent like poison stealing Through his hot blood; the bristling yellow glare Spiking his eyes with fire, till he went reeling, Stifled and blinded, on—and did not care Though he were taken—wandering round and round, 'Jerusalem the Golden' quavering shrill, Changing his tune to 'Tommy Tiddler's Ground': Till, just a lost child on that dazzling hill, Bewildered in a glittering golden maze Of stinging scented fire, he dropped, quite done, A shrivelling wisp within a world ablaze Beneath a blinding ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... night of the opera he gave me permission to accompany him; the music was by Lulli. I had a seat in the pit precisely under the private box of Madame de Pompadour, whom I did not know. During the first scene the celebrated Le Maur gave a scream so shrill and so unexpected that I thought she had gone mad. I burst into a genuine laugh, not supposing that any one could possibly find fault with it. But a knight of the Order of the Holy Ghost, who was near the Marquise de Pompadour, dryly asked ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... the yots had a loud shrill whistle, some a little, fine clear one; then one would belch out low and deep some like thunder. And anon our steamer thundered forth its own deep belchin' whistle, and turned round graceful and backed off, and puffed, puffed back agin down ...
— Samantha at Coney Island - and a Thousand Other Islands • Marietta Holley
... black predominated in the dresses of those present, and set off very finely the gleaming jewels and gemmed sword-hilts which were worn by the more important personages. The room was spacious and lofty, hung with arras, and lit by candles burning in silver sconces; it rang as we entered with the shrill screaming of a parrot, which was being teased by a group occupying the farther of the two hearths. Near them play was going on at one table, and primero at a second. In a corner were three or four ladies, in a circle about a red-faced, plebeian-looking man, who was playing at forfeits ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... charm in conversation, as in the lecture-room. It was never loud, never shrill, but singularly penetrating. He was apt to hesitate in the course of a sentence, so as to be sure of the exact word he wanted; picking his way through his vocabulary, to get at the best expression of his thought, as a well-dressed woman crosses the muddy pavement to reach ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... a pretty cottage on the outskirts of Creston, a small town with elm-shaded streets. The professor invited the boys to accompany him into the house. They were met in the passage by a shrill-voiced woman who looked like ...
— The Boy Inventors' Radio Telephone • Richard Bonner
... speak, Mabel. I never observed your voice so shrill before,' exclaimed the lady, lifting up her two delicate hands as if to ward off a disagreeable sound. 'Upon my word I think we are all getting cross. When I told the General how much better I should like you,—that is, how much better I did like you than that pretty thing with the blue eyes, he ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... sat listening, George gripped me suddenly by the arm, declaring in a shrill whisper that something had come among the clump of trees upon the left-hand bank. Of the truth of this, I had immediately a proof; for I caught the sound of a continuous rustling among them, and then a nearer note of growling, as though a wild beast purred at my elbow. ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... piazzas on which no one lounges, are timid advances made to a climate whose churlishness we are trying to temper by an ostentation of confidence. Ridiculous as this spectacle is at all seasons, it is never more so than in that bleak interval between sunset and dark, when the shrill scream of the factory whistle seems to have concentrated all the hard, unsympathetic quality of the climate into one vocal expression. Add to this the appearance of one or two pedestrians, manifestly too late for their dinners, and tasting in the shrewish air a bitter ...
— Urban Sketches • Bret Harte
... by a shrill cry in the hall, and then the thud of naked feet on the stairway. "I want my boy—my boy!" wailed ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... love lose doing of its kind Even to the uttermost?" So saying, Buddh Silently laid aside sandals and staff, His sacred thread, turban, and cloth, and came Forth from behind the milk-bush on the sand, Saying, "Ho! mother, here is meat for thee!" Whereat the perishing beast yelped hoarse and shrill, Sprang from her cubs, and, hurling to the earth That willing victim, had her feast of him With all the crooked daggers of her claws Rending his flesh, and all her yellow fangs Bathed in his blood: the great cat's burning ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold
... laughed at the homely looking bird, and cried to one another and to the surrounding blades of corn in a shrill voice, "Now, indeed, you may see what comes of flying so high, and striving and straining after mere air; people only lose their time, and bring back nothing but weary wings and an empty stomach. That vulgar-looking ill-dressed little creature would fain raise herself ...
— Peter Schlemihl etc. • Chamisso et. al.
... a grandma to home!" cried another shrill voice. "She makes splendid mittens! She makes ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... away! there are dead men all around us — Frozen men that mock us with a wild, hard laugh That shrieks and sinks and whimpers in the shrill November rushes, And the long ...
— The Children of the Night • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... shoulders rounded, arched down upon his chest; and over them his head was warped, and a scanty stubble sprouted on it. Hateful was he to Achilles above all and to Odysseus, for them he was wont to revile. But now with shrill shout he poured forth his upbraidings upon goodly Agamemnon. With him the Achaians were sore vexed and had indignation in their souls. But he with loud shout spake and reviled Agamemnon: "Atreides, for what art thou now ill content and lacking? Surely thy huts are full of bronze and many ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... Rollo and his shaggy Northmen cover not the Seine with ships; but have sailed off on a longer voyage. The hair of Towhead (Tete d'etoupes) now needs no combing; Iron-cutter (Taillefer) cannot cut a cobweb; shrill Fredegonda, shrill Brunhilda have had out their hot life-scold, and lie silent, their hot life-frenzy cooled. Neither from that black Tower de Nesle descends now darkling the doomed gallant, in his sack, to the Seine waters; plunging into Night: for Dame de Nesle how cares not for this world's ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... the dark forest high in air and then volplane to the little pond where, in the heavily massed bushes, their nests were thickly clustered. With vivid distinctness he imitated the cackling notes of the {150} old birds as they settled on their nests, and the shrill cries of the little ones, as on unsteady legs they ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... father bewailed his loss. "Everything goes ag'in me," said he, "everything—she's dead and, worse than all, died by her own hand." Then, as if void of reason, he arose, and over the craggy hillside and down the dark, rolling river echoed the loud, shrill cry of, "Julia, Julia, oh, my child! Come back, come back! Why was you left to break your old father's heart?" And to that wail of sorrow only the moaning wind replied, and faster the waters of the ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... left!" again came the shrill feminine appeals, and with them, approaching, unwelcome, unheeded footfalls. With sudden, impulsive movement she threw her arms about his neck and upraised her lips to his. One moment of silence, two seconds of bliss, then "Dad" Ennis's voice, barely a dozen yards away: "Come forth into the ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... the burgher, sitting here In his walled rose-garden, hears the clear Shrill scream of ...
— Myth and Romance - Being a Book of Verses • Madison Cawein
... everywhere. The hot nights were noisy with swarming troops of dishevelled women and youths with red-stained limbs and faces, carrying their lighted torches over the vine-clad hills, or rushing down the streets, to the horror of timid watchers, towards the cool spaces by the river. A shrill music, a laughter at all things, was everywhere. And the new spirit repaired even to church to take part in the novel offices of the Feast of Fools. Heads flung back in ecstasy—the morning sleep among the vines, ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Horatio Pater
... of angels, one is apt to hear the rustling of their wings," added Rose, as a shrill whistle came up the avenue accompanied by ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... slender foot into it, evidently prepared to draw back hastily in case of too low temperature, but tempted, when she found the water warm, she gently thrust the whole foot in, and then, gathering her skirt daintily up to her knees, actually stepped into the water, wading with little shrill screams of delight. ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... many others to drown any such puzzling statement with their shrill clamor that Katy really did do it (whatever it was!) that nobody paid much attention to those ...
— The Tale of Kiddie Katydid • Arthur Scott Bailey
... the bells in the valley where the old vicarage used to stand. Steel vaguely wondered who now lived in the house where he was born. He was staring in the most absent way at his telephone, utterly unconscious of the shrill impatience of the little voice. He saw the quick pulsation of the striker and he came back ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... simultaneously to drown the cries of the victims. The eight-stringed scheminiths, the kinnors which had ten strings, and the nebals which had twelve, grated, whistled, and thundered. Enormous leathern bags, bristling with pipes, made a shrill clashing noise; the tabourines, beaten with all the players' might, resounded with heavy, rapid blows; and, in spite of the fury of the clarions, the ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... her feet, or the earth yawned beneath her, not more pale or transfixed would Caroline have stood than she did as those unexpected words fell clear and shrill as a trumpet-blast upon her tortured ear. Amid all her conjectures as to the meaning of Percy's words, this idea had never crossed her mind; that Alphingham could thus have deliberately been seeking her ruin, under the guise ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... was the sound of voices talking and laughing, and the click of the heavy latch of the gate. Then through the open windows came the deep burr burr of Jem's bass, and the shrill inquiring tones of Sally Wimble, as ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... bugle to his mouth, And blew so loud and shrill, The trees in greenwood shook thereat, Sae loud ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... the sunshine by the wide mouth of the Green River, as the chart named the brook whose level stream scarce moved into the lake. A streak of blue shot up it between the banks, and a shrill pipe came back as the kingfisher hastened away. By the huge boulder of sarsen, whose shoulder projected but a few inches—in stormy times a dangerous rock to mariners—and then into the unknown narrow seas between the endless ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... the top of her shrill little voice, executing a war-dance of defiance to the tune, and concluding ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... moods, there lies in him a singular attraction. A wild tone pervades the whole utterance of the man, like its keynote and regulator; now screwing itself aloft as into the Song of Spirits, or else the shrill mockery of Fiends; now sinking in cadences, not without melodious heartiness, though sometimes abrupt enough, into the common pitch, when we hear it only as a monotonous hum; of which hum the true character is extremely difficult to fix. Up to this ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... moment Nic had grasped the fact that it was no bird-call; for the black's face was puckered up, his eyes nearly closed as his mouth opened, and he repeated the cry in a wild, shrill, ringing tone twice more, and then his mouth shut with an audible snap, and he remained perfectly still again, ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... A shrill cry parted from her lips, and to the clapping of her hands slaves entered the cell with lamps, and instruments to strike off the fetters from the Chief; and they released him, and Ruark leaned on their shoulders ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... table, sipping coffee. The servants, Grigory and Smerdyakov, were standing by. Both the gentlemen and the servants seemed in singularly good spirits. Fyodor Pavlovitch was roaring with laughter. Before he entered the room, Alyosha heard the shrill laugh he knew so well, and could tell from the sound of it that his father had only reached the good-humored stage, and was far from ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... strolling about in evening clothes, hatless, the women in white opera cloaks and filmy gowns, their silk-stockinged feet very much in evidence, resembling almost some strange kind of tropical birds with their little shrill laughter and graceful movements, as they made their way towards the Club or round to the Rooms, or to one of the restaurants for supper. Whilst Hunterleys hesitated, there was a touch upon ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... on the drum, cymbal and one-stringed fiddle. There were the actors apparelled in the gorgeous costumes of old Cathay strutting mechanically through their parts, the female impersonators squeaking in shrill falsetto and putting in a lot of subtle fan-work. And there was the ubiquitous property-man drifting in and out among the performers, setting his fantastic house in order. We were actually within a mile of the Vimy Ridge, but we might have been away on the sunny side of Suez, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 16, 1919 • Various
... they were but mere particles of time, if one can use such an expression, in which my senses could catch anything beyond the horrid scene in which I was so closely engaged, I had heard shrill screams from the lungs of Chloe; but Lucy's voice had not mingled in the outcry. Even now, as we were raised, or aided, to the deck, the former stood, with her face glistening with tears, half convulsed with terror and half expanding with delight, uncertain whether to ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... it is enough to be accused, to be sure of a flogging. The very presence of this man Gore was{95} painful, and I shunned him as I would have shunned a rattlesnake. His piercing, black eyes, and sharp, shrill voice, ever awakened sensations of terror among the slaves. For so young a man (I describe him as he was, twenty-five or thirty years ago) Mr. Gore was singularly reserved and grave in the presence of slaves. He indulged in no jokes, said no funny things, and kept his own counsels. ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... of a deer sent Tarzan into the trees, and when he had dropped his noose about the animal's neck he called to Sheeta, using a purr similar to that which he had utilized to pacify the brute's suspicions earlier in the day, but a trifle louder and more shrill. ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... of a tall tree, the happiest bird of Spring; the dozy, drowsy hum of bees; the answering call of lusty young chanticleers, and the satisfied cackle of laying hens and motherly old biddies, surrounded by broods of downy, greedy little newly-hatched chicks. The shrill whistle of a distant locomotive startles one with its clear, resonant intonation, which on a less quiet day would pass unnoticed. Mary, with the zest of youth, enjoyed to the full the change from the past months of confinement in a city school, and missed nothing of the beauty of the country ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... seems to have been while our Lord was passing from the earlier to the later examination before the rulers. In the very floodtide of Peter's oaths, the shrill cock-crow is heard, and at the sound the half-finished denial sticks in his throat. At the same moment he sees Jesus led past him, and that look, so full of love, reproof, and pardon, brought him back to loyalty, and saved him from despair. The assurance ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... slamming the swinging door so sharply that it sprang open again after him. As the old portress put back the outer doors leading into the street, that her young master might go forth, a shadow quick as thought slipped out after him. The old portress clapped her hands with a shrill command but ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... lever controlling the gas and yanked it toward him. There was a shrill hissing sound, and a second later the Mermaid began to sink. The boys watching the gages on the wall of the tower, saw that the craft was ...
— Five Thousand Miles Underground • Roy Rockwood
... will of the sinner yielded an answer; But from his lips there broke a cry of unspeakable anguish, Wild and fierce and shrill, as if some demon within him Rent his soul with the ultimate pangs of fiendish possession, And with the outstretched arms of bewildered imploring toward them, Death-white unto the people he turned his face from ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... whistle of the bos'n cut into his speech, and the crew rolled forward over the hatch with a single shout that might have come from one throat except for its shrill volume. ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... eve Joel Baker was in a most unhappy mood. He was lonesome and miserable; the chimes making merry Christmas music outside disturbed rather than soothed him, the jingle of the sleigh-bells fretted him, and the shrill whistling of the wind around the corners of the house and up and down the chimney seemed to grate harshly ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... indeed sound as if it were escorting a hapless creature to a fearful end. Blast after blast rang out from the trumpets, filling the air with festive defiance; cheerful bridal songs came nearer and nearer to the listeners, the shrill chorus of boys and maidens sounding above the deeper and stronger chant of youths and men of all ages; flutes piped a gay invitation to gladness; the dull roar of drums muttered like the distant ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... by the stove dandling grandchild, bald under its cap. Each was highly entertained with the other. Grandpapa was sandy with grandboy's gingerbread-crumbs. The intervening ages were well represented by wiry men and shrill women. The house, also, without being tavern or shop, was an amateur bazaar of vivers and goods. Anything one was likely to want could be had there,—even a melodeon and those inevitable Patent-Office Reports. Here we descended, lunched, and providently bought a general assortment, namely, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... Deputy. 'Where did yer think 'Er Royal Highness is a-goin' to to-morrow morning? Blest if she ain't a- goin' to the KIN-FREE-DER-EL!' He greatly prolongs the word in his ecstasy, and smites his leg, and doubles himself up in a fit of shrill laughter. ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... came from I had no idea. Perhaps I was too confused to judge accurately. It might have come from the house, or from the slopes beyond the house, But it was a sort of shrill, choking laugh, and it set the ultimate touch of horror upon a scene macabre which, even as I write of it, seems unreal ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... And the shrill voices wound on and on, and, at last, detaching themselves one by one from the melodic fabric in which they ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... running as fast as they could to help me, a poor wretch, whom they thought would be burned in my bed. It was not one or two only who came—they all came. I heard them coming; but I also heard all at once the shrill whistle, the loud roar of the wind. I heard it thunder like the report of a cannon. The springtide lifted the ice, and suddenly it broke asunder; but the crowd had reached the embankment, where the sparks ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... When, hoarse and shrill, the trumpet's blast, Like the thunder of God, makes our hearts beat fast, Thou in the theatre lov'st to appear, Where trills ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... to myself in darkness, in great pain, bound hand and foot, and deafened by many unfamiliar noises. There sounded in my ears a roaring of water as of a huge mill-dam, the thrashing of heavy sprays, the thundering of the sails, and the shrill cries of seamen. The whole world now heaved giddily up, and now rushed giddily downward; and so sick and hurt was I in body, and my mind so much confounded, that it took me a long while, chasing my thoughts up and down, ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... move, and appeared to have expired. In his last struggle, he had wounded the black serpent with his teeth, as it was striving, as it were, to force its head into his mouth, which wound Footnote: seemed to increase its rage. At this instant I heard the shrill sound of a whistle, and looking towards the door saw the other Arab applying a call to his mouth: the serpents listened to the music, their fury seemed to forsake them by degrees, they disengaged themselves leisurely from the apparently lifeless carcase, and creeping towards ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... by, and to strike a hole or obstruction is to be transformed into a human sky-rocket, and, later on, into a new arrival in another world. A wild yell of warning at a blue- bloused peasant in the road ahead, shrill screams of dismay from several females at a cluster of cottages, greet the ear as you sweep past like a whirlwind, and the next moment reach the bottom at a rate of speed that would make the engineer ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... Mr. Hubble remark that "a bit of savory pork pie would lay atop of anything you could mention, and do no harm," and I heard Joe say, "You shall have some, Pip." I have never been absolutely certain whether I uttered a shrill yell of terror, merely in spirit, or in the bodily hearing of the company. I felt that I could bear no more, and that I must run away. I released the leg of the table, and ran ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... twins comes out in a shrill treble, "why is Tillie Kronborg always talking about a ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... the loud, shrill crowing of a cock startled Peter; and at the same time he saw Jesus, who was being dragged through the hall from Annas to the council-room of Caiphas, the other high-priest. And the Lord turned as he was passing and ...
— The Wonder Book of Bible Stories • Compiled by Logan Marshall
... audience with rapt delight. When the song was finished the sobs and cheers that burst from the soldier-hearts formed an encore not to be denied, and again that battle-cry thrilled out upon the air. The moment of silence that followed was broken by the high, shrill, quavering, penetrating note of the ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... the 24th of March, being the eve of the annunciation of our Lady, a Moor appeared early in the morning on the shore, abreast of the ships, calling out in a loud and shrill voice, "that if our men wanted any more water they might now come for it, when they would find such as were ready to force their return." Irritated at this bravado, and remembering the injury done him in withholding the promised pilot, and the loss of the Negro, the general resolved to batter ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... of trees covered with blossoms, the soil overgrown with the softest and greenest grass, extending for many miles around, and echoing with the sweet notes of winged warblers. And it resounded with the notes of the male Kokila and of the shrill cicala. And it was full of magnificent trees with outstretched branches forming a shady canopy overhead. And the bees hovered over flowery creepers all around. And there were beautiful bowers in every place. And there was no tree without fruits, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... something being near, he awoke suddenly, to find that all was dark and so still that, setting down his feelings to imagination, he sank back, with a sigh, and was dropping off to sleep again when from far away out in the desert there was the shrill neigh of a horse, and he started up again, to hear the challenge answered from where the Baggara horses and camels ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... of interest may be seen and heard at almost every hour of the day. The morning is ushered in with the shrill reveille, which means awake and arise. This is well executed by our bugle-corps, which Captain Duffie has organized, and is drilling thoroughly. All our movements are now ordered by the bugle. By its blast we are called to our breakfast, dinner and supper. Roll-call is sounded twice a day, ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... so impassioned, so heedless of all save my mimic sorrow and the swing of the purple lines, that I could not bring myself to modify my voice, and the passers-by heard my shrill tones vibrating with: ...
— Painted Windows • Elia W. Peattie
... third voice, loud and shrill, but instinct with the thrill of command, took up the words. It was the Admiral, and his third "Vive the Galley!" ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... obtained on the seashore and framed into wind instruments called quiquiztli and tecciztli, whose hoarse notes could be heard for long distances, and whistles of wood, bone and earthenware added their shrill notes to the noise of the chanting of the singers. The shell of the tortoise, ayotl, dried and suspended, was beaten in unison ...
— Ancient Nahuatl Poetry - Brinton's Library of Aboriginal American Literature Number VII. • Daniel G. Brinton
... ruffled the feelings of the party until suddenly there came shrill and piercing screams from an upper room in which the infant Kenwigs was enshrined, guarded by a small girl hired for the purpose. Rushing to the door, Mrs. Kenwigs began to wring her hands and shriek dismally, amid which cries, and the wails ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... little he heard the shrill creaking of a sledge on the crust outside and then a man's voice. The sounds stopped close to the cabin and were followed by a knock ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood
... the "Cameron's gathering" rose! The war-note of Lochiel, which Albyn's hills Have heard—and heard, too, have her Saxon foes:— How in the noon of night that pibroch thrills, Savage and shrill! But with the breath which fills Their mountain-pipe, so fill the mountaineers With the fierce native daring, which instils The stirring memory of a thousand years: And Evan's, Donald's fame ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... ancient and Indian Lorette, over the Little River Road, at present so well built up and echoing to the shrill whistle of the Q. M. O. & O. Railway, until a few years back was a lone thoroughfare, beyond the toll-bar, lined with bare, open meadows. Here, also, has been felt ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... trials the heart of this little fair man, with shrill voice, rapid step, and quick eye, was ever an overflowing well of joy and praise. He seemed to live in the very heart of God, walked hand-in-hand with Jesus Christ, and was continually wrapped in the flames of holiest love. It is said ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... to learn bed-making, and I have to leave home at six-thirty. That means an early dumping for sister Jane, who goes to English School. We always used to call her Jennie, but now she's Jane," and Mary mocked the plain American title with a shrill rising inflection. ...
— The Girl Scout Pioneers - or Winning the First B. C. • Lillian C Garis
... memory made the day more dark and dreary as she went more slowly up the beaten path, pausing once beneath a chestnut tree and leaning her throbbing head against the shaggy bark as she heard in the distance the shrill whistle of the downward train from Albany, and thought, as she always did when she heard that whistle, "Oh, if that heralded Mark's return, how happy I should be." But many a sound like that had echoed across the Silverton hills, bringing no hope to her, and now, as it again died away in the ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... position, he heard a shrill voice cry out, "They are getting in behind!" and a movement in cottage. The man near him, who had his pistol in his hand, put his arm through the window and fired inside. A shriek was given, and Edward fired his gun into ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... side of her chin, where curled a few hairs so much like the color of the skin that they could hardly be seen. She was tall, with a well-developed chest and supple waist. Her clear voice sometimes sounded too shrill, but her merry laugh made everyone around her feel happy. She had a way of frequently putting both hands to her forehead, as though to smooth ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... treasure safe in my possession, I should have been superlatively happy. I cooked all the potatoes I thought would be required for dinner, even giving Miss Collingsby credit for an unfashionably good appetite. The tea-kettle was boiling, and I was just going to fill up the coffee-pot, when a shrill scream startled me, and dissolved the spell which the delights of my occupation had ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic
... of voices just then, as I wrote, many voices, coming nearer, shrill women's voices, cutting through one's thoughts, and I went out to see ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... elephants with towers on their backs that we read about in books of travel. When she walked, clinging painfully to the furniture, all her flesh shook and her ornaments jangled like old iron. With it all a very shrill little voice and a beautiful red face which a little negro boy kept fanning all the time with a fan of white feathers as big as ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... of Old Man Gale's store, the two talked on till they were disturbed by the sound of shrill voices approaching, at which the man looked up. Coming down the trail from the town was a squaw and two children. At sight of Necia the little ones shouted gleefully and scampered forward, climbing over her like half-grown puppies. They were boy and ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... time into the tenderest of cradle songs that emerged in turn, by an intricate series of harmonic byways, into the trio from Faust and leaped, as a climax at a single bound, to the Rakoczy March—the shrill war march of Hungary, the rhythm of which stirs the blood and made men fight up hill with forty clarionets in line in the days when the Magyar took all before him—a march that brought the blood to Alice Thayor's cheeks and diffused a lazy brilliancy ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... image on its polished panels, as she lifted and let fall the heavy silver knocker, in the middle of an oval silver plate, around the edges of which were raised the square letters of the name "Darrington." The clanging sound startled a peacock, strutting among the verbena beds, and his shrill scream was answered by the deep hoarse bark of some invisible dog; then the heavy door swung open, and a gray-headed negro man, who wore a white linen apron over his black clothes, and held a waiter in ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... a shrill whistle, and a man stepped out of a doorway. He was an enormous Sicilian, tall, sinewy and with a countenance as dark and fierce as his master's. In his belt was a long knife, such as is ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne |
