"Shrill" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... gentleman to be seen doing," Lena went on, with a voice growing shrill like her mother's. "To play nursemaid to a dirty little street brat!" She had said things like this to him before, but always with that little smile and naughty-child air. Now, for the first time she forgot the smile, and this small omission made an astonishing ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... some day. Presently, there were not only voices in the stream beside him but all around him as well, in the trees, and the flowers, and the grass, and the air; and they were not the pretty little voices of the fairies which he knew so well, but they were the harsh, shrill, unpleasant voices of unpleasant people, who must have spent their lives in chattering about things that did not concern them. Then the voices came closer and closer to him, and buzzed up round his head, and shrieked ...
— All the Way to Fairyland - Fairy Stories • Evelyn Sharp
... She ceased; shrill ecstasies of joy declare The favouring goddess present to the prayer; The suitors heard, and deem'd the mirthful voice A signal of her hymeneal choice; Whilst one most ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... peep, a shrill little piping noise like the fiddle of a cricket. Ten seconds later it came again: peep. Thereafter, intermittently, it keened through the control room—a homely, comforting sound to let them know that there was a distant thread between them ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst
... By the stream rolling, Hour after hour went on Tolling and tolling. Long was the darkness, Lonely and stilly. Shrill came the night ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... country squire, straight from his cow-sheds and his hunting dogs; a young blond German giant, 32 years old, in the very prime of his massive strength and endurance; plentiful hair cropped short, ruddy face, blond beard, bright blue eyes, big fists; high, shrill voice, strangely out of keeping with his physical bulk. For years afterward, this peculiar voice became the stock in trade of newspaper writers. However, it was what ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... eyes and I laid down the book. The bridge party was going home. I could hear them shouting good-bys in the front hall and my wife's shrill voice answering Good night! From outside came the toot of horns and the whir of the motors as they drew up at the curb. One by one the doors slammed, the glass rattled and they thundered off. The noise got on my nerves and, taking ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... hunter reply. He strode on and on and they watched him climbing up and up the mountainside till he was lost to view. At last he gained the rim of the nest and looked in. The old birds were away, but the fierce young eagles greeted him with shrill cries and fiery, flashing eyes. The hunter's heart was full of anger and he quickly bent his bow, loosing the war arrows one after another till the last one of the hateful birds lay ...
— A Treasury of Eskimo Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss
... for one was excluded from the enjoyment of 'A Feast of Reason,' such as Mr. Cumberland has described, with a keen, yet just and delicate pen, in his Observer. These minute inconveniences gave not the least disturbance to Johnson. He nobly said, when I talked to him of the feeble, though shrill outcry which had been raised, 'Sir, I considered myself as entrusted with a certain portion of truth. I have given my opinion sincerely; let them shew where ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... at the Bush Terminal at Brooklyn," explained Tom. "Look out there; don't get in the way of the ropes," and he pushed the crowd back from the imaginary ropes, and whistled a shrill call on ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith
... A shrill bell, pealing gaily through the wood, summoned them to luncheon; a fairy banquet spread upon the grass under a charmed circle of beeches; chicken-pies and lobster-salads, mayonaise of salmon and daintily-glazed cutlets in paper frills, ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... Alas! to me It speaks of far-off days, When a boyish skater mingling free Amid the merry maze. Methinks I see the broad ice still; And my nerves all jangling feel, Blent with the tones of voices shrill, The ring of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... will give it the tongues of certain birds to eat. A North American Indian thought that brandy must be a decoction of hearts and tongues, "because," said he, "after drinking it I fear nothing, and I talk wonderfully." In Java there is a tiny earthworm which now and then utters a shrill sound like that of the alarum of a small clock. Hence when a public dancing girl has screamed herself hoarse in the exercise of her calling, the leader of the troop makes her eat some of these worms, in the belief that thus she will regain her voice and will, after swallowing ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... ablaze with fires; while the unending procession of black dots that flitted past them, together with the echo of constant uproar, showed that the savages were likewise astir in eager preparation for the morrow. We could hear the pounding of wooden drums, mingled with shrill yells that split the night-air like so many war-missiles. Only those above, upon the platform, could mind these things; for the bustle within the enclosure below continued unabated until long ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... march again, through a splendid forest kept clear of dead wood by the peasants. It abounded with game. The shrill cry of the pheasants, the rustle of the partridges in the underbrush, the bark of the fox, all rose to the ears of the trespassers. The smell of warm earth permeated the air, and the sky was merging from silver ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... Brother together, in tones so respectively shrill and deep that Catherine had to cram her fist into her mouth to ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... inscription: "Rozella Ford's Book. For being the second speller in the second class." At once the imagination calls up the exercises in a village school at the end of a year's session: a row of prim little maids and sturdy boys, standing before the school dame and by turn spelling in shrill tones words of three to five syllables, until only two, Rozella and a better speller, remain unconfused by Dilworth's and Webster's word mysteries. Then the two children step forward with bow and curtsey to receive their tiny gilt prizes from a pile of duodecimos ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... edge," said Jack Penny suddenly. "This is the way;" and stepping aside he took about a dozen steps and then the undergrowth closed behind him for the moment, but as we parted it to follow him we caught sight of his tall form again and then lost it, for he uttered a shrill ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... had called in low comedy and rant to please the foolish, only to find herself infected and degraded by their company. Moreover, the bustle of incident, the abrupt changes from grave to gay and to grave again, jangled her sad majestic harmonies with shrill interrupting discords. It had not been so in Greece. It had not been so even in Italy, where Roman Seneca, fearing the least decline to a lower plane of dignity and impressiveness, had disciplined tragedy by an imposition ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... Deppingham?" Without waiting for an answer he dashed off. His lordship observing that his wife had disappeared, followed Browne to the balustrade, overlooking the upper terrace. The native carriers were leaving the grounds, when Britt's shrill whistle brought them to a standstill. No word of the ensuing conversation reached the ears of the two white men on the balcony, but the pantomime was ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... It shook those standing to the floor, and the silence that followed was changed to a bedlam by the inhuman shrieking of the creatures who were gloating over their safety and the capture they had achieved. They leaped and capered in a maniacal outburst and ceased only at the shrill order of one ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... be 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 ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... raising them in the air, he handed them to the priests, who then stationed them, unlighted, before the Buddha images. Meantime, the temple resounded with the blended strains of three musicians, one of whom struck a metal ball, the other scraped a stringed instrument, and the third educed shrill notes from a ...
— The Story of Ida Pfeiffer - and Her Travels in Many Lands • Anonymous
... A shrill cry of awful terror interrupted the words, and Mr. Carlyle made one bound out again. Barbara followed; the least she thought was that Wilson had dropped ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... 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
... servitors of this not very dependable looking witch-woman. The average person would have recollected distastefully that unusual panther and that discomfortable night-porter and the madness which had smitten Duke Asmund's men, and the clattering vicious little hoofs of the shrill dwarfs; and to the average person this room would have seemed a desirable place to be many leagues ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... now that I've had me fill," declared Jimmie, getting to his feet to step over to the boat; but he had not gone five paces than Jack heard him give a shrill yell, as though he had stepped on a rattlesnake or been jumped on by some hungry wildcat that had been concealed among the dense branches of the live oak tree under which ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... cried a shrill voice, just as he thought he had succeeded; and poor Dick, who, an hour ago, had almost forgotten he was a new boy, had to endure a storm of laughter, and look as much at his ease as he could, while all Templeton mounted on chairs, and stretched its necks ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... 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
... was with reviving essence Sprinkled, and she awakened from her swoon. Anger and grief convulsed her still; she cast A lightning glance upon the guilty menial, And thrice with languid voice she called her pet, Who rushed to her embrace and seemed to invoke Vengeance with her shrill tenor. And revenge Thou hadst, fair poodle, darling of the Graces. The guilty menial trembled, and with eyes Downcast received his doom. Naught him availed His twenty years' desert; naught him availed His zeal in secret services; for him In vain were prayer ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... agone, when wildly shrill The wind sat singing on this bough, The churchyard on the neighboring hill Had not so many graves as now. When the May-morn, with hand of light, The clouds above her bosom drew, And o'er the blue, cold steeps of night Went treading out ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... became a well-known figure in the public life of New York. He usually wore a broad-brimmed, soft white hat and a light-colored overcoat, and his appearance, although always spotlessly neat, was characterized by a certain disorderliness which instantly attracted attention. He had a shrill, high-keyed voice; he was irascible in temper, and was never the "philosopher" which those who least knew him credited him with being. In an angry letter published in his own newspaper he referred to the editor of The ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... excess already kindled, make my lord scornfully call Sir Philip by the name of puppy. In which progress of heat, as the tempest grew more and more vehement within, so did their hearts breathe out their perturbations in a more loud and shrill accent;" and so on; but the impending duel was the next day forbidden by express command of her Majesty. Sidney, not feeling the full force of the royal homily upon the necessity of great deference from gentlemen to their superiors in rank, in order ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... however, Frank stepped to his window, softly raised the screen, and looked out. As he did so he was startled by a shrill cry from the room below him. It was Paul's voice, and the mysterious lad ...
— Frank and Andy Afloat - The Cave on the Island • Vance Barnum
... they had reached Wood-street, and keeping in the shade, reconnoitred the house. But though Wyvil clapped his hands, blew a shrill whistle, and made other signals, no answer was returned, nor was a light seen at any of the upper windows. On the contrary, all was still and ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... A long, shrill cry now rang through the silence and the darkness. Washington jumped up suddenly, ran out of the tent, and uttered a cry in response so similar that it might pass for an echo of the first. Then, returning, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... A shrill piercing scream, like the cry of a tortured soul, rang out of the forest, rising clear and trembling above the tolling of the bell and the ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... seen a body of cavalry who had slept there all night, scattered promiscuously on the bare ground, wrapped in their long cloaks. They were so numerous that the earth was hidden by them. Then, at the shrill summons of a trumpet call, all had risen to their feet, silent, draped in the folds of those long mantles, and in such serried, close array that she involuntarily thought of the graves of a battlefield opening ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... passionately, imploringly, his arm outstretched toward his broken regiment. The lull in the firing made a moment of strange quiet, broken only by groans and the hard, gasping curses of men locked in the death-grip. Therefore the shrill young voice carried far, as ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... for no more castle-building, for a startled robin flew away with a shrill chirp, and Christie ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... changed from ages past; there is no longer the mighty "shock of arms," the pomp and panoply of glorious war. Men fall to the shrill whisper of a bullet, the sound of which has not time to reach their ears, fired by an invisible foe. Their death is merely the quod erat demonstrandum of a mathematical and mechanical proposition. But with bow and arrow, spear or battle-axe, Mauser or Lee-Metford, the ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch
... him in the evening, as a rule, when Margot had been carried away to bed by the hard-featured old woman who had succeeded Mrs. Bullen in the superintendence of his household; for the child, with her sweet, shrill voice and her infantile chatter, had come to seem to him far more even than Oswyn, about whom there would always lurk something shadowy and unreal, a last link with the living; when the tide was nearly out, so that the stillness was not even broken by the long, lugubrious syren of a passing ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... cried the old man, with shrill scorn. "Never wore a shako in my life. I am a guardsman, I am. Served in the Third Guards—the same they call now the Scots Guards. Lordy, but they have all marched away—every man of them—from old Colonel Byng down to the drummer boys, and ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... on to a servant in black, who introduced him into a drawing room, where he found himself face to face with a Briton coiled up in an attitude which made him resemble Hamlet mediating on human nothingness. Schaunard was about to explain the reason of his presence, when a sudden volley of shrill cries cut short his speech. These horrid and ear piercing sounds proceeded from a parrot hung out on the balcony of the ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... stranger had been deputed to take vengeance upon her for all her other victims? And if this was revenge, then worse things yet were in store for her. The tinkle of the horses' bells cut through the rumbling of the wheels; the sharp, shrill sound struck upon her like a cry of anguish, and in her terror she was ready to risk everything in a leap from the carriage. But no sooner did she relax her hold of her companion, than the latter rolled over in a senseless heap, ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson
... inscrutable look. He made no effort to open the door for her. He simply stood listening to her departing footsteps, listened to the shrill summons of the lift-bell, listened to the lift itself go clanging downwards. Then he resumed his seat at his desk. With his hands clasped nervously together, an ink smear upon his cheek, his mouth slightly open, disclosing his irregular and ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... where Philomel had placed it,—Dru began to hum. "You've pitched it too shaller," whispered the other girl, and quickly Dru hummed a lower register until her companion caught the pitch; then the two sang loud and shrill: ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... two nights after this conversation that I woke out of deep sleep and heard sounds of screaming. The voice was really horrible, breaking the peace and silence with its shrill clamour. In less than ten seconds I was half dressed and out of my tent. The screaming had stopped abruptly, but I knew the general direction, and ran as fast as the darkness would allow over to the women's quarters, and on getting close I heard sounds of suppressed ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... man there myself—one that had been reputed and taken for very good, and who, as far as the folk perceived, was of his own living somewhat austere and sharp. But his preaching was wonderful! Methinketh I hear him yet, his voice so loud and shrill, his learning less than mean. But whereas his matter was much part against fasting and all affliction for any penance, which he called men's inventions, he ever cried out upon them to keep well the laws ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... 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 ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... seen a town before composed entirely of brick and iron. A town of work; a town in which the shrill scream of the steam train as it rolled solemnly up the incline seemed to be man's cry ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... girls who made a noisy and irreverent lark of the expedition. And, for their part, they did not appreciate the benefit of being accompanied by a poet and a philosopher. They neither understood nor valued his special knowledge and his shrewd observations: they didn't even like his shrill voice; his quaint talk bored them. It was true that, at this period, Phelps had lost something of the activity of his youth; and the habit of contemplative sitting on a log and talking increased with the infirmities induced ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... elves, in shrill chorus. They clustered together, as if in consultation; then straight out of the window they flew like a swarm of gauzy-winged bees, and melted into the moonlight. Toinette jumped up and ran to watch them but ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... Chateaubriand testifies (The Congress, etc., 1838, i. 262). At the council, when affairs of state were being discussed, the king "would say in his clear shrill voice, 'I am going to make you laugh, M. de Chateaubriand.' The other ministers fumed with impatience, but Chateaubriand laughed, not as a courtier, but as a ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... young this year," said Bartholomew Berg. His voice sounded bigger, and smoother, and pleasanter than ever in contrast with that other's shrill tone. "I prefer 'em young, myself. You'll never catch McChesney using 'in the last analysis' to drive home an argument. He has a new idea about every nineteen minutes, and every other one's a good one, and every nineteenth or so's an inspiration." The Old Man laughed ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber
... was simple in content and devoid of imaginative passages; his delivery was conspicuously defective; his voice, uneven in quality, now low, now breaking into a shrill note, seemed to come forth only at the bidding of a tremendous will. Every word appeared to necessitate an effort and to be ground out between clenched teeth. Yet his listeners hung on every word with breathless attention. His smile broke ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... screeched in the tall, white oaks; wood-peckers hammered in the dead hard-woods, and crows cawed overhead. Squirrels chattered everywhere. Ruffed grouse rose with great bustle and a whirr, flitting like brown flakes through the leaves. From far above came the shrill cry of a hawk, followed by the ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... give orators a guide in modulating their voices when addressing an assembly: thus Caius Gracchus always on such occasions had a slave behind him, whose duty it was to aid him to commence his orations in a proper pitch, and when his voice sank too low, or became too shrill, to call him to a better intonation by the sounds ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... where the gnarled boughs made a natural arm-chair, and the Hermit propped his back against a rock and smoked a short black pipe with an air of perfect enjoyment. It was just hot enough to make one drowsy. Bees droned lazily, and from some shady gully the shrill note of a cricket came faintly to the ear. Only Billy had stolen down to the creek, to tempt the fish once more. They heard the dull "plunk" of his sinker as he flung it ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... a kiss or two, confess, What doth cause this pensiveness, Thou most lovely neat-herdess? Why so lonely on the hill? Why thy pipe by thee so still, That erewhile was heard so shrill? Tell me, do thy kine now fail To full fill the milking-pail? Say, what is't ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... songsters whose acquaintance I claim is the White-Eyed Flycatcher. He seems to have been listened to by unappreciative ears, for I know no one who has made especial mention of him. His song 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 fluency, volubility, execution, and power of imitation, he is unsurpassed (and in the last-named particular unequalled) by any of our Northern birds. His ordinary ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... however. Ellen's sleep was much too deep to be easily disturbed. The tea-bell itself, loud and shrill as it was, did not even make her eyelids tremble. After Mrs. and Miss Dunscombe were gone down, Timmins employed herself a little while in putting all things about the room to rights; and then sat down to take her rest, dividing her attention between the fire and Ellen, towards whom she ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... head was even with the lower branches, three warriors holding her while two others extended her arms and fixed them to two stout limbs. What the fastenings were Thurstane could guess from the fact that he saw blows given, and heard the long shrill scream of a woman in uttermost agony. Then there was more hammering around the sufferer's feet, and more shrill wailing. She was spiked through the palms and the ankles to the tree. It ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... were now returning to their homes. Untaught by dear bought experience, they marched along heedless of the dangers which surrounded them—disregardful of the advantages offered to their cunning foes by the rocks and thickly wooded eminences around them. Suddenly the shrill war-whoop burst from the rocks at their feet, and many armed Indians sprang up before them. An arrow pierced the breast of the aged priest, and he fell dead in front of his band. Two Indians met their death at the hands of their foes, the remainder sought the forest. Several of the ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... blazing up shed their ruddy glow over the dark forest, and lighted up the picturesque figures of the men employed around them. Suddenly the roll of a drum was heard, then a discharge of musketry, and then shrill wind instruments, and shrieks and cries resounded wildly through the forest. The fires burned up brighter than ever, and an entire line of flame extended round the whole opposite to where we sat away from the corral. Near the corral all was profound ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... they reached the woods, when they began weeping and crying out, the women especially shrieking in shrill tones, the sounds, although they were three-quarters of a mile off, reaching to ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... laugh so loud, so shrill, so unearthly, that it echoed like a death-howl along the walls; then stretched out and looked on his ill-formed limbs, extended his long and grappling fingers, and muttered bitterly, "Curse!—curse!—curses on myself! I am a dainty morsel for a fair girl's love! Ah! ah! ah! a ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... themselves on the white-pink skin like quickly ripened flowers. Drops of blood, large like bilberries, splattered into the air, which had already quenched its thirst on the evening coolness, on the odour of the foliage and the aroma of artificial scents. Delicately shrill, loud sobs were the accompaniment to the dull, flat lashings ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... the receipt of the news, Vincent, who had ridden over to the plantations of several of his friends to talk the matter over, was returning homeward, when he heard the sound of heavy blows with a whip, and loud curses, and a moment later a shrill scream in a woman's voice rose ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... was here suddenly interrupted by the signal for assault, which was given by the blast of a shrill bugle, and at once answered by a flourish of the Norman trumpets from the battlements, which, mingled with the deep and hollow clang of the nakers, (a species of kettle-drum,) retorted in notes of defiance the challenge ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... into a strange contortion, Spurge emitted from his puckered lips a queer cry—a cry as of some trapped animal—so shrill and realistic that his ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... coming to an end; a stream of long-coated spectators sets towards the town, mingled with the parti-coloured, muddied figures of the players. I have been strolling half the afternoon along the river bank, watching the boats passing up and down; hearing the shrill cries of coxes, the measured plash of oars, the rhythmical rattle of rowlocks, intermingled at intervals with the harsh grinding of the chain-ferries. Five-and-twenty years ago I was rowing here myself in one ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... our forward flight whistled past my ears; Miela's directions to the girls rose shrill above it. I caught a glimpse of the darting lights of the boat ahead. Then, when we were hardly more than six hundred feet away, Mercer's light picked it up. I saw the little lurid red circle it made as it struck the boat's ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings
... one side, and on the other was the shadow of the woods all riven with great golden rifts of sunshine. A little faint talk of waves upon the beach; the wild strange crying of seagulls over the sea; and the hoarse wood-pigeons and shrill, sweet robins full of their autumn love-making among the trees, made up a delectable concerto of peaceful noises. I spent the whole afternoon among these sights and sounds with Simpson. And we came home from Queensferry on the outside of the coach ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Milly admitted penitently. "But he has such a funny voice." She imitated amusingly the shrill falsetto of the said Clarence Parker. "And he's so solemn about ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... known how 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, were filled ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... after us and caught us up after a mile's jog-trot. The good people of Amiens, who had not so very long before been delivered from the Germans, were exceedingly affectionate, and threw us fruit, flowers, and kisses. Those under military age shrieked at the top of their shrill little trebles— ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... Contemptuous of their assailants, the hunters betrayed their whereabouts with shouts. The female accepted the challenge and climbed heavily up the slope toward them, the boy trailing her and aping her cries with shrill shouts. ...
— B. C. 30,000 • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... identified. They must be the heads of the English sailor and Lilly Lalee. They appeared to be equally objects of attraction to the gulls, that alternately flew from one to the other, or kept hovering above them,—and continuously uttering their shrill, wild screams,—now more distinctly heard by little William, clinging high up on the mast of ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... as he looked down in her eyes that he was looking into great fear; she was so slight and frail and helpless and so old; such a fragile thing to bear burden and trouble. Her voice was cracked and just above a shrill whisper, ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... upwards of ten days for her departure. Surveying parties, immigrants of almost every nation on their way to make homes in the great North West, crowded the decks and gangways. The confusion of tongues, the shrill cries of the frightened and tired children, the oaths of excited men, and the trundling and thumping of the baggage, mingled with the shrieks of adjacent engines "made night hideous." Porters and cabmen jostled women ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... sometimes through cultivated fields, at others through strips of forest, when we suddenly heard the long shrill cry that is the native signal of danger. This was from a Bari watchman, who, more awake than those by whom we must have passed unobserved, now gave the alarm. This cry was immediately repeated in ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... hand at each panel, with the torpedoes poised viciously in the tubes, when he heard Donna's shout, shrill with excitement, ...
— This World Must Die! • Horace Brown Fyfe
... down the glade, but here again JOHN sold him; He caught the Demon round the waist, and at the Prompter bowled him. Ah! such a shindy ne'er was seen, such riot and such rage— It was the finest "rally" ever seen on any stage! 'Mid shrieks and cat-calls, whistles shrill, hysterics and guffaws, They rang the Curtain down amidst uproarious applause. The piece is still a great success; but, I regret to say, JOHN's name appears no longer in the bills of that ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 17, 1891 • Various
... imperfectly over the nautical blue flannel of his shirt, got up from where he had been sitting, on one side of the stove, and stood infirmly on his feet, in token of receiving the visitor. The woman who sat on the other side did not rise, but began a shrill, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... suddenly laughed and shrill, anon Sighed all as suddenly. Said Balin to her 'Is this thy courtesy—to mock me, ha? Hence, for I will not with thee.' Again she sighed 'Pardon, sweet lord! we maidens often laugh When sick at heart, when rather we should weep. I knew thee wronged. I brake ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... shrill tones of an affrighted voice were heard calling out, "Marie! Marie! my child!" and the figure of Frau Wengelin, with outstretched arms, was now seen at the window, whence the mother and daughter had watched the return ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... than even the pride and cruelty which they were want to exhibit in war, that the great capital was suddenly startled by a voice of warning in the streets—a voice which sounded everywhere, through corridor, and lane, and square, bazaar and caravanserai, one shrill monotonous cry—"Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown." A strange wild man, clothed in a rough garment of skin, moving from place to place, announced to the inhabitants their doom. None knew who he was or whence he had come; none had ever ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... heavily upon the pike-pole, shifting more and more uneasily from one tired foot to the other. He had turned at last to go and set a light in answer to the one which was calling insistently to him from the blackness before the Judge's place when the shrill squeal of complaining axles drifted up to him from far down ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... later they always stopped running, stopped laughing, and remembered why they were wandering the wood alone. Then they would call for Helma. Ivra's voice was shrill and sweet, and rang through the bare woods like a birdsong. Eric's wavered a little uncertainly, as though he doubted whether Helma knew it well enough to answer. "Helma, Helma, ...
— The Little House in the Fairy Wood • Ethel Cook Eliot
... in the fray, in shrill excitement] False! He did not steal me—I went to him unasked. You who call yourself my mother, how dare you traduce me so, you who bore me! I fled from you to save my life—to escape your tortures, you killed my love. I am Lassalle's, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... tried," he says to the doctor, speaking in a kind of shrill sing-song that cut your nerves in that room full of bottled-up excitement like a locust on a hot day. "You are to be tried before this self-constituted court of Caucasian citizens—Anglo-Saxons, sir, every man of them, whose forbears were at Runnymede! The ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... and the magnificence of his contempt for law. Whether for good or bad, he is comparatively a poor creature. He has developed an uneasy conscience, and even whilst affecting to defy the law, trembles at the thought of an approaching retribution. His boasts have a shrill, querulous note in them. His creator does not fully sympathise with his passion. Massinger cannot throw himself into the situation; and is anxious to dwell upon the obvious moral considerations which prove such characters to be decidedly inconvenient members of society for their tamer neighbours. ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... little rooms were frequented by the most talented of the denizens of Bohemia—literary, theatrical, and artistic. One day, in the early 'Forties, the proprietor, to his amazement, heard one of his oysters whistling—a continuous shrill little whistle, doubtless through a hole in its shell. The fact was at once noised abroad, and crowds visited his shop to listen to the sibilant mollusc, which not only whistled, but, it was said with some truth, drew the town as effectively as old Drury herself, on ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... hat, and we exchanged a smile. Then he resolutely dropped his eyes and resumed the descent. From time to time I had glimpses of parts of his figure as he passed story after story. Then I heard his tread on the tessellated pavement of the main hall, the distant clatter of double doors, and a shrill cab-whistle. ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... about, and none of us need care. There they are. As a matter of fact, both England and America are mottled with varying accents literate and illiterate; equally true it is that each nation has its notion of the other's way of speaking—we're known by our shrill nasal twang, they by their broad vowels and hesitation; and quite as true is it that not all Americans and not all English do in their enunciation conform ...
— A Straight Deal - or The Ancient Grudge • Owen Wister
... circumstances so touchingly described by him can scarcely be imagined. The thoughts of a veteran who had served his country during many long years of war and strife, must have wandered back to past scenes and by-gone days, while he stood in that solitary wilderness; and when the wild shrill cry of savage grief came floating upon his ears, he must have felt most deeply those strange sensations which ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... "Not guilty!" cried the shrill tones of a girl near the outer door, toward which all eyes, in astonishment and inquiry, were now turned, to see a slight female figure, in the garb of a Sister of Mercy, clinging to the arm of Cloudesley Mornington, and ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... us at the door of the drawing-room, and greeted us most kindly,—a pale, small person, scarcely embodied at all; at any rate, only substantial enough to put forth her slender fingers to be grasped, and to speak with a shrill, yet sweet, tenuity of voice. Really, I do not see how Mr. Browning can suppose that he has an earthly wife any more than an earthly child; both are of the elfin race, and will flit away from him some day when he least thinks of it. She is ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... position under the edge of a Norway spruce, where he would sit for hours dozing, or looking out upon the landscape. When we brought him game, he would advance to meet us with wings slightly lifted, and uttering a shrill cry. Toss him a mouse or sparrow, and he would seize it with one foot and hop off to his cover, where he would bend above it, spread his plumage, look this way and that, uttering all the time the most exultant ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... her strength and, whirling her heavy braided rawhide quirt high above her head, brought it down with the full sweep of her muscular arm. The feel of the blow was good as it landed squarely upon the inflamed brutish face, and the shrill scream of pain that followed, sent a wild thrill of joy to the very heart of the girl. Again, the lash swung high, this time to descend upon the flank of her horse, and before Bethune could recover himself, the frenzied animal shot up the valley, running ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... billows surged, They foamed and murmured, The sun poured down, as in haste, Flickering ripples of rosy light; Long strings of frightened sea-gulls Flutter away shrill screaming; War-horses trample, and shields clash loudly, And far resounds the triumphant ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... from the gallery. There was a party of four brokers grouped together immediately under them, and, as a matter of gravitation, they landed on top of them—on their heads and shoulders. Hats were crushed and a confused mass of humanity scrambled about on the floor. The yelling ceased when the shrill screams from the gallery were heard, and brokers ran forward to help those who had fallen. The pickpocket struck out desperately, trying to shake off Fred. In doing so he hit Broker Bryant in the face. Bryant was a hard hitter himself, ...
— Halsey & Co. - or, The Young Bankers and Speculators • H. K. Shackleford
... with us the same evening en toilette de ville, and we went to the rue de Paris to see Sadi-Jako. The Japanese Minister, who sat in the box next to us, introduced her when she came in during the entr'actes to pay her respects to him. She is very small, and has the high, shrill voice which the Japanese women cultivate. She is the first woman who has ever acted in a Japanese theater. Otherwise the acting has always been done by men. Sadi's husband performs also, and in a dreadfully realistic ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... nearer at hand, and out of the direct dazzle of sunlight, the cage looked innocent enough with its grey inmate swinging solemnly to and fro on its perch, but as the cart swung rapidly past, Mistress Poll evidently felt that it was time to assert herself, and opened her mouth to emit a shrill, raucous cry, at the sound of which the mare bounded ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... of a previously announced dinner-arrival, one of the two servants standing behind a carriage which approached from the direction of Piccadilly, slipped off, and in a twinkling, with a thun-thun-thunder-under-under, thunder-runder-runder, thun-thun-thun! and a shrill thrilling Whir-r-r of the bell, announced the arrival of the Duke of——, the last guest. It was a large and plain carriage, but perfectly well known; and before the door of the house at which it had drawn up had been opened, displaying some four or five servants standing in the hall, in simple ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... there was a like importation of exotic dishes, saffron or anchovy sauces, spices mixed up with Turkish delicacies, chickens with fried almonds, and all this taken together with the banality of the interior, the gilding of the panels, the shrill ringing of the new bells, gave the impression of a table d'hote in some big hotel in Smyrna or Calcutta, or of a luxurious dining-saloon on board a transatlantic liner, the ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... white, ragged cloud. The solitary hill seemed to rise high and higher and all the mountains bowed before it. The spectral cloud resolved itself into a terrible vision which enveloped the central hill. Great Heavens! Again I saw the phantom dog and fancied that I heard shrill screams of "Perro, perro, gringo perro!" A crackling noise, a coming shadow, and forward I fell on my face, ever on the alert, ever ready. An unearthly yell and a great body flew over, fierce claws grazing ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... rapidly increasing to the tones of distant thunder. It is the night express for the North—going at fifty miles an hour. At such a rate of speed it might go right round the world in twenty-one days! While yet distant the whistle is heard, shrill, threatening, and prolonged. Louder and louder; it is nearing the curve now and the earth trembles— the house trembles too, but Gertie's parted lips breathe as softly as before; baby's eyes are as tight and his entire frame as still as when he first fell asleep. Mrs ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... war-cry pealed out loud and shrill from a hundred throats, and the whole then dashed down upon the French column. The leading ranks were cut down, the cannon were for the moment captured, and the Arabs pressed forward with shouts of victory; but the French in front, pressed upon by those behind, could retreat ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... came, and the house was quiet as the grave, sure aneugh the silver whistle sounded as sharp and shrill as if Sir Robert was blowing it, and up gat the twa auld serving-men, and tottered into the room where the dead man lay. Hutcheon saw aneugh at the first glance; for there were torches in the room, which showed him the ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... robusto in the uniform of a naval lieutenant was parading the stage in halos of mauve and green lime-light, and bawling his own praises to a semicircle of females. Gilbart's ear caught and retained but a line or two of their shrill chorus: ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... groceryman was in front of the grocery, bent oyer a box of rutabagas, turning the decayed sides down to make the possible customer think all was not as bad as it might be, when a shrill whistle down the street attracted his attention. He looked in the direction from which it came, and saw the bad boy coming with a suit case in one hand and a sole leather hat box in the other, and the old man went in the store to say a silent prayer, and to lay a hatchet and an ax ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck
... And bending heads proclaim the task commenc'd. Upon his throne with magisterial brow The teacher sits, round casting frowning looks As the low giggle and the shuffling foot Betray the covert jest, or idleness. Oft does he call with deep and pompous voice, The class before him, and shrill chattering tones In pert or blundering answers, break the soft And dreamy hum of study, heretofore Like beehive ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... house, and a moment later she heard Mrs. Clover haranguing him in a shrill voice of impatience little resembling the tone she had ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... sound of my voice he burst out with a shrill cry of welcome. His eyes fastened on me with a ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... old dear," he began, "I have had the greatest luck! I call it nothing short of a fairy tale." He pointed at his neckscarf. Coming near, Trudy bent over and gave way to a shrill scream. A handsome diamond pin reposed in ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... intelligible in small compass. But how the world argued of them then and afterwards, and rang with hot Gazetteer and Diplomatic logic from side to side, no reader will now ever know. A world-tornado extinct, gone:—think of the sounds uttered from human windpipes, shrill with rage some of them, hoarse others with ditto; of the vituperations, execrations, printed and vocal,—grating harsh thunder upon Friedrich and this new course of his. Huge melody of Discords, shrieking, droning, grinding on that topic, through the afflicted Universe ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Seven-Years War: First Campaign—1756-1757. • Thomas Carlyle
... thrown into the kettle, than the water began to hiss and foam, and blaze up in spires of blue sulphureous flame, until finally the kettle burst into a thousand fragments, and the head disappeared up the chimney. Then the phantom beauty, uttering a shrill, dismal scream, melted into air—and the enchantment was dissolved forever. At that moment Prince Violet heard a voice from the skies, as tuneful as the music of the spheres, saying, "Well done, my prince, the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... of the helicopters rose to a shrill hum. The Master switched in the air-pressure system; and far underneath, white fountains of spumy water leaped up about the floats, mingled with sand and mud all churned to frenzy under the bursting energy of the compressed air released through ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... the great church. The gorgeous vaulted roof and long aisles were dim with the early evening; hundreds of worshippers sat around the sides, or kneeled in groups on the broad stone pavements, chanting over their Paternosters and Ave Marias in a shrill, monotonous tone, while the holy image near the entrance was surrounded by persons, many of whom came in the hope of being healed of some disorder under which they suffered. I could not distinctly make out the image, for it was placed back within ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... 'kieth-el-hairack khateer.' The most important person is the 'weled'—boy—Achmet. The most merry, clever, omnipresent little rascal, with an ugly little pug face, a shape like an antique Cupid, liberally displayed, and a skin of dark brown velvet. His voice, shrill and clear, is always heard foremost; he cooks for the crew, he jumps overboard with the rope and gives advice on all occasions, grinds the coffee with the end of a stick in a mortar, which he holds between his feet, and uses the ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... men like the locusts (I. iii. 151) he compares to shrill-voiced creatures. Instruments whose strings are thin and vibrate quickly, easily cut the air, and give an acute sound. Those with thick ones, through the slow movement, have a deep sound. Homer calls the pipe acute—acute ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... still remained fruitless; and Don Luis was the victim of an increasing and irritating restlessness. But, shortly after midnight, a shrill whistle drew all the men to the eastern extremity of the island, at the end of ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... blushing maidens have forgotten their vows, and have become swinish sots; men disheartened because the sweet-faced girls that they thought would give them a home have become vile slatterns, busybodies, shrill- tongued shrews, who banish the very thought of peace and rest, who waste their substance and eat out their hearts with care. Oh, the clouds of earth are not those which sweep across the sun, but those which rise out of unhappy hearts and evil lives. These are the clouds that gather ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... epitome of humanity. Grandmamma, bald under her cap, was seated 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, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... of Antonio, and the three-storied acrobat walked round the ring, Mrs. Bickford recognized Kit, and, pointing with her parasol to the young acrobat, as she half raised herself from her seat, she exclaimed in a shrill voice: "Look, Aaron, there's your boy, all rigged out in ...
— The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus • Horatio Alger Jr.
... whose personal sketches, of the leading invaders form the most valuable part of his book, as less a statesman than a soldier, and more a soldier than a general. His complexion was freckled, his neck slender, his voice feminine and shrill, and his temper equable and uniform. His career in Ireland was limited to seven years in point of time, and his resources were never equal to the task he undertook. Had they been so, or had he not been so jealously counteracted by his suzerain, he might have founded a new Norman dynasty ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... back at tiny Margaret MacLean and see her very clearly as she straightened up in the little iron crib and answered in a shrill, tense voice: "I'm not Thumbkin. I'm a foundling. I don't belong to anybody. I never had any father or mother or nothing, but just a hurt back; they said so. They stood right there—two of them; and one told ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... entirely passed away, that the shrill trumpet was mild in the distance, and the tail of the last horse was hopelessly round the corner, the people who had come out of the church to stare at it, went back again. But one old lady, kneeling on the pavement within, near the door, had seen it all, and had been immensely interested, without ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens |
