"Curdling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the less delightful. They sent out scouts to watch for the approach of an imaginary enemy; they had secret pass-words and signs; they swore (Viking style) by Thor's hammer and by Odin's eye. They talked appalling nonsense to each other with a delicious sentiment of its awful blood-curdling character. It was about noon when they reached the Strandholm saeter, which consisted of three turf-thatched log-cabins or chalets, surrounded by a green inclosure of half a dozen acres. The wide highland plain, eight or ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... mighty Hunger Bacillus stood alone, gloomy and defiant. But he knew his hour had come. "Better death," he shouted, "than the microscope!" and with these words drew his sword and dashed forth into the darkness. There was a yell, followed by the sound of steel beaten against steel, then a blood-curdling ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, 1890.05.10 • Various
... for all that happened; to make real and living the hoarse roll of musketry, the savage cries of desperadoes stripped to the waist and glistening in their sweat; to give echo to the blood-curdling notes of Chinese trumpets; to limn the tall mountains of flames licking sky high. If there is failure in these efforts, it is ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... honorable posts of cooks are busily engaged in basting, tasting, and sending the small urchins after fuel. Some of the women are kneading flour hoe-cakes; others, gathered about a table under a great mulberry tree, are peeling fruit for pies, while now and then they raise their voices with blood-curdling threats to hasten the lagging steps of a little gang, which, looking like a string of black beetles, troop slowly along from the orchard, each holding in the skirt of his solitary garment the small store of fruit which he has not been able to eat. A row of tables spread in the shade stands ready ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... forest came an arrow and struck to the heart Gabriel Baraona. Followed it a wild prolonged cry of many voices, peculiar and curdling to the blood, and fifty—a hundred—a host of naked men painted black with white and red and yellow markings. Guarico did not use bow and arrow, but a Carib cacique knew them, and had so many, and also lances flint or bone-headed, ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... of harmless gentility and fine manners, raised a loud, shrill laugh, ending in a multitude of reverberations like a bell. There was about this unnatural metallic laughter something fairly blood-curdling in its disclosure of overstrained emotion. She laughed and laughed, while the room was silent except for that, and every eye was fixed upon her. Poor, little Estella Griggs, of all that accusing company ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... no more, for when it advanced pieces of sharp shale flew from the windows. To these were added from time to time showers of scalding water. We saw red beads bobbing up and down within. The family of Namgay Doola were aiding their sire. Blood-curdling yells of defiance were the only answer to ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... that every distressing, blood-curdling story told to a child, every superstitious fear instilled into his young life, the mental attitude they bear towards him, the whole treatment they accord him, are making phonographic records in his nature ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... milk it is generally curdled; a fact which leads the inexperienced mother to infer that the child is suffering from acidity; and to counteract the supposed evil magnesia is given again and again. This is a useless and pernicious practice, for curdling or coagulation of the milk always takes place in the stomach, and is produced by the gastric juice, and is so far from being a morbid process, that milk cannot ...
— The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease. • Thomas Bull, M.D.
... assured that their old mistress had heard a thing that was terrifying and boded ill. All felt the blood curdling in their veins. No one at the table raised a bit of food to his mouth, except old ...
— The Treasure • Selma Lagerlof
... seen at a real ball. One could understand it was a pure delight to them, and they felt every note of the music. They treated Octavia and me with the courtesy fit for queens, and some of them told us delightful things of shootings and blood-curdling adventures, and all with a delicious twinkle in the eye, as much as to say, "We are keeping up the character of the place to please you." We did enjoy ourselves. The Senator says this quality of perfect ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... length, she listens to the green air of the lawn, her dreams ripple like water along a vessel's side, the white wake of the past in bubble behind her; and when the life of the landscape is burnt out, and the day in dying seems to have left its soul behind, she stands watching, her thoughts curdling gently, the elliptical flight of the swallows through the gloom, and the flutter of the bats upon ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... leaves much for the imagination, but, speaking from experience, I will say that of all the blood-curdling sounds I ever heard, the worst is the terrific scream of a cannon ball or shell passing close over one's head; especially that kind with a cavity in the base that sucks in air. At least, they sounded that way till I got used to them. As a matter of fact, artillery ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... crossroad, with its protecting pines. If they could but reach that road! Sally was sobbing, and Peggy's own breath came gaspingly. She leaned forward, and in utter desperation tried to call to the horses, but her cries were lost in a series of blood-curdling yells ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... spoke, the sphere, which had been beaming in the centre of the silent square like a mighty white jewel, began to flush with angry red. Redder and redder grew the gleam—a fiery glow which seemed curdling in the interior of the round as though it were filled with flame; redder and redder, until the princess, staring into it, seemed turned against the jet-black night behind, into a form of molten metal. A spasm of terror passed across her as she stared; her limbs stiffened; her frightened ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... stillness. The King jumped and snorted in fright. For an instant Lucy's blood ran cold, for it was a horrible cry. Then she recognized it as the neigh of a horse in agony. She had heard crippled and dying horses utter that long-drawn and blood-curdling neigh. The black horse had not moved, so the sound could not have come from him. Lucy thought Sage King acted more excited than the occasion called for. Then remembering her father's warning, she reined in on top of a little knoll, perhaps a hundred yards ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... a vender of blood curdling noises you're in need of repairs. Listen! I'll sound a much better ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Spies - Dodging the Sharks of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... yellow roses of her dress. Outside there was no world, only a waste of grey and white. Like leaves on a dead bird, the wrappings of white grew deeper over Undern. Hazel shivered in the cold wind off the hill, and saw Undern Pool curdling and thickening in the frost. No sound came across the outspread country. There were no roads near Undern except its own cart track; there were no railways within miles. Nothing moved except the snow-flakes, fulfilling their relentless ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... ambition virtue,"—"The widow sits upon my arm, and the wronged orphan's tear glues it to the scabbard,—it will not be drawn," etc., etc.,—or something of the sort. It was not so much a thrilling as a curdling you felt. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... had something boding and grievous in it. She remembered that Miss Oliver said once, when they were coming home in the darkness and heard a dog howl, "When a dog cries like that the Angel of Death is passing." Rilla listened with a curdling fear at her heart. It was Dog Monday—she felt sure of it. Whose dirge was he howling—to whose spirit was he sending that ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... strangers downstairs were applying torture. Berrington had heard blood-curdling stories of what the Burmese could do in that way. Bad as he was, Sartoris had never lacked pluck and courage, and he was not the man to cry out unless the pain was past endurance. The guttural language returned; it was quite evident that Sartoris was being forced to do something ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... the Indians by a slough. In the morning a deputation of Indians came to ask the meaning of the martial appearance of the whites when all they desired was a council. This suggestion of a council was quickly assented to, but the Indians approached with such a rush and with such blood-curdling yells that the cannon were loaded and the soldiers stood ready to fire. During the council the Winnebagoes refused to move until one small band gave in to the entreaties of the agent and were taken up to Fort Snelling. This was ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen
... cow in the pasture. It had a rail fence around it. I could see what he could not—some Indians sitting in one of the corners of the fence stretching Sioux scalps over withes. When they finished, they got up all at the same time, giving a blood curdling war-whoop. The cow kicked over the milk and fled bellowing. I think that Mr. Hall made even better time and he never ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... the northwest frontier of Massachusetts is fraught with blood-curdling tales of savage invasions against the home-builders and empire-makers of that once troubled boundary between the French of Canada and the English of the New England States, but there is not a more pitiful story than that which has ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... drop in the center. Another frequent cause is the moving of cakes while in the oven before the mixture has set properly. The same defect is produced if the cakes are removed from the oven before being baked sufficiently. When a cake batter curdles, the texture will not be so even as if the curdling had not taken place. Sometimes the mixture will curdle through the eggs being added too quickly, or if the shortening contains too much water. This forms a syrup with the sugar, and after a certain quantity of eggs have been added the batter will slip and slide about, and ...
— The Story of Crisco • Marion Harris Neil
... foothold for a doubt. Could he have dreamed? The ghost, invisible, still watched him. Yes, a dream,—only a dream; but, how vivid, how strange! With a slow thrill creeping through his veins, the blood curdling at his heart, a cold sweat starting on his forehead, he stared through the dimness of the room. ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... Frank stood there, staring at that horrible face. Then a clawlike hand came out through the bushes and seemed to reach toward him, while a howl that was blood-curdling came ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish
... them came a loud, terrible, blood-curdling shout, and gazing quickly about, the lads saw that they were directly in the road of large cavalry reinforcements that were being rushed forward to the support of ...
— The Boy Allies in Great Peril • Clair W. Hayes
... half-broken horses, holds a couple of passengers comfortably, who sit behind and stare at the flying white ribbon of road for long, long hours, while the driver urges his wild career. The horses are changed every ten miles or so, and horrible and blood-curdling tales are extant of the villainy and wrong-headedness of some of these tonga ponies, how they jib for sheer pleasure, and leap over the low parapet that guards them from the precipice merely to vex the helpless traveller. When we suggested that to sit facing the past might be conducive ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... Capital itself had spoken of it, though without naming his fellow-worker. The staff of that paper was unaware that Fandor was the other man who had so marvellously escaped from the sewer. Blood-curdling tales were told about Doctor Chaleck, Juve, Loupart, the house of the crime, the affair at the hospital; but to anyone familiar with the actual happenings, the newspaper accounts were very ...
— The Exploits of Juve - Being the Second of the Series of the "Fantmas" Detective Tales • mile Souvestre and Marcel Allain
... Squabbles. Port Augusta. Coogee Mahomet. Mr. Roberts and Tommy. Westward ho!. The equipment. Dinner and a sheep. The country. A cattle ranch. Stony plateau. The Elizabeth. Mr. Moseley. Salt lakes. Coondambo. Curdling tea. An indented hill. A black boy's argument. Pale-green-foliaged tree. A lost officer. Camels poisoned. Mount Finke in the winter. Wynbring. A new route. A good Mussulman. Depart from Wynbring. New places. Antediluvian cisterns. Still ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... plates and dishes shone with cleanliness, everything was in apple-pie order, the fire flickered merrily beneath the chimney, and yet—fancy was continually finding something in every object reminiscent of blood-curdling circumstances. That axe, for instance, stuck in a block in front of the fireplace? Two years ago the executioner had beheaded a parricide—perchance 'twas on that ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... but this Sign to shew when the Wort is boiled enough; and this will happen sooner or later according to the Nature of the Barley and its being well Malted; for if it comes off Chalks or Gravels, it generally has the good Property of breaking or curdling soon; but if of tough Clays, then it is longer, which by some Persons is not a little valued, because it saves time in boiling, and consequently the ...
— The London and Country Brewer • Anonymous
... description of the panther reminds your editor of an interesting experience he had in the Adirondacks. Ingersoll says that "'the blood-curdling screams' of the puma have furnished forth many a fine tale for the camp-fire, but evidence of this screaming which will bear sober cross-examination is scant." In the fall of 1875 we were camping in a little clearing on the bank of the Racquette ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 50, October 21, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... blame for it? Why, of course the manufacturer. It's entirely our fault. If some poor little fellow sticks in the snow in winter and goes to sleep, a special correspondent arrives post-haste, and in two days we have a blood-curdling story served up in all the papers. Is any blame laid on the father, the parents, that send such a child?—Not a bit of it. How should they be to blame? It's all the manufacturer's fault—he's made the scapegoat. They flatter the weaver, ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... Art, as such, has for him nothing to do with truth. He recognises no valid standard of excellence. The only excellence in a work of art is to afford aesthetic pleasure, and the pleasure which a boy derives from a blood-curdling adventure-book or the public from a popular melodrama is, in Mr. Balfour's view, no less "aesthetic" than the pleasure which another may derive from contemplating a statue by Michelangelo. There is no universal standard; no criterion; no excellence ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... be strong enough to suppress the straining ambitions of the many that the Empire might continue to flourish in its integrity and gather tribute? It is the world-old cry around the palace walls: Long live the new ruler—if you can find him among the curdling factions. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... his father, which clutched his neck. Then they saw a supernatural sight, the head of Don Juan, young and beautiful as an Antinoues, a head with black hair, brilliant eyes and crimson lips, a head that moved in a blood-curdling manner without being able to stir the ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... forth an ear-splitting, marrow-shrivelling blood-curdling yell, that seemed to rouse the entire universe into a state of wild insanity. There could be no mistaking it—the peculiar, horrid, shrieking, only too familiar war-whoop ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... FOR CREAM.—Beat up the whole of a fresh egg in a basin, and then pour boiling tea over it gradually to prevent its curdling; it is difficult from the taste, to ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... up the chase and, with a series of blood-curdling moans and roars, turned angrily back in search of another and an easier dinner. So Tarzan came to his cabin unattended, and a few moments later was curled up in the mildewed remnants of what had once ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... beast and made a thing of horror of what a moment before had been a noble-looking animal; for suddenly a strange hissing noise issued from its jaws, its lips curled upward until it smiled—smiled, Mr. Cleek!—oh, the ghastliest, most awful, most blood-curdling smile imaginable—and then, with a sort of mingled snarl and bark, it clamped its jaws together and crushed the boy's head as though it ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... lands literally reeking with fangs and claws. He has to confront the lion, leopard, wild dog and hyena, and make good his right to live. No wonder, then, that his temper is hot, his voice raucous and blood-curdling; his canines fearfully long and sharp, and his savage yell of warning sufficient to keep even the king of ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... himself, alone, To do his ghostly battling, With curdling groan and dismal moan, And lots of chains a-rattling! But no—the chiel's stout Gaelic stuff Withstood all ghostly harrying; His fingers closed upon the snuff Which upwards ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... within me quails like a shuddering thing, As I turn on my pillow to the door; Then in the chill white dawn, when life is half withdrawn, Comes the dream-curdling ...
— Behind the Arras - A Book of the Unseen • Bliss Carman
... sweeten rice to taste. Grate half a nutmeg over it and let stand until it is cold. Then beat up the yolks of three eggs, with half a pint of white wine, mix well and stir into the rice. Set over a slow fire, stirring constantly to prevent curdling. When it is of good thickness it is ...
— Good Things to Eat as Suggested by Rufus • Rufus Estes
... asked Dr. Grimstone in his most blood-curdling tone, after a most impressive pause at the ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... throw their noses upward in search of some fresh game that appeared now to have struck their keen olfactories. The affrighted maiden, who had been witnessing this hideous scene from her hitherto unsuspected concealment above, with blood curdling in horror at the sights and sounds that reached her recoiling senses, now shuddered in fresh alarm; for she but too well understood what this new and fearfully-significant movement of the wolves portended. And, instinctively withdrawing ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... association among the ultimate phenomena, called feelings, that this (erroneous) separation of the phenomena into two orders or aggregates—one called mind or self; the other matter, or not self—takes place; and without this curdling or associating process no such notion or belief could have been generated. "The principle of substance," as an ultimate law of thought, is, therefore, to be regarded as a ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... flames increase, the guns become heated and go off, and at last the ship suddenly sinks from our view, whilst the loud and awful death-cry of five hundred helpless beings, imprisoned in the burning vessel, rings in our ears, curdling our blood, and seeming as if it would burst the very vault of Heaven with its appalling tones. It was a fitting knell to be ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... get nothing out of that horn but blood-curdling groans; and, meantime, the people over the way moved to another house because our neighborhood was haunted, and three of our hired girls resigned ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... proportion. I mean the Bag is good when the Milk of the Cow, that suckled the Calf, is good; for the goodness of the Feed of the Cow does not only dispose the Body of the Calf to produce a gentleness or softness in the Acid, which promotes the curdling of the Milk, when it is received into the Body of the Calf, but makes the Rennet more tender to the setting of the Cheese-Curd, and so the Cheese will consequently be the better for it: And I judge ...
— The Country Housewife and Lady's Director - In the Management of a House, and the Delights and Profits of a Farm • Richard Bradley
... lived next door to Mrs. Gray, had told her blood-curdling tales concerning his oft-repeated experiences in being locked up for the night, and, moreover, according to his criterion, he was always ...
— Rosa's Quest - The Way to the Beautiful Land • Anna Potter Wright
... thigh-boots and leather jerkin, trailing an enormous sword from a crimson baldrick. He wore a broad felt hat with a draggled feather, and as he advanced he raised his great voice and roared out defiance, and threats of blood-curdling butchery to be performed upon all and sundry. On the roof of this vehicle sat Leandre alone. He was in blue satin, with ruffles, small sword, powdered hair, patches and spy-glass, and red-heeled shoes: the complete courtier, looking very handsome. The women of Guichen ogled him coquettishly. ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... madly hither and thither, when suddenly he heard a blood-curdling yell not very far off. It was followed by another and another, till his heart ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... these romances, like a page out of their favourite novelettes. They were interrupted by an extraordinary noise from the French singer, who seemed suddenly to have gone mad. The Push had watched in ominous silence the approach of the Frenchman. But, as he passed them and finished a verse, a blood-curdling cry rose from the group. It was a perfect imitation of a dog baying the moon in agony. The singer stopped and scowled at the group, but the Push seemed to be unaware of his existence. He moved on, and began another verse. As ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... his desire sufficiently to put the threat into blood- curdling Arabic, and the Somali whined that he was a poor man, who only obeyed orders, but, if the god-like Nazarene would spare his life, he was ready to tell all ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... As her blood-curdling shouts rent the air, the three women were so stupefied that for a moment they could say or do nothing. This gave Marjorie additional time, and she made the most of it. Her entire lung power spent itself in successive shrieks more than a dozen times, before she was finally dragged away from ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells
... not believe this room is haunted," he said, "I once had a rather blood-curdling experience with something like a disembodied spirit—an adventure that came near turning my hair snowy white from fright and horror. I will tell you about it. The original of my ghost happened to be a fellow who committed ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... long breath, and gave vent to a blood-curdling shriek which would have made the fortune of an actress on the stage. Odd! I couldn't help thinking of that at the time. One thinks of queer things at ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... gloomy shade; its jaws, falling apart, showed the grinders with which it snapped asunder the young oaks of the forest; and the vast tusks, which, curved downward to the midst of its massive limbs, glistened white and ghastly, curdling the blood of one destined hereafter to be the dreadest ruler of the ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... enemy of his would fly to one side of the room or the other. The great question was—which? It would hit the wall, and rebound on to the floor, where it would be seized, and borne back with blood curdling growls for the process to be repeated . . . The game, it may be said, was not governed by any foolish time limit. ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... There used to be a saying that cross-eyed people could not be honest. Similarly, perhaps, Newman thought the appearance of bow-legs would increase the villainy of his pirate. Certainly, no such blood-curdling ruffian has been seen out ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... simmer in their liquor with allspice. As the scum rises skim carefully. Strain off the liquor and add to it three-quarters lb. butter and one-quarter lb. flour, rubbed to a cream. Let this boil and carefully stir in a quart of milk, guarding against curdling and pour ...
— Favorite Dishes • Carrie V. Shuman
... A yell burst out behind us that split the night apart. Where stilly blackness had been, now four or five hundred crazy shadows leaped and danced, murdering the silence with marrow-curdling ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... on the pages of fiction exciting and blood-curdling tales of deep laid plots for murder and other crimes, but just when our feelings are being aroused to the highest pitch, we pause and comfort ourselves with the thought that after all this ...
— The Story of a Dark Plot - or Tyranny on the Frontier • A.L.O. C. and W.W. Smith
... abortion. Such a brute! Were I friend Clement Marot (Whose experience of nature's but narrow And whose faculties move in no small mist When he versifies David the Psalmist) I should study that brute to describe you Illum Juda Leonem de Tribu. 50 One's whole blood grew curdling and creepy To see the black mane, vast and heapy, The tail in the air stiff and straining The wide eyes, nor waxing nor waning, As over the barrier which bounded His platform, and us who surrounded ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... gleam came cheerfully toward him out of the dark. He hurried to it, thinking of the fine supper the kind-hearted farmers would doubtless give him, when, just as he reached the gate of the door-yard, there was a most blood-curdling uproar, and two or three furious dogs ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... in the distance there sounded forth those awful blood-curdling howls of wild beasts that she had heard when she sat alone by the water-tank, and each time she heard a shudder passed through her and instinctively she swerved a trifle toward her companion, then straightened up again and tried to seem not to notice. The Boy ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... a stray cat at the other end of the garden. In the character of a cannibal chief he hunted the white man (otherwise the cat) with blood-curdling war-whoops, but felt no real interest in the chase. He bound up his scratches mechanically with an ink-stained handkerchief. Then he went indoors. Robert was conversing with his ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... I? What would you give to know? Who are you? Carl Walraven's wife, I suppose. His wife! Ha! ha!" she laughed—a weird, blood-curdling laugh. "I wish you joy of your husband, most magnificent madame! Tell me, fellow," turning with sudden fierceness upon the dismayed understrapper, "is ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... hold of the beast and made a thing of horror of what a moment before had been a noble-looking animal. Suddenly a strange hissing noise issued from its jaws, its lips curled upward until it smiled—smiled, Mr. Cleek!—oh, the ghastliest, most awful, most blood-curdling smile imaginable and then, with a sort of mingled snarl and bark, it clamped its jaws together and crushed the boy's head as ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... have stayed on for supper, but I couldn't; I should have choked. As it was, my soul was curdling. Another ten minutes and I should have jumped down on the lawn and run round the house on all fours, yapping and foaming at the mouth, and have wound up by biting ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... he was ten years of age, in which he showed the results of those arduous Sabbath days in the old Congregational meeting-house. And at one time, when yet very young, he was at the head of a flourishing boys' paper, while at another, fresh from the inspiration of a blood-curdling romance in a New York Weekly, he prepared a series of tales of adventure which, unhappily, have not been preserved. In his college days he was one of the associate editors of the university magazine, and while at that time he had no serious thought of devoting his life to literature, ...
— A Little Book of Western Verse • Eugene Field
... your night's rest. It is a gruesome, ghastly, blood-curdling, hair-erecting, sleep-murdering piece of work, with a thrill ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... light faded out from her face and the flesh of it had that curious look of curdling, as if with ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... piles of old newspapers. In the streets the roar seems so much more confusing, I feel sure I shall run right in the way of a shell. They seem to have five different sounds from the second of throwing them to the hollow echo wandering among the hills, and that sounds the most blood-curdling ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... unceasingly on. Again a man sprang to his feet and went through the same horrid motions. This time the performer took from the fire a sharp nail and, with a piece of the sandy limestone common to this region, proceeded with a series of blood-curdling howls to hammer it down into the top of his head, where it presently stuck upright, while he tottered dizzily around until it was pulled out with apparent effort and with a hollow snap by one of the ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... Barnacle with difficulty; the dog bared his teeth at the sheriff and uttered a series of most blood-curdling growls. ...
— The Girls of Central High in Camp - The Old Professor's Secret • Gertrude W. Morrison
... sensation, and the bigger and more blood-curdling it is the better. Nothing is more gratifying on arising in the morning and sitting down to partake of a daintily served breakfast than to glance hurriedly over the front page of one's favorite newspaper and see it covered with startling headlines. It matters little what has happened ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... written in accordance with the theory of symbolism. But when it was given to me (this marvellous brochure furnished with strange illustrations and wonderful tassels), I thought it absurdly obscure. Since then, however, it has been rendered by force of contrast with the brain-curdling enigmas the author has since published a marvel of lucidity; and were I to read it now I should appreciate its many beauties. It bears the same relation to the author's later work as Rienzi to The ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... their fountains Were changed to mines of sunless crystal now, 265 Or by the curdling winds—like ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... almost human in their beseeching, and plainly said, "You cannot have forgotten—you will surely let me out!" And let him out I did. I opened the doors leading to the yard, and almost pushing me over he rushed to the black dog with great leaps and the most blood-curdling growls, jumping straight over him, then around him, then over him again and again, and so like a whirlwind, the poor black beast was soon crazy, for snap as fast as he might, it was ever at the clear, beautiful air. Hal was always ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... joined hands and capered round the stove, stamping the floor viciously with their moccasined feet. Again, they would wave their long arms about their heads in the most grotesque manner, uttering at the same time the most blood-curdling war-whoops. ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... torn to mere tatters of air, by a long blood-curdling yell, a yell which seemed to catch its breath with battle fierceness, and ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... the police car already in his hand. And then the little party seemed suddenly turned to stone. For a few breathless seconds not one of them moved. Out into the clammy night air came the echoes of a hideous, inhuman, blood-curdling scream. Quest was the first to recover himself. He leaped from his seat and rushed back across the empty hall into the study, followed a little way behind by French and the others. An unsuspected panel ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... flying, Like a great Angel missioned to bestow Some boon on men beneath in sadness lying: The waves are murmuring silver murmurs low: Over the waves are borne Those feeble lights which, ere the eyes of Morn Are lifted, through her lids and lashes flow. Beneath the curdling wind Green through the shades the waters rush and roll, (Or whitened only by the unfrequent shoal,) Till two dark hills, with darker yet behind, Confront them,—purple mountains almost black, Each behind each self-folded and withdrawn, Beneath the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... early December. The sunshine was pale, but it suited his hurt eyes better: it crept slowly in the mornings over the snuff-colored carpet on the floor, up the brown foot-board of the bed, and, when the wind shook the window-curtains, made little crimson pools of mottled light over the ceiling,—curdling pools, that he liked to watch: going off, from the clean gray walls and rustling curtain and transparent crimson, into sleeps ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... down and to dip themselves in loops, and the stones of the brink showed dark green stripes on their sides as they stood naked. Then fine little cakes of conglomerated stuff, which only a great man of nature could describe, came floating about, and curdling into corners, and holding on to one another in long-tailed strings. But they might do what they liked, and make their very best of it, as they fell away to nothing upon stones and mud. For now more important things began to open, the like ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... volume. The yowling meouw came louder, louder and nearer, then suddenly clear and close, as though the creature had rounded a point and entered an opening. It was positively blood-curdling now. The dog could stand it no more; he turned and went as fast as he could for home, leaving Yan to his fate. There was no longer any question that it was a Lynx. Yan had felt nervous before and the abject flight ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... of Mrs. Partington. She told blood-curdling tales of the positive reappearance of departed spirits, and when I said, "Do you really believe all this?" she replied, "Indeed, I do, and yet I'm not an imaginary woman!" Her dog was provoked into a conflict ...
— Adopting An Abandoned Farm • Kate Sanborn
... carefully learned, costumed and rehearsed, and supervised by a committee from the faculty—are amusing little farces in one or two short scenes. "Sherlock Holmes," on the other hand, was a four act, blood-curdling melodrama, with three different stage settings, an abundance of pistol shots, a flash-light fire, shrieks and a fainting fit on the part of the heroine, the raiding of a robbers' den in the denouement, and "a lot more excitement all through than there is in Mr. Gillette's play," as Mary ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... the snaky fingers touched my eyelids as if to close them, and that touch, light though it was, served to snap the taut film of my helpless brain and I gave a blood-curdling yell and jumped up, knocking over the devilish apparatus and nearly ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... were looking into the depths of the first real oubliette which I ever had seen, and I was just shivering with the vision of that fiendish Catharine de' Medici who used to drop people into these holes every morning before breakfast, just as an appetizer, we heard a most blood-curdling shriek, and there stood that wretched Jimmie watching us from an open door, waving his Baedeker at us, with Mrs. Jimmie's lovely Madonna smile seen over ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... deary me!" responded the other shopkeeper, whose blood was obviously curdling at the bare recital of ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... said that when Lufki-Humma was born, the mother arose at once from her couch of skins, herself bore the infant to the neighboring bayou and bathed it—not for singularity, nor for independence, nor for vainglory, but only as one of the heart-curdling conventionalities which made up the experience of that most pitiful of holy things, ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... looked he saw something move upon it, a long, lithe object that shone a silvery white in the moonlight, and he knew that it was a lynx. Stealthily Rod reached for his rifle, which had slipped between his knees, and as he did so the lynx sent forth another of its blood-curdling screams. Even now the white youth shivered at the sound, so much like the terrible cry of some person in dying agony. He leveled his gun. There was a flash in the moonlight, a sharp report, and a shout from the direction of the camp. In ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood
... the verandah, among the pretty muslin-clad ladies and white-duck suited men, creating havoc and destruction, and smelling of kerosene and burnt hair and ancient goat, and uttering horrible, blood-curdling bah-h-h-s, till he got into the card-table corner, and mistaking the wide glass window for an open door, he promptly jumped through it, and fell with a shower of glass outside on to the verandah again, where Thady ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... shades flit past; She smiled on my words as idle play, But wept when her sire, in the midnight fray, Felled to the dust by the Tory's blade, Died in the home where his bones are laid; When the cold drops stood on the forehead fair, And the curdling blood on the thin, gray hair. But the dead in silence forgotten sleep; She is weaving on earth a vision deep, Of joyous hopes that must fade and die, Like the bow that smiles when the tempests fly, In vain the strength of her youth is shed, In a path where she trembles and fears to tread; ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... said, however, Jim was a great boaster and blusterer, glorying in the marvelous and dangerous. Had he lived in the heroic age, I have no doubt he would have regaled the ears of his listeners with blood curdling stories of his battles with giants, his fights with dragons and winged serpents. He claimed to possess a charm. He wore an amulet around his neck to protect him against the "bullets of lead, of copper, or of brass" of his enemies, through ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... got under cover and we were alone again, when a hoarse cry arose in the court—it was blood-curdling to us, as every sound these days is full of terror and possibilities. But it turned out to be only the cry of the sentry. There had been promiscuous shooting along the railroad in the village and all our brave soldiers tumbled out of bed, fell down the stair-case one after the other, ...
— Lige on the Line of March - An American Girl's Experiences When the Germans Came Through Belgium • Glenna Lindsley Bigelow
... Harding of an incident, to the telling of which both contributed details. They told of swimming exploits; of how they helped lock the school teacher out of the little red building which seemed to them a prison; they told of blood-curdling feats of coasting and of skating on thin ice, and of other things more or less distorted, perhaps, when seen through ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams |
