"Shrill" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... His voice rose very shrill and mad against the regular deep soughing of the swell coiling heavily about the outer face of ...
— To-morrow • Joseph Conrad
... gray overcoat! What was she doing in this desolate street of little shops, faint and heartsick and alone! Oh, for the security of that familiar car again! How often she had sat beside him, arrested by the traffic, content to placidly watch the shifting crowd, to wait for the shrill little whistle that gave them the right of way! If she were there now, where might they be going? Perhaps to a concert, perhaps to look at a picture in some gallery, but first of all certainly to lunch. His first question would be: "Had your lunch?" and his answer only a satisfied ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... creaked, and the Gale River, here only a brook, came gurgling, dashing to meet them—down from the mountains, from the farm, from Roger's youth to welcome him home. And the sun was flashing through the pines. As they drew near the farmhouse through a grove of sugar maples, he heard shrill cries of, "There they come!" And he glimpsed the flying figures of George's brothers, Bob and Tad. George whipped up the horses, the wagon gained upon the boys and reached the house but a few rods behind the little runners. Edith was waiting by ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... cyclists; and they were kept back by my presence from following up their special champions. 'Give it up, Fraeulein, give it up!' they cried. 'You're beaten. Let us pass and get forward.' But at the self-same moment, I heard the shrill voice of my American friend whooping aloud across the din, 'Don't you do nothing of the sort, miss! You stick to it, and keep your wind! It's the wind that wins! Them Germans won't be worth a cent on the ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... of approval ran through the circle. A chant, in which the voices of the men and women blended, like the shrill wind in the pine-trees above the rumbling thunder of a waterfall, rose and ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... the Gaelic League has been started here since my last visit, and every Sunday afternoon three little girls walk through the village ringing a shrill hand-bell, as a signal that the women's meeting is to be held,—here it would be useless to fix an hour, as the hours ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... And shrill the fife plays; My love, for the battle, His brave troop arrays; He lifts his lance high, And the people he sways. My blood it is boiling! My heart throbs pit-pat! Oh, had I a jacket, With hose and with hat! How boldly I'd ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... sitting high in glory, Heard this shrill wail ring out from Purgatory: "Have mercy, mighty angel, ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... from the far edge of the restless ranks. A half-naked rider waved a blanket. With shrill shouts the entire line broke at ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... The shrill notes of a bugle were heard sounding a military call to breakfast. It was the special privilege of an old servitor of the family, who had been a trumpeter in the troop of the Seigneur of Tilly, to summon the family of the Manor House ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... very hot while it lasted, for all through the hubbub the cries and groans of the freshly-wounded were continuous. I could hear the dull crunching sound of the sharp cutlasses shearing through bone and muscle, the shrill scream of agony, the heavy thud of bodies falling to the deck, oaths and execrations both in Spanish and in English, shouts of mutual encouragement, yells of deadly hatred, the ceaseless trampling of feet, and all the indescribable medley of sounds that accompany ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... of writs against defaulters were issued by the court of exchequer, and entrusted to the care of process-servers, who, guarded by a strong body of police, proceeded on their mission with secrecy and dispatch. Bonfires along the surrounding hills, however, and shrill whistles soon convinced them that the people were not unprepared for their visitors. But the yeomanry pushed boldly on. Suddenly an immense assemblage of peasantry, armed with scythes and pitchforks, poured down upon them. A terrible hand-to-hand ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... one is in love with her, and she has the greatest success. So I can't think, Mamma, why you have always told me never to do any of these things, when you want me to be a success so much. Her voice is dreadfully shrill, and such an odd pronunciation, but no one seems to mind that. I rather like her, she is so jolly but some of the women of the party won't speak to her, except to say disagreeable things. Jane Roose is here, she has been here since she left Nazeby (Violet is at the sea), and she came up to ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... population, which overflows from the adjacent Spanish provinces and swarms in the crooked streets. It lounges all day in the public places, sprawls upon the curbstones, clings to the face of the cliffs, and vociferates continually in a shrill, strange tongue, which has no discoverable affinity with any other. The Basques look like the hardier and thriftier Neapolitan lazzaroni; if the superficial resemblance is striking, the difference is ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... to the hearthrug, and the moment afterwards, the silence outside was broken by a shrill, clear call which seemed to come ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... dense fog, and the first thing I recognised on leaving the house was my dog Robber, who had been stolen from us a year before. At first I thought it was a ghost, but I called out to him sharply in a shrill voice. The animal seemed to recognise me, and approached me cautiously, but my sudden movement towards him with outstretched arms seemed only to revive memories of the few chastisements I had foolishly inflicted on him during the latter part of our association, and this memory prevailed over ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... glassy sea as if in a tide rip. The deck was awash with oil. Far out in the bay the ripples widening from the schooner blurred the reflections of the stars. The Chinamen swarmed up the hatch-way, voluble and shrill. Again the "Bertha Millner" lifted and sank, the tubs sliding on the deck, the masts quivering like reeds, the timbers groaning aloud with the strain. In the stern something cracked and smashed. Then the trouble died away, the ripples faded into the ocean, and the schooner ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... Associated Press, were constantly coming in with news or going out in search of it; swift naphtha-launches carrying naval officers in white uniforms darted hither and thither from one cruiser to another, whistling shrill warnings to the slower boats pulled by sailors from the transports; officers on the monitors were exchanging "wigwag" flag-signals with other officers on the gunboats or the troop-ships; and from every direction came shouts, bugle-calls, ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... our backs, we watched the shooting-stars hurrying with speed quick as thought from one part of the immeasurable blue to another; while our tutors talked earnestly of former times, and we heard the shrill calls of gulls and other sea birds, the occasional tender bleating of the lambs in the distant sheepfold, and the soft regular splash of a summer sea on the rocks, until the delicate young crescent had dozed slowly down to its bed ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... darkly all through the long afternoons, a small party of hideously painted savages skulked silently in ambush. Suddenly to their strained ears was borne the sound of horses' hoofs; and then, all at once, a woman's voice rang out in a single shrill, ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... to see how she 'd stand it, and caused Polly much anguish of spirit, for she never knew where he would take her next. He bounced out at her from behind doors, booed at her in dark entries, clutched her feet as she went up stairs, startled her by shrill whistles right in her ear, or sudden tweaks of the hair as he passed her in the street; and as sure as there was company to dinner, he fixed his round eyes on her, and never took them off till she was ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... killing the noxious weeds, young chap? Are you making it straight and clean? Are you going straight, At a hustling gait, Do you scatter all that's mean? Do you laugh and sing and whistle shrill, And dance a step or two? The road you hoe leads up a hill; The harvest ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various
... that he would put a boat hook he held in his hand, into the first man who attempted to fly. 'If we run away one by one in this way,' cried he, 'some of us will most assuredly be torn to pieces, but if we stand still and raise a shrill cry all together, the bears will be frightened and retreat.' We followed his advice, and it turned out exactly as he predicted, so that whilst the bears stood stupified, we regained our boat. This shows how ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... nervous knees were no longer plunging; then he heard a voice, a little-girl voice, always shrill, but now high pitched to a squeak with terror. It was the voice of Lily Jennings. She stood near and yet aloof, a lovely little flower of a girl, all white-scalloped frills and ribbons, with a big white-frilled hat shading a pale little face ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... friend in turns and windings tried, Nor ever left the chimney's side. The chimney to a steeple grown, The jack would not be left alone; But, up against the steeple rear'd, Became a clock, and still adher'd; And still its love to household cares, By a shrill voice at noon declares, Warning the cookmaid not to burn That roast meat, which it cannot turn. The groaning-chair began to crawl, Like a huge insect, up the wall; There stuck, and to a pulpit grew, But kept its matter and its ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... teacher. But there was a small pedant who, while never paying much attention to the lessons, and being usually at the bottom of the form in consequence, knew the regulations by heart. He interrupted with a shrill voice (for the clock had passed the hour), 'No, sir, please, sir; past ten o'clock, sir . . . Solon.' Thus it is, I fear, with critics of every generation, though they try very hard to make the time ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... the switch-key!" he cried, in a high voice, shrill with excitement. "You can't run, but I can. Give me the switch-key!" Perplexed by the sudden turn of affairs and the little fellow's commanding tone, the man took the key from his pocket. He realised his own helplessness ...
— Two Little Knights of Kentucky • Annie Fellows Johnston
... residents call Tompkins Square. On the sidewalk the holy-eve fair is in its busiest hour. In the pine-board booths stand rows of staring toy dogs alternately with plaster saints. Red apples and candy are hawked from carts. Pedlers offer colored candles with shrill outcry. A huckster feeding his horse by the curb scatters, unseen, a share for the sparrows. The cross flashes white against ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... somewhere that the number of them was one hundred and twenty-five. The rumor and the furious barking of Bar and its whelps goes into all lands: such rabid loud baying at mankind and the moon; and then, under Russia's treatment, such shrill yelping and shrieking, was not heard in the world before, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... glorious summer evening. "The western sky was all aflame" with the gorgeous hues of the sunset; the air was like amber mist, and the shrill-voiced Canadian birds, with their gaudy plumage, sang their vesper laudates high in the green ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... his back while he went cautiously to the kitchen door. The Countess was nowhere in sight—but it was just as well to make sure. The Kid went in, took a basin off the table, held it high and deliberately dropped it on the floor. It, made a loud bang, but it did not elicit any shrill protest from the Countess; therefore the Countess was nowhere around. The Kid went in boldly and filled his four-sack so full it dragged on the floor ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... be rid of its secret. Suddenly he sprang up, and in a voice that was a solemn chant, began: "In full daylight, long ago, on a slumberously-wrathful, thunderous afternoon of summer;"—then across his chant ran the old man's shrill voice: "On an October day, packed close with heavy-lying mist, which was more than mere autumn-mist:"—the solemn stately chanting dropped, the shrill voice went on; Giles sank down again, and Hugh standing there, swaying to and ...
— The World of Romance - being Contributions to The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, 1856 • William Morris
... summoned the astonished garrison by a terrific blast from the trumpet of the long-winded Van Corlear, he demanded, in a tone of thunder, an instant surrender of the fort. To this demand, Suen Skytte, the wind-dried commandant, replied in a shrill, whiffling voice, which, by reason of his extreme spareness, sounded like the wind whistling through a broken bellows—"that he had no very strong reason for refusing, except that the demand was particularly disagreeable, as he had been ordered to maintain his post to the last ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... more; "a tight go; a woman in the business too; but all the women in the world can't pull the wool over the eyes of Ebenezer Gryce when he is on a trail; and the assassin of Mr. Leavenworth and"—here his voice became actually shrill in his excitement—"and ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... juice. Botanists know the handsome tree as SEMECARPUS AUSTRALIENSIS, but by the indignant parent of the child with tearful and distorted features and ruined raiment it is offensively called the "tar-tree," and is subject to shrill denunciations. The fleshy stalk beneath the fruit is, however, quite wholesome either raw or cooked, but the oily pericarp contains a caustic principle actually poisonous, so that unwary children would of a certainty eat the worst part. The tree, which belongs ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... support—or rather it was so much easier for him not to pay it. So there always came a time when Diana was delivered at her father's lodgings like a parcel, by an indignant nurse, who proclaimed the story of her wrongs in shrill feminine treble, and who was politely informed by the Captain that her claim was a common debt, and that she had the remedy in her own hands, but that the same code of laws which provided her with that remedy, forbade any obnoxious demonstration ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... think that a fault?" asked Brooke, calmly. Her mood changed at once. She burst into a shrill little laugh. ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... the sound of voices, a man's and a woman's, and now, as if in response to Heron's call, the shrill tones of a child. There was some shuffling, too, of footsteps, and some pushing about of furniture, then the door was opened, and a gruff voice invited the ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... in case of too low temperature, but tempted, when she found the water warm, she gently thrust the whole foot in, and then, gathering her skirt daintily up to her knees, actually stepped into the water, wading with little shrill screams of delight. ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... that Babie would be convinced that fairies came out on Sunday, then crossed the river and were beginning to ascend the path when a volley of sounds broke on them, a shrill yap giving the alarm, louder notes joining in, and the bass being supplied by a formidable deep-mouthed bark, as out of the farmyard- gate dashed little terrier, curly spaniel, slim greyhounds, surly sheep-dog of the old tailless sort, and big and mighty Newfoundland, and ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... catch not only the power, but the wild and exulting voice of the world's soul. Whether she ran with her tall spars swinging, or breasted it with her tall spars lying over, there was always that wild song, deep like a chant, for a bass to the shrill pipe of the wind played on the sea- tops, with a punctuating crash, now and then, of a breaking wave. At times the weird effects of that invisible orchestra would get upon a man's nerves till ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... the beach, came a shrill whistle imitative of the whip-poor-will, insistent, querulous ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... black calico sleeves, looking up at the clouds, or stands behind a desk in his dark shop with a heavy flat ruler, snipping and slicing at sheepskin in company with his two 'prentices, he is emphatically a retiring and unassuming man. From beneath his feet, at such times, as from a shrill ghost unquiet in its grave, there frequently arise complainings and lamentations in the voice already mentioned; and haply, on some occasions when these reach a sharper pitch than usual, Mr. Snagsby mentions to ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... honor of carrying their knapsacks; the ranks were broken; it was a confusion of soldiers and citizens; mothers wept, fathers, more contained, sputtered wine, children frisked for joy and shrieked patriotic songs at the top of their shrill voices. ...
— Sac-Au-Dos - 1907 • Joris Karl Huysmans
... one came out of a room and peered downward. He himself went to the foot of the stairs, looking up. When the watcher on the third floor spoke at last it was in a voice he didn't instantly recognize. He would have taken it for Claude's, only that it was so frightened and shrill. ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... requisition, the General's escort pranced round it, the other guests and their servants went to horse. The lady of Castlewood attended his Excellency to the steps of the verandah in front of her house, the young gentlemen followed, and stood on each side of his coach-door. The guard trumpeter blew a shrill blast, the negroes shouted "Huzzay, and God sabe de King," as Mr. Braddock most graciously took leave of his hospitable entertainers, and rolled away on ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... quirks. How that tail undulates! Now its end curls, now it is flattened to the stone, now it springs straight up as if part of a trap, hind feet the while keeping time in a sort of nervous dance with the shrill, strident cackling and snickering. The next moment he is sitting erect with fore paws pressed against his white chest, his tail rippling out behind him or up his back, and his shrill, nasal tones still pouring out. He hops to the next stone, he assumes a new position, his ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... more hateful in the eye of God 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 beheld him before; pale, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... whose blood is in your veins, who fought and fell at Barnet, crying shrill and fierce, 'Edward my King, St. George and victory!' And the young Edward, near him as he fell, called to a knight to lay hand to his heart, for Edward knew and loved him well, and had received of him money for a long-forgotten debt which young ...
— A Warwickshire Lad - The Story of the Boyhood of William Shakespeare • George Madden Martin
... the business of the place, without a word of remark on any side concerning what had passed, began again and went on as before. People came and went, some more eager and outward, some more staid and inward, but all contented and cheerful. At length a bell somewhere rang sweet and shrill, and after that no one entered the place, and what was in progress began to be led to a decorous conclusion. In three or four minutes the floor was empty, and the people also of the shop had gone, each about his own affairs, without shutting door ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... Said the king: "Give us thy report." "Bizz! bizz! bizz!" said the poor fellow. "Speak out, and let thy talk be clear," quoth the king. "Bizz! bizz! bizz!" cried the other again. "What's the matter with the little stupid?" exclaimed the king, in a rage. Here the Swallow intervened in a sweet and shrill tone: "Sire, it is not his fault. Yesterday we were flying side by side, when suddenly he became mute. But, by good luck, down there about the sacred springs, before he met with this misfortune, he told me the result of his investigations. May I depone in his ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... end of the bungalow; and in both apartments were windows thrown wide open to the night air—as was customary in the plains—with short curtains of lawn to screen the interior from public view. Outside, the shrill chirping of crickets vibrated in the air, and the occasional croak of a bull-frog from a pond in the garden, could be heard. Otherwise, the silence of the night ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... part of it is the fact that it is a kind of duet. In other words, by some ventriloquial tricks, he appears to accompany himself, as if his voice split up, a part forming a low guttural sound, and a part a shrill nasal sound. ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... once the jolliest lad, That with shrill pipe did ever mountain glad; Whilome the foremost at our rural plays, The pride and envy of our holidays: Why dost thou sit now musing all alone, Teaching the turtles, yet a sadder moan? Swell'd with thy tears, why does the neighbouring ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... turn us out? Can they take our house? It is our house—mine and my sister's; here are the deeds that my father gave me long ago; and he said they were recorded." Her voice grew shrill. ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... gently flow, A burnished length of wavy beam In an eel-like, spiral line below; The winds are whist, and the owl is still, The bat in the shelvy rock is hid, And nought is heard on the lonely hill But the cricket's chirp, and the answer shrill Of the gauze-winged katy-did; And the plaint of the wailing whip-poor-will, Who moans unseen, and ceaseless sings, Ever a note of wail and wo, Till morning spreads her rosy wings, And earth and sky ...
— The Culprit Fay - and Other Poems • Joseph Rodman Drake
... grew so impassioned, so heedless of all save my mimic sorrow and the swing of the purple lines, that I could not bring myself to modify my voice, and the passers-by heard my shrill ...
— Painted Windows • Elia W. Peattie
... roaring noise of the water was completely drowned in a kind of shrill shriek—such a sound as you might imagine given out by the waste-pipes of many thousand steam-vessels letting off their steam ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... did not know whether the water would fell them as it felled the bats; but a shrill cry rose ...
— The Five Jars • Montague Rhodes James
... which the cunning breath could draw bright music, seemed to him soulless too in a sort, but shrill and enlivening. These clarions and trumpets spoke to him of brisk morning winds, or the cold sharp plunge of green waves that leap in triumph upon rocks. To such sounds he fancied warriors marching out at morning, with the joy of fight in their hearts, meaning to deal great ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the tomb of a fourteenth-century patrician, which had the uncommon advantage of a lower jaw hinged to the upper. She proudly clapped it up and down for their astonishment, and waited, with a toothless smile, to let them discover the bead of a nail artfully figured in the skull; then she gave a shrill cackle of joy, and gleefully explained that the wife of this patrician had killed him by driving a nail into his temple, and had been fitly ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... offer was almost shrill enough, in the excess of its surprise and humility, to have penetrated to the ears of Mrs. Crupp, then sleeping, I suppose, in a distant chamber, situated at about the level of low-water mark, soothed in her slumbers by the ticking of an incorrigible ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... I rebel!" cried the old woman with a shrill voice. "Why, what right has the pacha to drag me from my poor hovel; and what can he want with an old woman like me? It's not for his ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... words, counselling the ready assent of every one there to submit to anything that was thought necessary. He briefly commented upon their unexplained but fortuitous escape from the raider, and heaped congratulations upon their captain. Very soon after he had resumed his seat, the shrill whistle of a tug alongside indicated the arrival of visitors. A steward passed back and forth amongst the passengers with a universal request—all were asked to repair to their staterooms. Twenty-seven exceedingly alert-looking men ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... whistle shrill, Icy and chill, Little care we; Little we fear Weather without, Sheltered about ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various
... 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
... exclaimed the boy, almost angrily, and little Louis Napoleon, who sat in his mother's lap, repeated in his shrill ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... 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 ...
— The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus • Horatio Alger Jr.
... noisy intruders, however, who, it was believed, were somewhat favoured by Clara Mowbray, were excluded from the court which opened before the house, by a couple of grooms or helpers armed with their whips, and could only salute, with their shrill and wondering hailing, the various personages, as they passed down a short avenue leading from the ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... not get within the choir, but sat on a chair in a lonely corner of the transept, and followed the service from without the pale. Yesterday, at my usual hour for exercise, I went to walk by the river; but rain came on, and I finished my walk under the cloisters, which rang from end to end with the shrill shouts of a parcel of school-boys, let out for their noon-day recess. Last night the weather was fearful, a perfect storm of wind and rain, so that, though my audience was small, I was agreeably surprised to find I had ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... prairie was a wonderful sight. As the steamer ploughed its way through the matted weeds, Frank could see in the narrow openings their trailing roots hanging far down into the clear cool depths below. Above these open spaces thousands of sea-birds were hovering with shrill cries, while ever and anon one of them would swoop down into the water, re-appearing instantly with a fish wriggling in ...
— Harper's Young People, April 13, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... shrill hum of a mosquito explored the place and grew shriller in indignation at Woodhouse's ointment. Then the lantern went out and all the observatory ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... song of the hammer and drill! At the sound of the whistle so shrill and clear, He must leave the wife and the children dear, In his cabin upon the hill. Clink! Clink! Clink! But the arms that deliver the sturdy stroke, Ere the shift is done, may be crushed or broke, Or the life may succumb to the gas and smoke, ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... minutes later, Sally Day, who was continually leaving the wheel to peer in at the cabin clock, announced in a shrill cry 'Fo'bell,' and the cook was to be seen carrying ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... struck him a stunning blow and looking up as he staggered he heard a chorus of shrill laughs, and realized that a rope had been thrown around him in such a way that his arms were pinioned ...
— Darry the Life Saver - The Heroes of the Coast • Frank V. Webster
... wild Portuguese demon, who seemed either fierce-mad or fierce- drunk—but, they all seemed one or the other—came forward with the black flag, and gave it a wave or two. After that, the Portuguese captain called out in shrill English, "I say you! English fools! Open the ...
— The Perils of Certain English Prisoners • Charles Dickens
... reaching out her hands, and Thomas smiled on her lap. So for a moment the three stayed, and the woods were hushed round them, waiting. Then in the green roof above a riot of shrill, sweet triumph broke the hush, and Peter leaped to ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... back, and attempted to whistle the Boyne Water, but having only one tusk in front, the sound produced resembled the wild whistle of the wind through the chink of a door—shrill and monotonous; after which he burst out into a chuckling laugh, tickled, probably, at the notion of that celebrated melody proving disloyal in spite of him, as refusing, as ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... they spoke together. Then an old woman lifted a shrill voice and answered him. "Our Lord is ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... was dog-tired when, a little before dawn, the boatswain sounded his pipe, and the crew began to man the capstan-bars. I might have been twice as weary, yet I would not have left the deck; all was so new and interesting to me—the brief commands, the shrill note of the whistle, the men bustling to their places in the glimmer of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... dying strain was caught up by the hundreds of the outside circle, who, in fast-swelling, loud tones, poured out the burden of their song. At this juncture the march was quickened, the scalps of the slain were borne aloft and shaken with wild delight, and shrill war-notes, rising above the furious din, accelerated the pulsation and strung high the nerves. Time-worn shields, careering in mad holders' hands, clashed; and keen lances, once reeking in Pawnee blood, clanged. Braves seized one another with an iron grip, in the ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... batches, and at intervals make a move westward. Their pugnacity, he states, is astonishing, and the approach of any animal, or even the shadow of a cloud, arouses the anger of this small creature like a guinea pig, and they back against a stone or rock uttering shrill defiance. Our author found, in most examples, a bare patch on the rump, due to their rubbing against the said buttress of support when at bay. He wonders why a bare patch, and not a callosity, should not result from this ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... myrtle-leaves? Do you want to make a fool of me, you fearful woman, till some insane attempt hurries me to destruction? You shall have a new hood—bread—sequins—all that you want, but leave me alone." And he was about to make off hastily; but the old woman caught him by the mantle, and cried in a shrill piercing voice, "Tonino, my Tonino, do take a good look at me for once, or else I must go to the very edge of the Square yonder and in despair throw myself over into the sea." In order to avoid attracting more eyes upon him than he was already doing, Antonio actually stood ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... war-clubs of stone in their hands, and quivers at their backs filled with stone-headed arrows; the squaws, cutting smoke-dried meat with knives of flint, and boiling it in rude earthen pots of their own making, driving away, meanwhile, with shrill cries, the troops of lean dogs, who disputed the meal with a crew of hungry children. The whole camp, indeed, was threatened with, starvation. The three white men could get no food but unripe berries, from the effects of which Hennepin thinks they might all have died, but ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... silk; all these, with King Obreon, did welcome Robin Good-fellow into their company. Obreon took Robin by the hand and led him a dance: their musician was little Tom Thumb; for he had an excellent bag-pipe made of a wren's quill, and the skin of a Greenland louse: this pipe was so shrill, and so sweet, that a Scottish pipe compared to it, it would no more come near it, than a Jew's-trump doth to an Irish harp. After they had danced, King Obreon spake to his son, Robin Good-fellow, ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... knocks one after another in quick succession; and huddling on her clothes, and muttering to herself all the way, she got into the hall, and standing a couple of yards away from the door, answered in shrill and querulous tones, and questioning the messenger ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... slightest chance of attaining his ends—he argued in a fit of coughing. But he didn't tell Jim this. As to the hardships and starvation they had gone through, these had been very real; it was enough to look at his band. He made, at the sound of a shrill whistle, all his men appear standing in a row on the logs in full view, so that Jim could see them. For the killing of the man, it had been done—well, it had—but was not this war, bloody war—in ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... a sudden, Willie leaped from his chair, and gave a shrill Indian war-whoop, that threw the whole bevy into a terrible panic; making some of the smaller fry scream outright, and even Uncle Juvinell to blink a little. "There," said the youngster, "is something to ring in your ears for weeks hereafter, and ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... Lovejoy was sure to follow. As often as Wickliffe got the floor it was noticed that Lovejoy's brow was immediately darkened in token of the impending strife, while his friends and enemies prepared themselves for the scene. Wickliffe was a large, fierce-looking man, with a shrill voice, and quite as belligerent as Lovejoy; and their contests were frequent, and always enjoyed by the House, and for some time became a ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... waves was gloomy and fearsome. Here is the harbor. . . From behind its stone wall, comes the sound of human voices, the plashing of water, singing and shrill whistling." ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... striking and tearing at one another with insane gestures as if each one feared that he would be too late. Inside the scene must have baffled description, for a clamour soon rose which showed that it was a battle to the death to secure loot at any price. Shrill cries and awful groans rose high above the storm of sound, as the desperadoes of the city, who were mixed with the more innocent common people, struck out with choppers and bar iron and mercilessly felled to the ground all who stood in their way. With conflicting feelings we struggled outside, and ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... John Law clasped hands, there came a sudden interruption. A half-score yards deeper in the wood there arose a sudden, half-choked cry, followed by a shrill whoop. There was a crashing as of one running, and immediately there pressed into the open space the figure of an Indian, an old man from the village of the Illini. Even as his staggering footsteps brought him within ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... horrible splash, he darted like an arrow into the ice-cold water, and as he did so he uttered a shrill cry, stifled in a moment by ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... I won to sleep. It was only seven in the evening, and the voices of children, in shrill outcry, playing in the street, continued till nearly midnight. The smell was frightful and sickening, while my imagination broke loose, and my skin crept and crawled till I was nearly frantic. Grunting, groaning, and snoring arose like the sounds emitted by some sea monster, and several ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... Shade, Where heaves the Turf in many a mould'ring Heap, Each in his narrow Cell for ever laid, The rude Forefathers of the Hamlet sleep. The breezy Call of Incense-breathing Morn, The Swallow twitt'ring from the Straw-built Shed, The Cock's shrill Clarion, or the ecchoing Horn, No more shall wake them from their lowly Bed. For them no more the blazing Hearth shall burn, Or busy Houswife ply her Evening Care: No Children run to lisp their Sire's Return, Or climb his Knees the envied Kiss to share. Oft did the Harvest to their Sickle ...
— An Elegy Wrote in a Country Church Yard (1751) and The Eton College Manuscript • Thomas Gray
... a shrill laugh he ground his bow deep into the roughened strings, and the painful ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... must be given, to that complicated assemblage of carts, cabs, and clothes-lines; of manure heaps and disorganised pumps; of caged thrushes, blackbirds, and magpies; of dead dogs and cats, and colonies of thriving rats; of imprisoned terriers and goats let out on parole; of shrill and angry maternity and mud-loving infancy; and of hissing, curry-combing grooms and haltered horses, to which Londoners have given the designation of a Mews. Mr Peter Bowley, the landlord of the 'Mother Bunch,' was the late butler of the late Sir Plumberry Muggs; and having ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 427 - Volume 17, New Series, March 6, 1852 • Various
... carefully behind him, he heard a burst of laughter coming from the kitchen, where the guests apparently had assembled—raucous animal laughter—and, rising shrill and noisy ...
— The Venus Trap • Evelyn E. Smith
... stub-fingered, exaggeratedly executive hands to the level of her childish blue eyes and stood surveying the mirrored effect with ineffable satisfaction. "Why my hands are—dandy!" she gloated. "Why they're perfectly—dandy! Why they're wonderful! Why they're—." Then suddenly and fearfully she gave a shrill little scream. "But they don't go with my silly doll-face!" she cried. "Why, they don't! They don't! They go with the Senior Surgeon's scowling Heidelberg eyes! They go with the Senior Surgeon's grim gray jaw! They go with the—! ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... one shoulder, rearward, in the hope that Numa might rise from his kill and reveal himself. Thus it happened that he dropped some little way behind Akut, and the next he knew he was recalled suddenly to a contemplation of other matters than the hidden Numa by a shrill scream of warning from the Ape. Turning his eyes quickly in the direction of his companion, the boy saw that, standing in the path directly before him, which sent tremors of excitement racing along every nerve of his body. With body half-merging from a clump of bushes in which ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... wisely of sugar and ruin, of Gadsden pans and recreant negroes, on all of which subjects Maurice Cumming was known to have an opinion of his own. But as Mr. Pomken's words sounded into one ear, into the other fell notes, listened to from afar,—the shrill laughing voice of Marian Leslie as she gave her happy order to her satellites around her, and ever and anon the bass haw-haw of Captain Ewing, who was made welcome as the chief of her attendants. ...
— Miss Sarah Jack, of Spanish Town, Jamaica • Anthony Trollope
... guns began sputtering, and their shrill treble blended with the deep bass of the heavier field guns. A moment more, and from the rifles of the American infantry a withering blast of flame sprang out and the ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall
... flaming. Such was the silence that the marquis heard the low howl of the waking wind, and the snow like the patting of soft hands against the windows. He stood for a moment, more than half enjoying their terror, when from somewhere in the building a far off shriek, shrill and piercing, rang in every ear. Some of the men drew in their breath with a gasping sob, but most of the women screamed outright, and that set the ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... the country a short distance, out on the Bloomfield pike. She found he was from Bloomfield and trilled away in a high, shrill cackle that she loved every stick and stone in that adorable country. And when she found that he was the nephew of Mrs. Mosby, or, rather, Loraine Fawcette, that was, her ecstasy ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... the Second Nurse, but not in the shrill tone nor with quite the stern disapproval the child had expected. "When the doctor told you half an hour exactly, and you have been hours! What have ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... night-train to Hama this time, and thence set forth towards Palmyra. I myself did not know what had happened, and so I approved of his plan. But alas! as we were coming down the main Street to Najma's house, we heard the sound of tomtoms in the distance and the shrill ulluluing of women. We continued apace until we reached the by-way through which we had to pass, and lo, we find it choked by the zeffah (wedding procession) of none but ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... here," she said, the strange passion which agitated her making her voice sound shrill and piercing—not loud, but preternaturally distinct; "here and nowhere else. How good you are—how noble and how generous! Love you! Why, there are women a hundred times my superiors in beauty and in goodness who might love you ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... bonds by a frantic effort to be free. Probably the hairy nature of his little body had rendered a firm bond impossible. At all events, he suddenly found his legs loose. Another effort, more frantic than before, set free the muzzle, and then there arose on the still night air a yell so shrill, so loud, so indescribably horrible, that its conception must be left entirely ...
— My Doggie and I • R.M. Ballantyne
... anger blazed forth; he stuck his face close up to Tidemand's and shouted furiously, in a shrill voice: ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... when Clint reached the seats, some of them tackling the dummy in the corner of the field and others, backs and ends these, catching punts. Over on their own gridiron the 'varsity was hard at it, the two squads trotting and charging about under the shrill commands of Marvin and Carmine. Presently the rattle and bump of the dummy ceased and the tackling squad returned to the gridiron and "Boots" cleared the field for signal work. The backs and ends came panting to the bench, and Captain Turner, spying Clint in ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... chuckled over some recollection. He looked out again. There was a man running along the side of the road waving a red flag. He called out a few words, which the wind of the train tore to pieces. At the same instant, the whistle of the engine began a shrill outcry. "Sunthin' 's bust, I reckon," said Demming. And then, before he could see, or know, or understand, a tremendous crash drowned his senses, and in one awful moment blended shivering glass and surging roof and white faces like a ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... tragic panorama. Fires were burning north, east, south and west. In one street he saw an old woman hobble out of a house supported by her two sons. Just before they could reach shelter a narrow stone bridge over a pond had to be crossed. The old woman limped pitifully to the middle, when a shrill ping rang out. A sharpshooter's bullet struck her; she toppled over into the water, while the men took to their heels and fled back into the smoke of ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... shaggy tassels round and dazzling bright; Which Vulcan, skilful workman, gave to Jove, To scatter terror 'mid the souls of men. This on his arm, the Trojan troops he led. Firm stood the mass of Greeks; from either side Shrill clamours rose; and fast from many a string The arrows flew, and many a jav'lin, hurl'd By vig'rous arms; some buried in the flesh Of stalwart youths, and many, ere they reach'd Their living mark, fell midway on the plain, ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... censed it carefully, he took a higher throne and divested himself of part of his robes. Then the mass went on in earnest, till the moment of consecration, when it paused, the Pope descended from his throne, passed down the choir, and reached the altar. Every one knelt; the shrill bell tinkled; the silver trumpets blew; the air became sick and heavy with incense, so that sun and candle light swooned in an atmosphere of odorous cloud-wreaths. The whole church trembled, hearing the strange subtle music vibrate in the dome, and seeing the ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... yells I sent ringing into the forest were productive of interesting results. Answers came from near and far. Then, what with my calling and the replies, the forest rang so steadily with shrill cries that the echoes had no ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey |
