"Screech" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... despair he strove to rouse courage enough—not to fight—that he did not even desire—but to run. Courage to flee home was all he could ever imagine, and it would not come. But what he had not, was ignominiously given him. A cry in the wood, half a screech, half a growl, sent him running like a boar-wounded cur. It was not even himself that ran, it was the fear that had come alive in his legs: he did not know that they moved. But as he ran he grew able to run—gained courage at least to be a coward. The stars gave ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... which is more than sound. The Indian hath knowledge, even as the white man; and because his heart is open, the trees whisper to him; he reads the language of the grass and the wind, and is taught by the song of the bird, the screech of the hawk, the bark of the fox. And so he comes to know the heart of the man who hath sickness, and calls upon someone, even though it be a weak woman, to cure his sickness; who is bowed low as beside a grave, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... had advanced a certain distance Max stopped and imitated the call of a screech-owl, so like the whinny of a horse. It ended up with a peculiar twist, and it was this that would tell any of the other fellows the sound was intended for a signal, and did not proceed from the ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... following the one-handed horseman in faded pink, who, on his bang-tailed black mare, had a knack of getting so well away. One of the whips, a little dark fellow with smouldery eyes and sucked-in weathered cheeks, dashed out of covert, rode past, saluting, and dashed in again. A jay came out with a screech, dived, and doubled back; a hare made off across the fallow—the light-brown lopping creature was barely visible against the brownish soil. Pigeons, very high up, flew over and away to the next wood. The shrilling voices of the whips rose from the covert-depths, and just a whimper now ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... catch, however, it resisted. Evidently it had not been lifted for many years, and had rusted to the staple. Carefully Alex threw his weight upward against it. It still refused to move. He pushed harder, and suddenly it gave with a piercing screech. ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs
... — N. cry &c v.; voice &c (human) 580; hubbub; bark &c (animal) 412. vociferation, outcry, hullabaloo, chorus, clamor, hue and cry, plaint; lungs; stentor. V. cry, roar, shout, bawl, brawl, halloo, halloa, hoop, whoop, yell, bellow, howl, scream, screech, screak^, shriek, shrill, squeak, squeal, squall, whine, pule, pipe, yaup^. cheer; hoot; grumble, moan, groan. snore, snort; grunt &c (animal sounds) 412. vociferate; raise up the voice, lift up the voice; call out, sing out, cry out; exclaim; rend the air; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... scream. This is a sign that the guns are less than two thousand yards away. For the first one or two thousand yards of its flight a 3-inch shell travels faster than sound, but after that distance it so rapidly loses velocity that the sound of its screech travels faster than the shell and arrives ahead ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... the ladies. He was nearly taken from his feet by a wild-cat yell, and a moment later that result was actually accomplished by a rush of men that tossed him bodily onto its shoulders. At the same moment, the mill and tug whistles began to screech, miscellaneous fire-arms exploded. Even the locomotive engineer, in the spirit of the occasion, leaned down heartily on his whistle rope. The saw-dust street was filled with screaming, jostling men. The homes of the town were brilliantly draped ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... all calm around, A pulseless silence, dread, profound, More awful than the tempest's sound. The diver steered for ORMUS' bowers, And moored his skiff till calmer hours; The sea-birds with portentous screech Flew fast to land;—upon the beach The pilot oft had paused, with glance Turned upward to that wild expanse;— And all was boding, drear and dark As her own soul when HINDA'S bark Went slowly from the Persian shore.— No music timed her parting oar,[244] Nor friends upon the lessening ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... laughter—they laugh a good deal in war time, outside the range of shells—came up to the open window; overpowered now and then by the gurgles and squawks of motor- horns, like beasts giving their death-cries. With a long disintegrating screech there came up a slate-grey box on wheels. It made a semicircular sweep, scattering a group of people, and two young gentlemen of the Royal Naval Air Service sprang down and shouted "What-ho!" very cheerily to two other young gentlemen in naval uniforms ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... this, while the potent draught seemed still to be making its way through his system; and the frightened apothecary thought that he intended a revengeful onslaught upon himself. Finally, he uttered a loud unearthly screech, in the midst of which his voice broke, as if some unseen hand were throttling him, and, starting forward, he fought frantically, as if he would clutch the life that was being rent away,—and fell forward with a ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... least a funeral marriage crave, Nor grudge my cold embraces in the grave. I have too just a title in the strife; By me, unhappy me, he lost his life: I called him hither, 'twas my fatal breath, And I the screech-owl that proclaimed ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... the grayest, most shaggy part of the woods, I come suddenly upon a brood of screech owls, full grown, sitting together upon a dry, moss-draped limb, but a few feet from the ground. I pause within four or five yards of them and am looking about me, when my eye lights upon these, gray, motionless figures. They sit perfectly upright, some with their backs ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... what we have, sor; but the Irish pipes are soft, mellow, gentle things—like the Irish girls—not like them big Scotch bellows that screech for all the world like a thousand unwillin' pigs bein' forced to ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... the most enlightened place in the world, for there was no school, except for a short time in winter, and the people were very superstitious, believing that if they carried a hoe through the house, or broke a looking-glass, somebody "would die before long," and thinking that a screech-owl's scream and the howling of a dog were warnings; and that potatoes must be planted in the "dark of the moon," because they grew underground, and corn in the "light of the moon," because it grew above ground; and that hogs ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... such as you might expect to find on Cape Cod or thereabouts. Hollow-chested as he was, he had a yell in him which was quite surprising. From the time that he sighted the three horsemen he kept up a steady screech until he was safe under their noses. Then he fell flat and gasped for nearly a minute without speaking. His first words were, "That's pooty good sailin' for a man who ain't ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... been washed ashore the time of the Spanish Armada, and had been found in the sand. Mick took it into his hands to feel the weight. Suddenly the old woman looked up, and asked Pat what was the young gentleman's name. Mick answered for himself. She rose from her stool with a screech: "Michael Darragh! Is that who ye are? Mother a' God! an' yer father's gun in his han'." Mick turned in bewilderment to Pat, but he was leaning against the wall, shaking all over. "In the name of God," he was saying. Then he took the gun away, ...
— The Weans at Rowallan • Kathleen Fitzpatrick
... table cry: 'Fetch my belongings for me; I am bare.' A clatter! Something in the attic falls. A ghost has lifted up his robes and fled. The loitering shadows move along the walls; Then silence very slowly lifts his head. The starling with impatient screech has flown The chimney, and is watching from the tree. They thought us gone for ever: mouse alone Stops in the middle of the floor to see. Now all you idle things, resume your toil. Hearth, put your flames ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... (1) The screech-owl, whose cry, despite his ill name, is one o the sweetest sounds in nature, softens his voice in the same way with the most ...
— My Garden Acquaintance • James Russell Lowell
... A screech, a bell, and two red eyes come gliding down the Admiralty Pier with a smoothness of motion rendered more smooth by the heaving of the boat. The sea makes noises against the pier, as if several hippopotami were lapping at it, and were prevented ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... neck, trailed behind him. After the goat (in the double sense of the phrase) came a child. The child tried to catch the goat by means of the rope, caught itself in the rope instead, and went down with a bump and a screech. Whereupon a stout woman, the boy's mother apparently, ran out from the cottage, and also made for the goat. The goat flew down the road, and the woman flew after it. At the first corner, the woman trod ...
— Diary of a Pilgrimage • Jerome K. Jerome
... nothing but screech-owls? do, do, call again; you had best part them now in the sweetness of their love!—I'll be hanged if this AEneas be the son of Venus, for all his bragging. Honest Venus was a punk; would she have parted lovers? no, he has not a drop of Venus' ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... strait for want of provisions before he could have the heart to shoot him. He gave chase nevertheless, plunging along in a ziz-zag way over a carpet of moss and dry pine-needles, and through some dense tangles of undergrowth, uttering a welcoming screech whenever he saw the bright eyes of the little trickster peering down ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... such food as remained to them, and Bob was looking for something in which to carry some water to the cellar, when there came again that nerve-racking screech, followed by a roar and bang that seemed to knock the very bottom out of ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... the strand, They only, each by each; Home, her home, was close at hand, Utterly out of reach. Her mother in the chimney nook Heard a startled sea-gull screech, But never turned her head to look Towards the darkening beach: Neighbors here and neighbors there Heard one scream, as if a bird Shrilly screaming cleft the air:— That ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... blue-jay courts and wins and weds a Baltimore oriole. During courtship there may have been delightfully sympathetic conversation on the charm of being free birds, the felicity of soaring in the blue summer air. Mr. Jay may have been all humility and all ecstasy in comparing the discordant screech of his own note with the warbling tenderness of Miss Oriole. But, once united, the two commence business relations. He is firmly convinced that a hole in a hollow tree is the only reasonable nest for a bird; she is positive that she should ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... her mouth with so manifest an intention of raising another resounding screech that I became desperate, and seized her by the wrists in my anxiety. "Sgridi ancora una volta," says I, in the purest lingua Toscana, "e la lascero qui—to get out of this mess as best you can—cosi sicuro che il ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... I spit on that—the thing will go off. See here—yeep! yeep!" as I spat on it and hurled it into the ditch. With a yell and a screech a Comanche might have been proud of, that darkey "lit out." As he ran he turned his head, and seeing me dancing a war-dance to work off the extra hilarity which his fright had occasioned, he pulled up and ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride
... stand that noise," Septimus explained when it was over. "Once I tried to work out an invention for modifying it. It was a kind of combination between a gramaphone and an orchestrion. You stuck it inside somewhere, and instead of the awful screech a piece of music would come out of the funnel. In fact, it might have gone on playing all the time the train was in motion. It would have been so cheery for ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... on, the men panting in their excitement. Then came the screech of a bullet, and the shout on Philip's lips froze into silence. At first he thought the bullet had struck. But it had gone a little high. A second—a third—and the biting dust of a shattered rock spat into their faces. With a strange thrill Philip saw that ...
— God's Country—And the Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... did so, Kieran saw a pale flash shoot out from the vehicle and knock over a hunter still hanging on the flanks of the fleeing people. He hugged the sand. Something went whining and whistling over him, there was a thunk and a screech. It was repeated, and then the iron ...
— The Stars, My Brothers • Edmond Hamilton
... intense gaze directed upon the flitting Esmeralda, whose goal appeared to be the cupboard, into which she attempted to propel her huge bulk; but as the shelves were but nine or ten inches apart, she only succeeded in getting her head in; whereupon, with a final screech, which paled the jungle noises into insignificance, she fainted ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... magnanimity of courage, a vulpine subtlety of cunning, or a pavonine strut of vanity. The spirit, freed from its fallen cell, "Fills with fresh energy another form, And towers an elephant, or glides a worm, Swims as an eagle in the eye of noon, Or wails, a screech owl, to the deaf, cold moon, Or haunts the brakes where serpents hiss and glare, Or hums, a glittering ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... it all, the convent, the company, the last refrain of former triumphs, the faithful romantic Matthieu de Montmorenci, and above all the poor Marechale, who will screech for ever in her garlic. Let us turn the page, we find another picture from these not ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... sprawled beside him. The horse, catching sight of the motionless "thing" opposite me, at once stood still and snorted violently. The man cried out, "Hey! hey! What's the matter with ye, beast?" And then in an hysterical kind of screech, "Great God! What's yon figure that I see? What's yon ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... all ready, child," she quavered. "But, mark my words, Patricia, there will be something wrong with my paduasoy petticoat, or Charette will not have sent the proper tale of green stockings or Holland smocks. Did you not hear the screech ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... hear the shrill cry of the screech-owl sounding down the silent streets in the most thickly-populated parts of the city. Or you will perhaps be aroused from sleep, as Caper often was, by the long-drawn-out cadences of some countryman singing a rondinella ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... certain I did; and now that we know it was a man who got the scare I reckon he gave a little screech. I thought it was a yelp from some wild animal at the time, but it could have been an ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... a pickpocket; he is robbing birds'-nests, and he is very anxious that nothing should be said about it, but in the fall none so quick and loud to cry "Thief, thief!" as he. One December morning a troop of jays discovered a little screech owl secreted in the hollow trunk of an old apple-tree near my house. How they found the owl out is a mystery, since it never ventures forth in the light of day; but they did, and proclaimed the fact with great emphasis. I suspect the bluebirds ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... the extraordinarily small number of combatants that were visible, when suddenly—it was about two o'clock in the afternoon—the Versailles batteries at Courbevoie, which had been silent for some time, began firing furiously. The horrid screech of the mitrailleuse drowned the hissing of the shells; the whole breadth of the long avenue was covered by a kind of white mist. The bastion in front of me replied energetically. It seemed to me as if the interior part of my ear was being rent asunder, when suddenly I heard a ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... our waggon. They have just placed two shells, one fifty yards in front of it, and the other fifty yards behind; one of them burst on impact, the other didn't. The progress of a shell sounds far off like the hum of a mosquito, rising as it nears to a hoarse screech, and then "plump." We mind them very little now. There is great competition for the fragments, as "curios." It is cold, grey, and sunless today. Last night there was heavy rain, and our blankets are wet still. ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... heat. Tiny, gold-flecked, steel-blue flies poised in the air with vibrating wings. Their ears caught a gentle humming and buzzing all round them, and far away in the wood were heard now and again the tap-tap of the woodpecker and the screech of other birds. ...
— Immensee • Theodore W. Storm
... longer closed. Her hand was stiff, her heart had ceased to beat. He tried with the warmth of his own body to revive her. He shouted, he wept, he prayed. All, all in vain. Again he was in the road, again shouting like an insane being. There was a sound. Hark! It was but the screech of ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... impossible to believe that yonder tiny brown fleck upon the bark was really a bird and not a lichen. He remained in this posture for perhaps a minute, only putting up his head two or three times to peer cautiously round. Unless I misjudged him, he did not discriminate between the screech of the hawk and the ank, ank of a nuthatch, which followed it; and this, with an indefinable something in his manner, made me suspect him of being a young bird. Young or old, however, he had learned one lesson well, at all events, one which I hoped would keep him out of the ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... time—a real fight, with something doin' every moment. I'd be proud to death to do it for you. An' I'd sure fight some with you lookin' on an' understandin'. That'd be a fight what is, take it from me. An' that's funny, too. I never wanted to fight before a woman in my life. They squeal and screech an' don't understand. But you'd understand. It's dead open an' shut ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... "We suffer," says Addison, ["Spectator," No. 7, March 8th, 1710-11.] "as much from trifling accidents as from real evils. I have known the shooting of a star spoil a night's rest, and have seen a man in love grow pale and lose his appetite upon the plucking of a merrythought. A screech-owl at midnight has alarmed a family more than a band of robbers; nay, the voice of a cricket has struck more terror than the roaring of a lion. There is nothing so inconsiderable which may not appear dreadful to an imagination that is filled with omens and prognostics. A rusty ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... strange whizzing noise, and then something struck against my face, and I heard a screech in ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... control room, Emmett Corbin listened to the screech of tormented metal and shuddered. The heat was suffocating, and acrid fumes assailed his nostrils and burned his eyes until he almost cried out ...
— No Hiding Place • Richard R. Smith
... intense excitement and infuse a little courage into her, was too much amazed to speak; and in another moment our visitors were in the room. Paquita started up tearful and trembling; then her two young friends, after staring at her for a few moments, delivered a screech of astonishment and rushed into her arms, and all three were locked together for some ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... a little bluster, but never really coming to blows. We never had the pleasure of seeing a stranger among us. We might hear him approaching, nearer and nearer, till, just as the eager listener fancied he might alight in sight, there would burst upon the air the screech of a jay or the war-cry of a robin, accompanied by the precipitate flight of the whole clan, and away would go the stranger in a most sensational manner, followed by outcries and clamor enough to drive off an army of feathered brigands. This neighborhood, if the accounts of ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... coffin writhed, and a hideous, blood-curdling screech came from the opened red lips. The body shook and quivered and twisted in wild contortions. The sharp white teeth champed together till the lips were cut, and the mouth was smeared with a crimson foam. But Arthur never faltered. He looked like a figure ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... the ground at such a clip that on the third day, with screech of whistle and clang of bell, we slowed at Oakland pier, where a crowd was cheering like the end of a race—which it was—and kodak fiends were underfoot as if ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower
... it is not well adapted to a long journey as it is slow and toilsome. When the mud is deep, progress is almost impossible. Moreover, the labour of the barrow-men constantly excites the sympathy of the humane traveller and the dismal screech of the wheel revolving upon its unoiled axle is worse than the rasp of filing a saw. The Chinese depend upon the shrieks of the wheel to tell them how the axle is wearing, but the disconsolate foreigner finds that his nerves wear out much ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... like a great scarecrow blown out from some Indian maize-field into the desert. His clothes were torn and his mask of a face was seamed and black from dust and sweat; he saw the water and let out one queer, hoarse screech and kicked at his horse ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... dressed member of his family, the crested flycatcher has, nevertheless, an air of pensive melancholy about him when in repose that can be accounted for only by the pain he must feel every time he hears himself screech. His harsh, shrill call, louder and more disagreeable than the kingbird's, cannot but rasp his ears as it does ours. And yet it is chiefly by this piercing note, given with a rising inflection, that we know the ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... startling voice with a screech called to them from behind, ordering them to get out of the way, and turning, they saw a sight, such as they never beheld before. It was a carriage drawn by four horses that were pawing and snorting, in ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu
... wizards know their times: Deep night, dark night, the silent of the night, The time of night when Troy was set on fire, The time when screech-owls cry and ban-dogs howl And spirits walk and ghosts break up their graves, That time best fits the work we have in hand. Madam, sit you and fear not; whom we raise, We will make fast ...
— King Henry VI, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... to Betsy! how that wind does screech!—I say where'bouts shall I land you. This is South Denboro. Whose house do ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... palisaded yards. The empty cars rolled lightly on the single track; there was no rumble of wheels, no tremor of the ground. The engine-driver, running past the Casa Viola with the salute of an uplifted arm, checked his speed smartly before entering the yard; and when the ear-splitting screech of the steam-whistle for the brakes had stopped, a series of hard, battering shocks, mingled with the clanking of chain-couplings, made a tumult of blows and shaken fetters under the ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... Percy answered. "You see, she has been with us boys, and she can play, and doesn't screech if you touch her, or mind a bit if she tears her frock. So are our cousins in England—some of them. Yes, there are some jolly girls, of course; still, after all, what's the good of them, taking them altogether? They are very nice in their way—quiet and well behaved, and so on—but ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... an interval of the faint, persistent rustling of branch and leaf, varied by the screech of a distant cockatoo and the nearer cry of a crow, as the dusk deepened into night as expeditiously as on the stage. Vanheimert was not awed by the quiet voice to which he had been listening. It lacked the note of violence which he understood; ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... voice grew in energy for a while as he proceeded, but at last gave way utterly under the fervour of imprecation, and ceased. Then, as if in an agony of foiled hate, he sent from chanter and drone a perfect screech of execration, with which the instrument dropped from his hands, and he fell back in ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... go away. When the wound has not proved instantly fatal, they have been known to stop the flow of blood by pressing with the hand upon the part, and when they did not succeed, to apply leaves and grass.... When shot, they give a sudden screech, not unlike that of a human, being in sudden and ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... Jacky—and made a joyous grab at the horn, which he immediately put to his lips; but before it could emit its ear-piercing screech, Maurice ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... on which the wedge-tailed eagle really insists when in his summer quarters, is his daily spray bath from a hose. When his keeper goes in to give the daily morning wash to the cage, the eagles perch close above his head and screech and scream until the spray is turned upon them. Then they spread their wings, to get it thoroughly, and come out thoroughly soaked. When the spray is merely turned upon their log instead of upon the birds as they ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... thirty odd native towns, the whole having a population of 1,200,000? This patch of China is surely in process of being awakened: there are numerous schools wherein European missionaries are teaching the German language, and enterprise greets the eye everywhere. Locomotives "Made in Germany" screech warnings to Chinese yokels to clear the way for trains heavy with merchandise of German origin—and this is but an incident in the great scheme of Germanizing the Chinese Empire. Incidentally, it is provided by the agreement between the Pekin and Berlin governments that a native land-owner in ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... mahogany-like dense heart-wood rots, leaving hollow passages in the trunk and larger limbs, and often in the smaller ones, too. Here are homes for all who seek complete seclusion from storms and enemies. The little screech owl loves these hollows more than those of any other tree, and sings his little quavering night song from the dusky tops, while his mate and her eggs are safely hidden in the blackness of the hollow below. The downy woodpecker bores his nest hole in the softened heart-wood of upright ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... in a fit. I mean to screech for Miss Alice," and Muggins was about darting away, when Hugh's long arm caught and held her fast. "Oh, de gracious, Mas'r Hugh," she cried, "you skeers me so. Does you know me, Mas'r Hugh?" and she took ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... incomprehensible, firing into a continent. Pop, would go one of the eight-inch guns; a small flame would dart and vanish, a little white smoke would disappear, a tiny projectile would give a feeble screech—and nothing happened. Nothing could happen. There was a touch of insanity in the proceeding, a sense of lugubrious drollery in the sight; and it was not dissipated by somebody on board assuring me earnestly there ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... rounding a sharp projection of earth and rock, the scattered lodges of the Indian village already partially revealed to those in advance, the riders were brought to sudden halt by a fierce crackling of rifles from rock and ravine, an outburst of fire in their faces, the wild, resounding screech of war-cries, and the scurrying across their front of dense bodies of mounted warriors, hideous in paint and feathers. Men fell cursing, and the frightened horses swerved, their riders struggling madly with their mounts, the column thrown into ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... head?" Sabrina interrupted, eyes glistening. "A bat—it's blind—stone blind!" the jilted girl echoed gleefully. "There's a sign for you, Mistress Jasper Tipton, to conjure with!" She let out a screech and then a weird laugh that echoed through Crockett's Hollow. She cast off the coverlid and in one bound was in the middle of the floor, though she had lain long weeks pining away. She clapped her hands high overhead like she was shouting at meeting. Sabrina laughed ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... Indigo, what is the matter?" said Percy; "you look as if this world was a howling wilderness, and you wanted to howl too. What, crying over that bird? Poh! I can buy you a screech-owl any time, that will make twice the noise he could in his best days. Come, hurry, and put ...
— Little Prudy's Sister Susy • Sophie May
... two big alert hangar doors swung up the whining screech of the jet starters, followed by thunder of the engines, filled the airfield. The atmosphere around the Duluth Municipal Airport was closely akin to Santa Anita the instant the starting ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... her apron to her eyes, and there's no telling what "foolishness" she might have committed had it not been that suddenly, right at her side, arose a most jubilant screech. ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... Low Country was the hyena. The voice of this beast is horrible; it begins with a guttural growl and ends with a high-pitched screech. Although cowardly to a degree, hyenas would often come to within less than a hundred yards of the fire. Occasionally they might be heard on several sides at once, uttering their unspeakable yells. We always noticed that the smell of roast meat attracted them; when meat ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... "detestable screech-owl! it is then thou who art come to exult over the ruins thou ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... many times am, and when they are in the midst of all their good cheer, I come in, in some fearful shape, and affright them, and then carry away their good cheer, and eat it with my fellow fairies. 'Tis I that do, like a screech-owl cry at sick men's windows, which makes the hearers so fearful, that they say, that the sick person cannot live. Many other ways have I to fright the simple, but the understanding man I cannot move to fear, because he knows I have no ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... subject. I am writing in the hope that this may be an opportune time to put in a plea for a much persecuted native of this and many other countries, whose principal function in the economy of nature is to kill rats and mice. The barn, or screech, owl, which is found over a great part of Europe and Asia and also in America, was once very common in Britain, inhabiting every "ivy-mantled tower," church steeple, barn loft, hollow tree, or dovecot, in which it could get a lodging. But it was ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... pastime, and the warning screech of the brakes informed that he had no time to scheme, but had best continue on the plan of action that had brought him thus far—that is, trust to his star and accept what ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... clatter and a jangle, And a wrangle and a screech, How the old alarm clock wheezes As it sneezes out of reach! How you groan and yawn and stretch In the chilly morning air, As you pull the blankets tight, With your head clear out of ...
— Poems for Pale People - A Volume of Verse • Edwin C. Ranck
... felt kinder lonesome, I thought I would come across, and sleep by your shanty fire." The old man enquired why I seemed so much terrified, and my brothers told him that I would persist in calling a screech-owl, a catamount. Old Rufus did not often laugh, but he laughed heartily on this occasion, and truly it was no wonder and when he corroborated what my brothers had already told me, I decided that what he said must be true. His presence at once gave me a feeling ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... next to me had an umbrella in her hand. I made a snatch at this and dropped off that gate like a shot. I didn't stop to think about anything except that beautiful picture was on the point of being swallowed up, and with a screech I dashed at those hogs like a steam engine. When they saw me coming with my screech and the umbrella they didn't stop a second, but with three great wiggles and three scared grunts they bolted as fast as they could go. I picked ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton
... that the rumbling grew in the earth beneath his feet and in the blackness of the vaulting overhead. Terror was in him, for his blasphemy would bring death to Darion. But the vision of Dura-ki was in him too, giving strength to tortured muscles. The bolts came away with a metallic screech, piercing against the mutter of ...
— Bride of the Dark One • Florence Verbell Brown
... the horse heard the coarse jokes of these men and women. He had long since grown painfully accustomed to it. His poor brain understood that there was no difference between the monotonous unchanging screech of a turning wheel and the shrill ...
— Romance of the Rabbit • Francis Jammes
... akinda waumish, d'ye ken. The haivers o' the two spooney craturs juist garred me feel like's I'd taen a fizzy drink or something. You ken what I mean—the kind o' a' ower kittlie feelin' that's like to garr you screech, ...
— My Man Sandy • J. B. Salmond
... restless thoughts. Here dreadful silence, solitary caves, No chirping birds with solace singing sweetly, Are harbour'd for delight; but from the oak, Leafless and sapless through decaying age, The screech-owl chants her fatal-boding lays. Within my breast care, danger, sorrow dwell; Hope and revenge sit hammering in my heart: The baleful babes of angry Nemesis Disperse their ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... not the kind of a man to make a good eavesdropper, and he wished he had knocked sooner. He pulled himself together and struck the door like a battering ram. Mary jumped and opened it with a screech. ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... these fiddlers. Fellow-musicians, we are sorry that it hath been your ill-hap to have had us in your company, that are nothing but screech-owls and night-ravens, able to mar the purest melody: and, besides, our company is so ominous that, where we are, thence liberality is packing. Our resolution is therefore to wish you well, and to bid you farewell. Come, Studioso, let us haste away, Returning ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... and the Goanese joined in the shout, the dark man setting up such an ululating screech that the very storm dwindled into second place in comparison. It was true, the unearthly yelling was carried out over the water, and very likely not a sound of it reached twenty yards inland; but it rattled our nerves, nevertheless. The skin grew prickly all up and down ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... but it sounds particularly soft and true out in the open air this way, and without a piano to accompany her. Mine doesn't—I'm all right to sing in a crowd, but when I try to sing by myself, it's just a sort of screech. There isn't any beauty to my tones at all, and I know it and don't try ...
— A Campfire Girl's Happiness • Jane L. Stewart
... me dyin' day. The men used to be stripped to the waist and tied on a triangle and walloped till they was cut to pieces, till they screamed like little children for mercy, and poor old wretches that had roamed the world for sixty years used to screech Mother! Mother! like little children. It was heart-renderin'! An' what used they be flogged for, do you think?—for the piggishness of the swells mostly. I'll tell you. There was a old feller lived out at Kaligiwa—that's more than twenty miles the other side of Goulburn, an' ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... a long screech from an approaching locomotive woke up the echoes of the forest. It was answered by another from the opposite direction. Both trains were on time. The relief felt by Reuther could not be concealed. The detective ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... swim, and the bottom, most likely, quicksand. Out of the blackness of the opposite shore came a soft, high-pitched, quavering, long-drawn, smothered moan of woe, the call of that snivelling little sinner the screech-owl. Ferry murmured to me to answer it and I sent the same faint horror-stricken tremolo back. Again it came to us, from not farther than one might toss his cap, and I followed Ferry down to the water's edge. The grapevine guy swayed at ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... and answered with a wild scream. So, he could call yet! He was calling after her to stop. Never! . . . She tore through the night, past the startled group of seaweed-gatherers who stood round their lantern paralysed with fear at the unearthly screech coming from that fleeing shadow. The men leaned on their pitchforks staring fearfully. A woman fell on her knees, and, crossing herself, began to pray aloud. A little girl with her ragged skirt full of slimy seaweed began to sob despairingly, lugging ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... sputter jes' lak dis do, an' de ooman she fotched a yell an' cried out, she did, 'Lan' er de mussiful! W'at cur'ous sort er wood is dish yer dat ac' lak dis?' De Owl he wuz startle' an' he look roun' suddint, dis-a-way, over his shoulder, an' de wimmins dey let out a turr'ble screech, 'kase dey seed 'twa'n't nuttin' but a big owl settin' ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... be very wake in himself intirely. But, as cute as he was, he was out here, for he tuck the wrong one. 'Here's to your good health, Terence,' says he, 'an' now pull like the very divil,' 'an' with that he lifted the bottle of holy wather, but it was hardly to his mouth, whin he let a screech out, you'd think the room id fairly split with it, an' made one chuck that sent the leg clane aff his body in my father's hands; down wint the squire over the table, an' bang wint my father half way across the room on his back, upon the flure. Whin he kem to ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... with what I intended to be an awe-inspiring screech; but, owing to the flutter of my breath, the effort ended in a curious ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes
... is this spot, this wilderness, that resounds with the screech of owls and teems with spirits and Yakshas and Rakshasas. Terrible and awful, its aspect is like that of a mass of blue clouds. Casting off the dead body, finish the funeral rites. Indeed, throwing away the body, accomplish those rites before the sun sets and before ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... (solus). Hail! ye black horrors of midnight's midnoon' Ye fairies, goblins, bats, and screech-owls, hail! And, oh! ye mortal watchmen, whose hoarse throats Th' immortal ghosts dread croakings counterfeit, All hail!—Ye dancing phantoms, who, by day, Are some condemn'd to fast, some feast in fire, Now play in churchyards, skipping o'er the graves, To the [2]loud music of the silent ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... and Louise paced slowly up and down the station platform, chatting about the East and Louise's last visit there, before Anne was married. Presently they were interrupted by a wild clatter of hoofs and the grind and screech of a hastily applied brake. The borrowed buckboard, strong, light, two-seated, and built for service, had arrived dramatically. Collie leaned back, the reins wrapped round his wrists, and his foot pressing the brake home. In the harness stood, or ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... night with gaffs. There are water-bailiffs, who keep a good look-out, or think they do, but occasionally find heads of salmon nailed to their doors in derision. The missel-thrush is called the "holm-screech." The missel-thrushes, I know, have a difficulty to defend their young against crows; but last spring I found a jackdaw endeavouring to get at a missel-thrush's nest. The old birds were screeching loudly, and trying to drive the jackdaw away. The chaffinch appears to be called "woodfinch," ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... start, and, with the shock of combat, his carefully prearranged plan of battle quite fled his mercurial mind. He met the charge with a joyous screech, forgot that he had a club, and kicked viciously out with his right foot. His heavy logger's boots connected with something soft and yielding, which instinct told Mr. O'Leary was an abdomen; instinct, coupled with experience, informed him further that no man could assimilate that mighty kick in ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... its deep pouch, is quite safe from birds of prey, except perhaps the owl. The owl, I suspect, thrusts its leg into the cavities of woodpeckers and into the pocket-like nest of the oriole, and clutches and brings forth the birds in its talons. In one case which I heard of, a screech-owl had thrust its claw into a cavity in a tree, and grasped the head of a red-headed woodpecker; being apparently unable to draw its prey forth, it had thrust its own round head into the hole, and in some way became fixed there, and had thus died with the woodpecker ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... your promise. Spoil eberyt'ing if you screech or run to him. Look, dis way! De man what's settin' ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... room. He was welcomed by a screech from the parrot and a dignified salaam from James, who was trimming the wick of the oil-lamp. For the last year and a half this room had served as headquarters. Many a financial puzzle had been pieced together within these dull drab walls; ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... disorder, amidst the terrible crowd, she reaches the door of her house. It is shut. There with hands and feet she beats away, crying, "Quick, quick, my love, open the door for me!" There hung she, like the hapless screech-owl whom they nail up on a farm-house door; and still as hard as ever rained the blows. Within the house all is deaf. Is the husband there? Or rather, being rich and frightened, does he dread the crowd, lest they should sack ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... light, was strewed afar, but in a squatting posture; so that they sat in a sequence, like graduated specimens, the smaller howling. But soon the doctor's face filled with horror, and he uttered a far louder and unearthly screech, and kicked and struggled with wonderful agility for one ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... everything is still, The screech-owl and the whistler shrill, Call upon our dame aloud, And bid ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... finished off with a screech, and the serpent emitted a last note that nearly lifted the roof. When, from the comparative quiet within, the mummers judged that the dancers had taken their seats, Father Christmas advanced, lifted the latch, and put his head inside ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... uncle were right—for the scream of a parrot reached my ears soon after, followed by whistlings and pipings from the forest; while soon after a horribly harsh grating screech came from overhead, and I caught a glimpse of the bird which uttered it—one of the great long-tailed Aras, on its way with three or four more to a favourite ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn
... the wounded General looked from him to the distant plain, where the battle tide was rolling farther away, and from which, from time to time, arose outbursts of sudden sound—the wild screech of the Highlanders, the answering cheer of the English, the spattering, diminishing shots, and now and again a sharp volley that told of some more determined struggle ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... books they would all sink to nothingness before yours, that they were not fit to be mentioned in the same day, and that she felt quite discouraged from writing when she thought of yours. The whole conversation of the aunties [3] made her screech with laughing; and, in short, I can neither record nor describe all that she said; far from exaggerating it, I don't say half enough, but I only wish you had seen the effect it produced. I am sure you will be the first author of ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... had heard the owl's screech for many and many a night; but he had seen no cause for fear in this: everything was going along nicely; their little son was in good health and they, too, knew no illness. But now the warning of the evil omen was confirmed. The pigeons which he had himself brought ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... uncertain dreams, Of what was soon to come, for she would mark The paley glow-worm's self-created light, And argue thence of kingdoms overthrown, And desolated nations; ever fill'd With undetermin'd terror, as she heard Or distant screech-owl, or the regular beat Of evening death-watch. "Maid," the Spirit cried, Here, robed in shadows, dwells FUTURITY. There is no eye hath seen her secret form, For round the MOTHER OF TIME, unpierced mists Aye hover. Would'st thou read the book of Fate, Enter." The Damsel for a moment paus'd, Then ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey
... associated with the screech-owl (Aluco candidus) of the Philippines. It is a bird of ill-omen. Compare A. Newton, Dictionary ...
— Philippine Folk-Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss, Berton L. Maxfield, W. H. Millington,
... the rancher was an excellent marksman, and the bullet bored its way through the breast of the painted miscreant, who hardly knew what hurt him. With a screech, he threw up his arms, one grasping his gun, and toppled from the back of his pony, falling with a loud splash into the water, where for the moment ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... when Hannah was brought on shore and found out what was going to be done with her, she should screech in a most dreadful manner, and although the pirates soon silenced her and covered her up, they did not succeed in silencing her spirit, and ever since that time,—according to the stories told by some of the older inhabitants ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton
... with his nerves of iron, have been found dead in their beds, with straining eyeballs and horrent hair, at the first step of the Dread Progress, thinkest thou that this weak woman—from whose cheek a sound at the window, the screech of the night-owl, the sight of a drop of blood on a man's sword, would start the color—could brave one glance of—Away! the very thought of such sights for her makes ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... gobble like a turkey and lure a whole flock of these birds within reach of their rifles. Bleating like the fawn they would draw the timid dam to her death. The moping owls would come in flocks attracted by the screech of the hunter, while packs of wolves, far away in the forest, would howl in response to the hunter's cry. The boys also rivalled the Indians in the skill with which they would throw the tomahawk. With a handle of ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... the dame's fright was painful to behold. She would not scream—her organs of screech seemed to have lost their power—nor, as a rule, would she curse; she would just address herself to silent prayerful speed, with every symptom of ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... pushed open the door with his bill, but remained on the threshold, astonished at the sight which met his eyes. On the floor of the ruined chamber—which was but scantily lighted by a small barred window—sat a large screech owl. Big tears rolled from its large round eyes, and in a hoarse voice it uttered its complaints through its crooked beak. As soon as it saw the Caliph and his Vizier—who had crept up meanwhile—it gave vent to a joyful cry. It gently ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... tell what the river is talkin' about, in its calm gentle moods or its voylent ones. Who knows what the loud angry scream and screech of the deep waves say as the tempest and storm presses down on 'em and the Deep answers back in a voice of thunder, with its great heart beatin' and heavin' up and throbbin' in its mad pain and frenzy? ...
— Samantha at Coney Island - and a Thousand Other Islands • Marietta Holley
... galloping before them to strike with their silver-headed canes could dispense with a knocker. Gaston was afraid to strike with a stone, for fear of being denied admittance, he therefore ordered the coachman to stop, and going up a narrow lane by one side of the house, he imitated the cry of the screech-owl—a signal preconcerted. ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... suspense was unendurable. The logician tried to open the front of the case, but it was riveted fast. With impetuous fingers he then wrenched at the disc. With a sound like a rusty screech, it came off in his hands. The lamp so flickered that Balder feared it was going out, and even at this epoch had to look round to reassure himself. Meanwhile, a pungent, but not unpleasant odor saluted his nostrils: he turned back to the clock,—a clock ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... hesitation in firing at the one on his right, and immediately after at his companion, whose superior speed had placed him considerably in advance. As a consequence, he missed the latter, while the first emitted a screech, leaped high in air and sprawled forward on his face ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... greeted the announcement, in which something like a screech from Cris Rock could be heard above all voices; while the giant himself was seen rushing through the crowd to clasp the hand of his protege, whom he had voluntarily assisted in promoting to a rank ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... the lordly palace In ruins on the ground, And the dismal screech of the owl is heard Where the harp was wont to sound; But the selfsame spot thou coverest With the dwellings of the poor, And a thousand happy hearts enjoy ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... me Maenalian lays. Now let the wolf turn tail and fly the sheep, Tough oaks bear golden apples, alder-trees Bloom with narcissus-flower, the tamarisk Sweat with rich amber, and the screech-owl vie In singing with the swan: let Tityrus Be Orpheus, Orpheus in the forest-glade, Arion 'mid ...
— The Bucolics and Eclogues • Virgil
... passage, windows, and sides of the house, in every direction, instantly followed the ferocious order. And, in the expiring light, the fated French was seen to leap into the air; and then, spinning giddily round and round an instant, fall, with a low, short screech, prostrate on the floor; while mingled groans, rising from a half dozen others along the passage, told also the fearful effect of the ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... up and threw a big eel into the back. When poor old Mrs. Carr was driving up the hill by Ingleside that eel came squirming out between her feet. She thought it was a snake and she just give one awful screech and stood up and jumped clean over the wheels. The horse bolted, but it went home and no damage was done. But Mrs. Carr jarred her legs most terrible, and has had nervous spasms ever since whenever she thinks of the eel. Say, it was a rotten trick ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... fellow was up at the top at the time, and he heard the cry; but in his fright, and all, he did not know what to do, ma'am; for he looked about from the top of the chimney, and not a soul could he see stirring, but a few that he could not make attend to his screech; the boy within almost stifling too. So he screeched, and screeched, all he could; and by the greatest chance in life, ma'am, old Mr. Eden was just going down the hill to fetch his ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... back, and only then did the orchestra spring to life with a screech and a mad tattoo ...
— The Yillian Way • John Keith Laumer
... from his reverie. The swiftly falling curtain of twilight had wrapped the spreading orchards and haciendas in fragrant gloom and a myriad of mysterious chirpings and rustlings forecasted the coming night, when the harsh, grating screech of a horn blared upon their monotone and a low roadster appeared suddenly around a turn in the road, careening sharply on two wheels, and bore down ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... edge of the rocks when his ears were greeted by a yell of mortal fear. The captain and the rest, catching the sound, went faster. Screech after screech rang from ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... flinging out his hand with angry energy; "I wants to ax of you, as a sodger, for I've heer'd you're of the reggelar sarvice, whether it's a wiser and more Christian affa'r, when thar's Injuns in the land a murdering of your neighbours' wives and children, and all the settlement's in a screech and a cry, to send an able-bodied man to fight them; or to tote him off, a day's journey thar and back ag'in, to track a road that a blind man on a blind horse could travel, without axing questions of anybody? Thar's my question," he added, somewhat vehemently; "and ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... gentle feminine girl, with a most lovely and winning countenance, and I did inherently like to hear her pronounce the word "Jack"—it was so different from the boisterous screech of the Eton boys, or the swaggering call of ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper |
