"Cackle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and here sat a Duck upon her nest; she had to hatch her ducklings; but she was almost tired out before the little ones came; and then she so seldom had visitors. The other ducks liked better to swim about in the canals than to run up to sit down under a burdock, and cackle with her. ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... heard the cackle of laughter. Guns cracked. Still the doomed man pushed forward. He went down, struck in the body, but dragged himself to ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... vacantly out across the hills and speaking to no human being. His good squaws and even his much cherished children went about the camping-space quietly, not caring to disturb the master. He was tired of the lazy sunshine of home; the small cackle of his women, one to another, annoyed him; he was strong with the gluttony of the kettle which was ever boiling; the longing for fierce action and the blood-thirst had taken possession of him. Many times he reached up with his hand to the crown of his head and patted the skin of the little ...
— The Way of an Indian • Frederic Remington
... open-mouthed at him for a moment. Then, clapping his hands together, he burst into a high-pitched cackle of laughter. ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... think, and you'll find on reflection You're bargaining, ma'am, for the Voice of Affection; For the language of Wisdom, and Virtue, and Truth, And the sweet little innocent prattle of Youth: Not to mention the striking of clocks - Cackle of hens—crowing of cocks - Lowing of cow, and bull, and ox - Bleating of pretty pastoral flocks - Murmur of waterfall over the rocks - Every sound that Echo mocks - Vocals, fiddles, and musical-box - And zounds! to call ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... nor I have ever met (indeed, I had never heard of them), but whose family history she knows almost by heart. What can be tamer, duller, more prosaic, more sordidly humdrum, more hopelessly sane, more characteristic of common, under-bred, provincial feminine cackle? ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... that labors for the sparrow-hawk Has little time for idle questioners." Whereat Geraint flash'd into sudden spleen: "A thousand pips eat up your sparrow-hawk! Tits, wrens, and all wing'd nothings peck him dead! Ye think the rustic cackle of your bourg The murmur of the world! What is it to me? O wretched set of sparrows, one and all, Who pipe of nothing but of sparrow-hawks! Speak, if ye be not like the rest, hawk-mad, Where can I get me harborage for the night? ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... wide and breezy; geese cackle over its grass, and you may see more than one cricket match being played on holiday afternoons. Once, in 1877, eleven Mitchells played eleven Heaths on the common; the Heaths were all of the same family, but the Mitchells, though related, were not. ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... Philemon,—"I'll not balk Thy will with any shackle; Wilt add a burden to thy walk? Then take her without further talk; You're both but fit to cackle!" ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... is upset and one never knows when the French King and his wickedness may come upon us; what with one thing and another, indeed, a maiden may be pleased to find even a plebeian protector.' Thus she rambled on in her sharp voice, yet there was cause for her anxiety, and truth lay beneath her cackle, but the wisdom of age is ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... told her there were great tales going the world over about her lace making and her getting famous and proud through the length of the land and I mind well the cackle of a laugh she gave. 'The loveliest lace, is it? Now, isn't that the great wonder surely? The wizenedy, wrinkled old hag with the God-help-you face makes the loveliest lace—' Then she stopped short off and clapped a claw ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... was of an incredible age. She was senile with age. Her cracked cackle never ceased for an instant. She talked to the dog and the cat; she talked to the walls of the room; she spoke out through the window to the weather; she shut her eyes in a corner and harangued the circumambient darkness. The eldest sister was as silent as a deep ditch and ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... see the parade! Willow Lane's gettin' awful high-toned!" There was a loud cackle of laughter and Madame's shoulders shook with suppressed merriment. "That's Gladys Hurd," she said, shaking her head. "Poor Gladys, I'm afraid she's not a very good girl. She's not got ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... country. At all events, the young Cabyle seemed to be dusty and warm with walking. He even seemed fatigued, for, when about to pass the group of slaves, he stopped to rest and flung down his load. The shock of the fall must have snapped a number of legs, for a tremendous cackle burst from the bundles as they ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... at their fat old mother, he began to scamper off with her. "Cackle, cackle!" screamed the old hen. "Put the baby down this moment, sir!" And the mother flew at Gip before he had gone ...
— Dick and His Cat and Other Tales • Various
... was trying to decide whether some green sprouts were chickweed or the dilatory balsams when a sudden uproar in the next garden made her stop to listen, while Miss Henny said in a tone of great satisfaction, as the cackle of hens arose,— ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... King's court, and the new Burgrave of Ghent, and the escapades of Count Baldwin. He had lived much among gentlefolk and kept his ears open.... She felt stronger and cheerfuller than she had been for days. That rat-hunt had warmed her blood. She was a long way from death in spite of the cackle of idiot chirurgeons, and there was much savour still in the world. There was her son, too, the young Philip.... Her eye saw clearer, and she noted the sombre magnificence of the great room, the glory of the ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... with its droning old-world smell of ancestor, dry rot, and stale incense. As the clouds came and went, the grey-green, cobweb-chastened, light ebbed and flowed over the walls and ceiling; to watch the fitfulness of its streams was a sufficient occupation. A hen laid an egg outside and began to cackle—it was an event of magnitude; a peasant sharpening his scythe, a blacksmith hammering at his anvil, the clack of a wooden shoe upon the pavement, the boom of a bumble-bee, the dripping of the fountain, ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... He said, just as though I could hear him at this moment: "A bird, when it is on its nest, spreads its wings to cover the nest and eggs and protect them. It cannot use its wings for defense, but it can cackle and try to drive away the enemy. We are here to protect our wives and children, and we must not let the soldiers get them." He was on a buckskin horse, and he rode from one end of the line to the other, calling out: "Make a brave ...
— The Vanishing Race • Dr. Joseph Kossuth Dixon
... over it, and soiled by the various tables on which it had lain. The old bachelor thus got through the day until it was time for dinner; over that meal he spent as much time as it was possible to give to it. Flore told him the news of the town, repeating the cackle that was current, which she had carefully picked up. Towards eight o'clock the lights were put out. Going to bed early is a saving of fire and candles very commonly practised in the provinces, which contributes no doubt ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... a dry cackle, nursing his feet, which were wrapped in rags. "True as gospel. Kings we were, with crowns upon our heads—me and Dravot—poor Dan—oh, poor, poor Dan, that would never take advice, not though ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... cattle would low with a foolish cry like a man wouldn't be all there, and come home in the evenings to be milked, satisfied and comfortable as a minister; wee calves shy as babies; donkeys with the cross of Christ on their back; goats would butt you and you not looking; hens a-cackle, and cocks strutting like a militiaman and him back from the camp; quiet horses had the strength of twenty men, and scampering colts had legs on them like withes. Up here was nothing, but you ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... ORPEN, A.R.A., are poor sitters. The impulse to rush out and cackle has probably something to do ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 19, 1919 • Various
... stalwart old peasants Were chuckling together; They'd two hundred roubles In notes, the old rascals! 260 Safe hidden away In the end of their coat-tails. They both had been yelling, ''We're beggars! We're beggars!'' So carried them home. ''Well, well, you may cackle!'' I thought to myself, ''But the next time, be certain, You won't laugh at me!'' The others were also 270 Ashamed of their weakness, And so by the ikons We swore all together That next time we rather Would die of the beating Than feebly give way. It seems the Pomyeshchick Had taken a fancy ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... to accomplish my purpose in another manner: I trained one of my dogs, as soon as the hen cackled, to run to the nest, and bring me the egg without breaking it. In a few days the dog had learned his lesson; but Kees, as soon as he heard the hen cackle, ran with him to the nest. A contest now took place between them, who should have the egg; often the dog was foiled, although he was the stronger of the two. If he gained the victory, he ran joyfully to me with the egg, and put it ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley
... endeavor to represent the depths of starry space; one of those black abysms that are the despair of astronomer and telescope. Ahem!" Pobloff looked so conscious as he wiped his perspiring mop of a forehead that the tenor trombone coughed in his instrument. The strange cackle caused the composer to start: "How's that, what's that?" The man apologized. "Yes, yes, of course you didn't do it on purpose. But how did you do it? Try it again." The trombone blatted and the orchestra roared with laughter. ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... troubled, and didn't know what to do. He could not tell the old lady about it; for he could only cackle and crow, and she would not understand that language. So he went about all day looking very sober, and would not chase grasshoppers, play hide-and-seek under the big burdock leaves, or hunt the cricket with his sisters. At sunset he did not go into the hen-house ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... creatures, he was awoke a little after midnight, as he lay in his cabin, by a heavy blow struck at the side of the canoe, close to his head. It was succeeded by the sound of a heavy body plunging into the water. When he got up all was again quiet, except the cackle of fowls in the hen-coop, which hung at the side of the vessel, about three feet from the cabin door. In the morning the poultry were found loose about the canoe, two of the fowls being missing; while there was ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... what would we eat? In this crisis I bethought me of a long-neglected art, and crowed like a cock. The shrill strain hardly reached the ear of the good woman before it was answered by such laughter as none but village lungs could raise. William—an admirable mimic—began to cackle like a hen. In due time we had a broiled fowl, an omelette, and boiled eggs." At another place where they stopped for mid-day luncheon Cooper writes: "We asked for a fruit-tart, and—odors and nosegays!—they gave us one made ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips
... again. Gold and silver money flashed on the crumpled handkerchief, and adding to it the last silver piece he had held in his teeth, the loathsome cripple stirred the heap around and around with one dirty forefinger, his mouth stretched in a cackle of greed. ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... been sitting in the chairs from three to eleven generations back! And they were searchers of the Sword like thee, but were duped! In like manner, the hen sitteth in complacency, but she bringeth forth and may cackle; 'tis owing to the aids of Noorna that thou art not one of these sitters, O Master of the Event!' Now, they paced through the hall of dainty provender, and through the hall of the jewel-fountains, coming to the palace steps, where stood Abarak ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... really very comfortable here," said he, after scattering these greetings with a cackle of loud laughter that hardly moved the rubicund muscles of ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... lounged about the doorways and kept up a constant cackle of conversation in a mysterious patois which Miss Talbot, though an excellent French scholar, could make nothing of. The presence of these people naturally shielded her from the direct observation of La Belle Chasseuse, but nevertheless threatened ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... of the oven on tiptoe and caught hold of the golden hen, and was off before you could say "Jack Robinson." But this time the hen gave a cackle which woke the ogre, and just as Jack got out of the house he heard him calling: "Wife, wife, what have you done with my ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... us. We also know that the plays were popular; but the audiences have not rushed to pen and ink to record their satisfaction. With them, as with all audiences, the actors and the SPECTACLE, much more than the "cackle," were the attractions. When Dr. Ingleby says that "the bard of our admiration was unknown to the men of that age," he uses hyperbole, and means, I presume, that he was unknown, as all authors are, to the great majority; ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... melodramatic exhibition than the table d'hote of his inn will afford him, in the conversation of the joyous guests. They mimic the voice and manner of the person they describe; they crow, squeal, hiss, cackle, bark, and scream like mad, and, were it only by the physical strength exerted in telling the story, keep the table in unbounded excitement. But in every constitution some large degree of animal vigor is ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... the end of a sentence to see the impression he was making, that uncouth fellow, Lively, moved by what happy inspiration he did not know, suddenly broke in, apropos of nothing, nodding his head, and speaking in a clear cackle, with, "Pray, sir, what is your opinion of the infallibility of the Pope?" Upon which every one but Jennings did laugh out: but he, au contraire, began to look very black; and no one can tell what would have happened, had he not cast his eyes by accident on his ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... nearly one boy's work, for instance, to take care of the Guinea fowls,—the handsome, mottled hens, that never knew when they were well off, but were always running away and getting lost. If it had not been for their shrill, silly cackle, their hiding-places would never have been found. Master Sunshine pursued them every time they strayed, and brought them home triumphantly. I think he loved his sturdy family of Cochin Chinas best; for the ...
— Master Sunshine • Mrs. C. F. Fraser
... corner. Therese, while ringing at the door, saw in the limited perspective of the houses a pulley at a window and a gilt key, the sign of a locksmith. Her eyes were full of this picture, which was new to her. Pigeons flew above her head; she heard chickens cackle. A servant with a military look opened the door. She found herself in a yard covered with sand, shaded by a tree, where, at the left, was the janitor's box with bird-cages at the windows. On that ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... worldling broke forth an involuntary low laugh, which was a sort of cackle. So this was what ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... and the song of the bobolink, poised on the swaying branch of a tall tree, the happiest bird of Spring; the dozy, drowsy hum of bees; the answering call of lusty young chanticleers, and the satisfied cackle of laying hens and motherly old biddies, surrounded by broods of downy, greedy little newly-hatched chicks. The shrill whistle of a distant locomotive startles one with its clear, resonant intonation, which on a less quiet day would pass unnoticed. Mary, with ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... fourteen, whom her husband had taken to look after his horse and garden, giving him his tuition in Latin and other branches, for his services. Ralph was a great amateur in fowls and eggs. No sooner did a hen cackle, but he resorted to the nest, and, with his lead-pencil, wrote the day of the month upon the egg. The lady rung her table-bell, and called him to her, telling him to bring his egg-basket. He brought in an openwork, red osier basket, with ...
— Bertha and Her Baptism • Nehemiah Adams
... to you, Silas, I may lay my belt across your shoulders," Aylward answered, amid a general shout of laughter. "But it is time young chickens went to roost when they dare cackle against their elders. ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... an unpleasant, sarcastic cackle. Bob turned. Four or five of the punchers, mounted and ready for the day's work, were sitting at ease in ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... pipe for any wind to play upon. "I cannot see the wit," says Hazlitt, "of walking and talking at the same time. When I am in the country I wish to vegetate like the country," - which is the gist of all that can be said upon the matter. There should be no cackle of voices at your elbow, to jar on the meditative silence of the morning. And so long as a man is reasoning he cannot surrender himself to that fine intoxication that comes of much motion in the open air, that begins in a sort of dazzle and sluggishness of the ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is like a novel of Fielding on canvas; and it seems inconceivable that, with this magnificent work en evidence, the critics of that age should have been contented to re-echo the opinion of Walpole that "as a painter Hogarth had but slender merit," and to cackle the foot-rule criticisms of the Rev. William Gilpin as to his ignorance of composition. But so it was. Not until that exhibition of his works at the British Institution in 1814, was it thoroughly ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... The shrill cackle was answered by a slow, unctuous chuckle, as of a fat and wheezy person; then a door was closed, and ...
— "Some Say" - Neighbours in Cyrus • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... cackle of speech. He caught short glimpses of another horse matching pace to the one that carried him. Then they swept into a noisy place where the shouting of many men made a din. The horse stopped and Ross was pulled from its back and dropped to the trodden ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... the boy has been out digging into the maple-trees with his jack-knife; at any rate, he is pretty sure to announce the discovery as he comes running into the house in a great state of excitement—as if he had heard a hen cackle in the barn—with ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the only thing his father has ever given him. His grandfather, Lord Granville, has always told him to choose a gentlewoman, and please himself; yet I should think the ladies Townshend and Cooper would cackle a little. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... A slight cackle emanated from the ledger, but immediately died away. A dead silence reigned in the office, broken only by the distant sound of the sea, and by the hard breathing of Alphonso, who ...
— The Mission Of Mr. Eustace Greyne - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... heard the hens cackle, and thought we were blest, You flew to the hayloft, and found a full nest, Then caught up the treasure, and smiled as you run, With a hat full of eggs, and a head full ...
— The Snow-Drop • Sarah S. Mower
... "Think you I knew not 'twas death to you to tell the truth? Shall a man find a pearl in the dirt and not set it over his heart. I have loved you since first I saw your fair face, and now I honour you. Come to me and bless me; and when these fools cackle and gibber, I shall know ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... advising business men how to get out of their difficulties," said Mr. Asquith the other day. It was a statement wrung from him by a deputation which was inflicting on him the familiar talk about lawyers and the need of "business men" to run our affairs. I suppose there has been no more banal cackle in this war than the cackle about a "business Government" and the ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... dost thou cackle of here?" cried the innkeeper. "Thou thief! dost thou not see that the blood and the fountain is no other thing but the wine-bags which are ripped open, and the red wine which swims up and ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... his great beak. When he is in a good temper he will say, "Poor, poor!" He will sit upon the ivy all the morning and talk to himself, and he will call the gardener, and he will cough and sneeze, and crow and cackle, in a very funny manner. If Jacko sees sparrows picking up a few crumbs, he will rush up, sweeping his great wings along the ground, and take their meal for himself. If he sees poor Pussy picking a bone, he takes great delight ...
— Chatterbox Stories of Natural History • Anonymous
... shook the hen, took it by the tail, and gave it such a drubbing that it was enough to make one weep for pity. When the poor hen escaped from the old woman's hands it fled to the highway. While walking along it found a bead, swallowed it, hurried back home as fast as possible, and began to cackle at the gate. The old woman welcomed it joyfully. The hen ran quickly in at the gate, passed its mistress, and went to its nest—at the end of an hour it jumped off, cackling loudly. The old woman hastened to see what the hen had laid. But when she glanced into the nest what did she perceive? ...
— Roumanian Fairy Tales • Various
... grunted John Flint, and scowled. "Huh! If it wasn't for Madame and a few more like her, I'd say women and hens are the two plum-foolest things God has found time to make yet. If you don't believe it, watch them stand around and cackle over the first big dunghill rooster that walks on his wings before them! There are times when I could wring their necks. Dern a fool, anyhow!" He wriggled in his chair ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... his mowing, and Louise heard the cackle of his machine before she reached the camp ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... all the wo o' the world, ma'am, dear. And she puts the blame of it on me, though I'm not in the fault this time, any how. The child's taken the small pox, and she depinded on me to tell the doctor to cut it for the cow-pox, and I depinded on Kitty Cackle, the limmer, to tell the doctor's own man, and thought she would not forget it, becase the boy's her bachelor; but out o' sight out o' mind—the never a word she tould him about it, and the babby's got it nataral, and the woman's in heart trouble, ...
— Anecdotes for Boys • Harvey Newcomb
... intermingled with lakes and ponds of all sizes, which filled the hollows for miles round—temporary sheets of water these, formed by the melting snow, that told of winter now past and gone. Additional animation and life was given to the scene by flocks of water-fowl, whose busy cry and cackle in the water, or whirring motion in the air, gave such an idea of joyousness in the brute creation as could not but strike a chord of sympathy in the heart of a man, and create a feeling of gratitude to the ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... Joe Clausin. "I've got that spot marked with a red cross in my mind, and if this boat ever gets close to it again, you'll hear this chicken cackle right smart. It's been photographed on my brain so that I'll see it lots of times when I wake up in ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... representative, I would extend the term to seven years, and render the occupant of the office thereafter ineligible for reelection. Seven years is, I am aware, under our political system, an unusual term; and here my ears will, I know, be assailed by the great "mandate" cackle. The count of noses being complete, the mind of the composite Democrat is held to be made up. It only remains to formulate the consequent decree; and, with least possible delay, put it in way of practical enforcement. Again, I, as a publicist, demur. It is the old issue, ...
— 'Tis Sixty Years Since • Charles Francis Adams
... fame of her doing what she may.) About the yard she cackling now doth go, To tell what 'twas she at her nest did do. Just thus it is with some professing men, If they do ought that good is, like our hen They can but cackle on't where e'er they go, What their right hand doth their left ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Monastery of St. Michaelsburg—"The White Cross on the Hill." There within the white walls, where the warm yellow sunlight slept, all was peaceful quietness, broken only now and then by the crowing of the cock or the clamorous cackle of a hen, the lowing of kine or the bleating of goats, a solitary voice in prayer, the faint accord of distant singing, or the resonant toll of the monastery bell from the high-peaked belfry that overlooked the hill and valley ...
— Otto of the Silver Hand • Howard Pyle
... following words: buy, die, fie, guy, high, kie, lie, my, nigh, eying, pie, rye, sigh, shy, tie, thigh, thy, vie, we, ye, zebra, seizure. Again: most of them may be repeated in the same word, if not in the same syllable; as in bibber, diddle, fifty, giggle, high-hung, cackle, lily, mimic, ninny, singing, pippin, mirror, hissest, flesh-brush, tittle, thinketh, thither, vivid, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... Gentry, premonitorily. The tintinnabulation's enough. Periodical footings of Clashthoughts into Mayfair or the Tyrol, signalled by the slide from its mast of a crested index of Aeolian caprice, blazon of their presence, give the curious a right to spin through the halls and galleries under a cackle of housekeeper guideship—scramble for a chuck of the dainties, dog fashion. There is something to be said for the rope's ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... it, stared at her, pursed his lips, and then read it again. Suddenly he burst into a cackle of laughter, slapping his ...
— Ruth Fielding Down East - Or, The Hermit of Beach Plum Point • Alice B. Emerson
... by the great French nation. I will narrate the matter as briefly as is consistent with my respect for accuracy, and with my contempt for the tapioca-brained nincompoops who snarl, and chatter, and cackle at me in the organ of Mr. J. Last Friday I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 30, 1890. • Various
... giant, eyeing me over slowly, "Cock, be ye a cackler—because if so be you do cackle overly here's we as won't love ye ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... judgment the verdict of the great mass of men is infinitely more trustworthy than that of any small body of men, no matter how cultivated. Of plenty of that narrow judgment of select circles which mistakes the cackle of its little coterie for the voice of the world, Cooper was made the subject, and sometimes the victim, during his lifetime. There were any number of writers, now never heard of, who were going to outlive him, according to literary prophecies ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... talk erbout dewin' somethin'—a passel o' poor ole critters like us!" Her cackle of embittered laughter was interrupted by the low, cultivated voice of the belle ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund
... in the mind to suffer" was not a point by which he, "more an antique Roman than a Dane," was at all troubled. Never had he given ear to that cackle which is called Public Opinion. The judgment of his peers—this, he had often told himself, was the sole arbitrage he could submit to; but then, who was to be on the bench? Peerless, he was irresponsible—the captain of his soul, the despot of his future. No injunction ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... be so, and if so, Stumps, I shall continue to cackle a little longer on deck while they ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... a cackle of surprise and laughter among the steamer's officers, in which Frank and some of the passengers joined; and the saucy little "fishing-boat" came steadily on in the ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... disturbed by the driver's encouraging, "Pop-pop! Dih-dih-dih! Ho-ho-ho! children of jungle swine; brothers to buffalo!" addressed to the horses lagging in the climb, fluttered away with his silly little cackle. ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... they cannot even express admiration in fitting language; they may giggle or cackle so that every ripple of laughter and every turn of a phrase sounds nauseously insincere. Marion Dearsley durst not talk frankly with this fine fellow, but ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... on benignantly, and evidently inclined to put in for a share, but restrained by the memory of past rebuffs—when little Blackie, standing on Tilly's knee, and having eaten a large share of what was going, raised itself to its full height, flapped its wings, and gave utterance to a cackle of triumph! A burst of laughter followed—and Tilly gave a shriek of delighted surprise that at once dissolved the spell, and induced the horrified fowl to seek refuge in ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... boy, we are not they Who only go to damn a play, And cackle in the pit; Like good Sir William Curtis{2} we Can laugh at nous and drollery, ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... the orange groves or in gardens, the mocking-bird trills in sweet, liquid notes his wonderful song. He mimics, too, many sounds he hears, and sometimes when caged will whistle tunes or say words. The mocker can crow or cackle like the chickens, or mew like the cat. Then he will whistle clear and loud till dogs or boys answer his call. When they find themselves fooled, it is said, he ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton
... After a severe cackle on both sides the voices began to calm down like water going off the boil, and presently soft low gutturals passed in pleasant modulation. Then the eldest male savage made a courteous signal to Jacky that he should sit down ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... read two lines, the explanation of the whole horrible thing struck me. I stared dumbly down at the little book and laughed. Laughed harshly, so that the sound of my mad cackle echoed in a thousand ghastly reverberations through the dead corridors of ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... survivor lurched down to the settlement his voice rose in a high cackle of delirious song. These were the words ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... his fear became frenzy; his love of gold turned to horror; his reason fled; and he dashed himself wildly against the prison which he had reared, until he fell, bleeding and broken. And as he fell, he heard the shrill cackle of demons that danced their hellish steps on the top of the wall. Then the Furies flew ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... to cackle. "Praise be to Allah you are come! I was persuaded to bring the young ladies here. They would make me do it. Yes, sir. It is not my fault. They pay me. I have to obey. Then we get caught, like we was some rats. No fair to punish ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... and cackle like Asian birds, Commodus renames Rome the City of Commodus and still lives!" ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy
... listen for the answer to the knock. The birds, too, were silent. The house remained immutably quiet. Charles Turold bent down, and peered through the keyhole, but could see nothing within but darkness. Then, as he looked, a sound reached his ears, a sound like a thin cackle of laughter from the interior of the house. In the gathering gloom within he had a momentary impression of a stealing greyish shape—a shape which vanished from his vision as ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... to proceed if I return not unharmed from York Place? Oh, my lord, though my head is in the wolf's mouth, I was not goose enough to place it there without settling how many carabines should be fired on the wolf, so soon as my dying cackle was heard.—Pshaw, my Lord Duke! you deal with a man of sense and courage, yet you speak to him as a ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... to Hollis—a strange, unnatural, sardonic cackle that, in spite of his self-control, caused his flesh to creep. ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... it a moment, he concludes it not dangerous, excites his unbounded mirth and ridicule, and he snickers and chatters, hardly able to contain himself; now darting up the trunk of a tree and squealing in derision, then hopping into position on a limb and dancing to the music of his own cackle, and ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs
... into her shoes— Held me for your sake. Ay: there seemed some link 'Twixt your dead grannie and you, too strong for me To break; though it's been strained to the snapping-point, Times out of mind, whenever a hoolet's screech Sang through my blood; or poaching foxes barked On a shiny night to the cackle of wild geese, Travelling from sea to sea far overhead: Or whenever, waking in the quiet dark, The ghosts of horses whinneyed in my heart. Ghosts! Nay, I've been the mare between the limmers Who hears the hunters ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... thy Fortune, such thy Doom. Swift the Ghouls gathered at the Poet's Tomb, With Dust of Notes to clog each lordly Line, Warburton, Warton, Croker, Bowles, combine! Collecting Cackle, Johnson condescends To INTERVIEW the Drudges of your Friends. Thus though your Courthope holds your merits high, And still proclaims your Poems POETRY, Biographers, un-Boswell-like, have sneered, And Dunces edit him whom ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... has been living on nothing for at least a week; its voice is various, sometimes not unlike that of a large hawk, at others a cackle, or low chuckle; occasionally it runs forward, erecting its crest, and spreading out its tail like a fan, the tail being depressed. I fancy it roosts in trees not unlike certain pigeons, Haematornis one species come in, this genus I think represents Parus: it has the same fluttering ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... creatures that sit in ten thousand ovens, with their legs tied, their wings twisted, and the gravy a-dripping down their sides and bosoms, like rain from the eaves of a house. Of course, for that day, every barn-yard in New England goes into mourning. The poor hen is afraid to cackle when she lays an egg, for fear of having a gun cracked at her. Even the fat hogs look melancholy in their pens, for a smell of roasting spare-ribs comes over them, and they seem to ruminate mournfully on some means of saving their ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... dark already, and in the nebulous middle-distance a laughing jackass was indulging in his evening peal. Cairns jerked his head in the direction of the unearthly cackle. "Lots of 'em down here in Vic, I believe," said he, and at length turned his attention to the bound man. "You see, I wanted to land him alive and kicking without spilling blood," he continued, opening his knife. "That was why I had to let him tie ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... A loud cackle from Hugh, whose grin had been growing wider and wider, now interrupted the discussion: "Ho, ho, ho! One of you is talking about aunts—your Aunt Maria—and the other is talking about ants—the beasts that go to the sluggard," he exploded. "You are ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... out the cackle and talk hoss," was the retort. "I size up men first pop. My bet's down now on your blue eye. Let's get a rig. I don't know a darn thing about this part of the world except the drummers' hotels. But Houten takes a chance on me. And if I'm his blue-eyed boy, you're ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... blackbird, the rusty grackle, the cowbird, and the red-shouldered starling, are not songsters, even in the latitude allowable to poets; neither are they whistlers, unless we credit them with a "split-whistle," as Thoreau does. The two first named have a sort of musical cackle and gurgle in spring (as at times both our crow and jay have), which is very pleasing, and to which Emerson aptly refers in these lines ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... Church has failed dismally to keep before people the teaching of the Church in regard to Angels and Angelic intervention in the affairs of men. There I am in entire agreement with Mr. Machen. Soldiers tell their stories of angels and a few bishops cackle; but not one of them dares to speak of the fuller belief of the Church in angels and the soul-inspiring mystery of the Communion of Saints, the inter-relationship between those on the earth-plane and those who have passed to the higher life. The hardworking ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... this mental question a peal of elfish laughter greeted his ear,—a mirthless, falsetto cackle, like that of a parrot, and half hidden behind one of the great marble lions in the shade of the loggia he discerned a grotesque little creature, with the figure of a child and a woman's face, old in its expression ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... in January we heard a faint cackle outside, and, opening the kitchen door, found our poor widow in a sorry plight. One foot was frozen, her feathers were all rough and dirty, her wings drooping, her bright comb changed to a dull red. How she escaped from the hen-house, surmounted the high fence, and hobbled or flew ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning
... made your will, hey?' 'Oh,' I retorted, 'If you've bought the road, or the earth, I'll get off it, of course. I should have said you were the escaped lunatic going along at that pace.' He laughed, a high, reedy cackle that seemed familiar, rose stiffly out of his place and stepped down as though he had cramp. 'Ouch!' he said, bending and straightening to unlimber himself. 'Where are we, hey? Barnet? Taking an evening stroll after the office?' And he took off his goggles and I saw ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... yet unfinished; there are roads for commerce yet to be made; the trade of the African interior yet waits to be admitted into the capacious harbour of Sierra Leone for the enrichment of the fond nursing-mother of races who sits dreamily teaching her children how to cackle instead ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... some labour so absorbing as to drug all thought; and by Travel I mean Nature, and books, and art, and music, since these are, after all, but dream-voyages in other men's minds—they alone are for me the panacea of pain. Not the cackle of the human tongue—that for ever leaves me cold; not the sympathy which talks and reproves, or turns on the tap of help and courage by the usual trite source—that never helps me to forget. But Work, and Travel, and (for me) Loneliness—these are the three things by which ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... Flanagan stood with his hands alternately kept to his nose, from which he flung away the blood, as it sprung out in a most copious stream. Two-thirds, indeed we might say three-fourths of his party, were convulsed with suppressed laughter, nor could they prevent an occasional cackle from being heard, when forcibly drawing in their breath, in an effort not to offend their leader. The discovery of the mistake was, in itself, extremely ludicrous, but when the home truths uttered by Biddy, and the indescribable bitterness'caused by the disappointment, ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... hen came off, and flew up on the window-sill. Then she began to cackle very loud. I suppose she meant to say, "Go and ...
— The Nursery, November 1873, Vol. XIV. No. 5 • Various
... he to embark on the sea, she to weep, and as he sought his ship he could hear the magpies cackle: "If the sea is changeable women ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... myself now. However—" Nicholas cleared his throat. "Since my accident on the hunting field I have seen no one. I had no desire to have a lot of gossipping women and old fool men around. I hate their cackle. I left the management of the estate to Standing, my agent. When he left—he got the offer of a post on Lord Sinclair's estate—Spencer Curtis took his place. He had to report to me, and I saw that he kept things ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... midnight, as I lay in my little cabin, by a heavy blow struck at the sides of the canoe close to my head, which was succeeded by the sound of a weighty body plunging into the water. I got up; but all was again quiet, except the cackle of fowls in our hen-coop, which hung over the side of the vessel about three feet from the cabin door. I could find no explanation of the circumstance, and, my men being all ashore, I turned in again and slept until morning. ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... Rome, a detachment in single file scaled the hill on which the capitol stood, so silently that the foremost man reached the summit without being challenged; but while striding over the rampart, some sacred geese were disturbed, and by their cackle aroused the guard. Marcus Manlius rushed to the wall, and hustled the Gaul over, thus ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... disappoint me. Saving my mother—whom I did not presume to judge at all, and who seemed a being altogether apart from what little humanity I had known until then—I had found that foolishness was as natural to women as its bleat to a sheep or its cackle to a goose; and in this opinion I had been warmly confirmed by Fra Gervasio. Now here in Luisina I had imagined at first that I had discovered a phase of womanhood unsuspected and exceptional. She was driving me to conclude, however, that I had been mistaken, ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... talk of each group could be overheard by any one who listened. Altercations went on with clangorous fury. Almost every party was in division. Some enthusiastic individual had made a find, or had seen some one else who had. His cackle reached other groups, and out of the dark hulking figures loomed to listen or to throw in hot missiles of ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... amazed to see the effect of this announcement upon the three students. He had expected the crows and cackles of rather absurd merriment with which unbearded youth often greets, such news. But there was no crow or cackle. One young man blushed scarlet and looked guiltily at the floor. With a great effort he muttered: " Shes too good for him." Another student had turned ghastly pate and was staring. It was Peter Tounley ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... cease to cackle in that silly fashion I would tell you of Andreas van Wyck, the coward—a tale that is ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... beckoned wildly with her parasol to the "girls" who were idly strolling in a distant part of the field, and the archdeacon ran at full speed. The air grew dark with bows, and resonant with the genial laugh of the archdeacon, the cackle of the younger ladies, and the shrill parrot-like voices of the matrons; those smiled who had never smiled before, and on some maiden faces there hovered that look of adoring ecstasy with which the old maidens graced their angels. Then, when all the due rites had been performed, ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen |
