"Shrill" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... half a mile; the rain ceased, and she stopped to try once more to readjust the scarf, when, in the stillness that had followed the cessation of the rain, she heard a faint and distant sound of music. It drew nearer, a thin, shrill twittering, and as Mrs. Pat turned quickly from her task to see what this could portend, she heard ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... succession of shrill sounds, which indicated that the engineer was either frightened or frantic; the conductor rushed bare-headed through the car; people sprang to their feet; there was a scramble on the platform; then ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... Uncle Zebedee had tried to choke at its birth now came out shrill, long and expressive, and Adam, jumping up, said, "Come, come, Eve: we've had enough of this. Surely there isn't any need to take such idle talk as serious matter. If you and me hadn't seen some ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... not waited more than ten minutes when there came the thud of hoofs upon the soft track, a flash of gray in the distance, something flying over those forky branches sprawling across the way, then a half-sweet, half-shrill call, like a bird's, at which the keeper's children scattered themselves like a brood of scared chickens, and now a rush, and a gray pony shooting suddenly into the air and coming down on the other side of the gate, as if he were a ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... morning the scholar called upon the wife and heard how well his scheme had succeeded. She told him every thing. When she had revealed her husband's secret to him, the meek features of her strange guest suddenly changed. He gave a loud shrill scream of joy and disappeared. The poor wife remained on the same ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland
... onward. How there was recognition and greeting even in the squirrel that scampered past him, mischievously whisking his ridiculous tail within an inch of his outstretched fingers. And how Aristides, at last flinging away hat, shoes, and satchel, uttered a shrill whoop and dashed forward like a youthful savage. But are not these things written in the dog's-eared pages of every boy's memory, even though they seemed afterward to the just Aristides a part and parcel ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... ejaculation from my father; I did not know why, nor yet why Pomp uttered a shrill ejaculation, for I was pulling with all my might like one in a dream. I felt once as if I should like to look back and see how near we were to the point that I knew must be close at hand; but everything was getting dark, and a horrible sensation of sickness was coming on. Then the sharp report ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... laughed in the trees above her—a shrill, wild laugh. She looked up frightened. Parpon presently ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... a fine bed of hay and blankets for our sick man. Nevertheless, he was a source of much anxiety and trouble. At last, to the intense relief of all, we heard far away the shrill whistle of a locomotive. It was sweet music to my ears, for I realized the peril of the delay. We had now arrived at the base of the southern slope of the Pyrenees and the plain stretched out before us. We had just passed through an intrenched camp that guarded ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... by the creek cometh a calling for Peter And from the orchard a voice echoes and echoes it over; Down in the pasture the sheep hear that shrill crying for Peter, Up from the spring-house the wail stealeth anon like a whisper, Over the meadows that call is aye and forever repeated. Such are the voices that whooped wildly and vainly for Peter Decades and decades ago down in the state of Kentucky— Such are the voices that ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... world. With the young reporter at his side, he ventured in the light of day into Main Street or strode up and down on the rickety front porch of his own house, talking excitedly. The voice that had been low and trembling became shrill and loud. The bent figure straightened. With a kind of wriggle, like a fish returned to the brook by the fisherman, Biddlebaum the silent began to talk, striving to put into words the ideas that had been accumulated by his mind during ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... scene, who secured his bullship and rescued the child. Willard was not seriously hurt, and the instant he regained his feet, he turned round, shook his tiny fist at the now retreating animal and shouted out in a shrill treble, "When I get to be a big man I'll ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... to her face, as if some one had struck her, and she called all her woman's courage to meet and combat her trouble. The bright world seemed pressing down upon her heavily, the shrill notes of the birds clamoring their gratitude as they greedily fought for the crumbs, pierced through her head. She swayed to and fro, as if she were about to fall; for, in the young, mental anguish produces ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... departing summer; And I'll take thee up from thy bed of grass, And carry thee home to a house of glass; Where thy slender limbs, and the faded green Of thy close-made coat, can all be seen. For I long to know if the cricket sings, Or plays the tune with his gauzy wings;— To bring that shrill-toned pipe to light Which kept me awake so long last night, That I told the hours by the lazy clock, Till I heard the crow of the noisy cock; When, tossing and turning, at length I fell In a sleep so strange, that the ...
— The Youth's Coronal • Hannah Flagg Gould
... lame, having a hurt foot. They stood and looked at each other, and then the wild man walked away, watching him closely and ready to shoot with his bow. After he disappeared in the forest this hunter heard a long, shrill laugh and words that sounded ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... I stood before my Glass, the Image of a Youth, of an open ingenuous Aspect, appeared in it; who with a small shrill Voice spoke in the ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... chaparral; and whenever he happened on their morning splatterings, he would depress his glossy crest, slant his shining tail to the level of his body, until he looked most like some bright venomous snake, daunting them with shrill abuse and feint of battle. Then suddenly he would go tilting and balancing down the gully in fine disdain, only to return in a day or two to make sure the foolish bodies ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... hands, and he gazed straight before him at the oriel window, where the ivy was tremulous with the shining bodies and clamorous voices of nesting sparrows. They darted swiftly from gable to gable, filling the air with shrill sounds of discord, and endowing with animation the inanimate pile, wrapping the dead bricks in ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... disappeared before the fury of the wind increased. It lashed the ground with heavy whips, raging and screaming in shrill, whistling frenzy, until the desert rose in terror ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... sticks and stones and fists, even the women joining in the fray, biting and tearing like bagged cats. The scene was hideous and the sounds those of a sacked city, for many were hurt and all gave tongue, while shrill and clear above this hateful music rose the yells of Bridget, who had awakened from her faint and imagined all was over and that ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... A sound of shrill singing now struck his ear. He was in a narrow asphalted way surrounded by workmen's tenements. Right in the middle, occupying the place of the non-existent traffic, ten or a dozen children were dancing a sort of figure, and singing the ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... a shrill, hard voice. "Stop! I must speak; it is my duty as a Christian. I must tell the truth. I cannot allow an honest man to ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... His voice rose very shrill and mad against the regular deep soughing of the swell coiling heavily about the outer ...
— To-morrow • Joseph Conrad
... the situation and announced his intention of running for Mangareva, an uproar broke out. Against a background of throaty rumbling arose inarticulate cries of rage, with here and there a distinct curse, or word, or phrase. A shrill Cockney voice soared and dominated for a moment, crying: "Gawd! After bein' in ell for fifteen days—an' now e wants us to sail this floatin' ell ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... croak—there is a sweet guttural about some of these that I never heard in England: before going to bed, I remember particularly one amorous batrachian courting malgre sa maman regaled us with a lusciously deep rich croak, that served as a good accompaniment for the shrill ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler
... herself on singing a certain weird and exalted part which in ancient days used to be called counter, and which wailed and gyrated in unimaginable heights of the scale, much as you may hear a shrill, fine-voiced wind over a chimney-top; but altogether, the deep and earnest gravity with which the three filled up the pauses in the storm with their quaint minor key, had something singularly impressive. When the singing was over, Zephaniah read to the accompaniment ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... strength, life, movement; clinching his hands, he sprang forward to dispute with Abel Larinski his prey. Suddenly, with a shiver of terror and dismay, he paused; he had heard proceeding from a distant corner of the chamber a shrill, malignant laugh. He turned, and distinctly perceived his father—a greasy cap on his head, wrapped in a forlorn, threadbare, dirty caftan. This was unquestionably Jeremiah Brohl, and this night it ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... from Cold Feet, a cry so sharp and shrill that it sent a chill down the back of Sinclair. For a moment he whirled with the weight of his struggling, cursing enemy, and then his right hand shot up over the shoulder of Cartwright and clutched his chin. With ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... Theseus. It was indeed a glad meeting for both father and son, and they had many things to ask and to tell. As for the wicked Medea, she knew that her day of rule was past. She ran out of the palace, and whistled a loud, shrill call; and men say that a chariot drawn by dragons came rushing through the air, and that she leaped into it and was carried away, and no ...
— Old Greek Stories • James Baldwin
... shrieks so wild and shrill, That cut, like blades of steel, the air, Causing the creeping blood to chill With the sharp cadence ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... of kinks and quirks. How that tail undulates! Now its end curls, now it is flattened to the stone, now it springs straight up as if part of a trap, hind feet the while keeping time in a sort of nervous dance with the shrill, strident cackling and snickering. The next moment he is sitting erect with fore paws pressed against his white chest, his tail rippling out behind him or up his back, and his shrill, nasal tones still pouring out. He hops to the next stone, he assumes a new position, his tail palpitates and ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... they were in the narrowest part, where a low stone wall runs along the edge of the precipice. He stooped down and stepped upon the narrow wall, calling all the time to his sheep, who followed close upon his heels, walking in single file. He said "tahl, tahl," "come, come," and then made a shrill whirring call, which could be heard above the roaring of the waves on the rocks below. It was wonderful to see how closely they followed the shepherd. They did not seem to notice the camels on the one side, or the abyss on the other side. Had they ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... tried to keep her tone natural, but a certain shrill alertness crept into it and Barbara, who was watching her closely, was quick to detect the change. Helen's color altered at the question, and she observed the widow's ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... The spectators took their places again, the lights were lowered, the illumination was turned on the white canvas, and the dancer, warmed with wine and adulation, took a bolder pose, and, as her limbs began to move, sang a wild Moorish melody in a shrill voice, action and words flowing together into the passion of the daughter of tents in a desert life. It was all vigorous, suggestive, more properly religious, Mavick would have said, and the applause ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... and shrill screams, bursting suddenly from the throat of the chained form, seemed to thrust me violently back. For a brief moment I hesitated— I trembled. Unsheathing my rapier, I began to grope with it about the recess; but ...
— The Raven • Edgar Allan Poe
... it was the talking bird calling to him in this way, for he had heard Black Joe rattle along just like an educated poll parrot. Then he recognized the shrill tones of Miss Muster; and at the same moment caught sight ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... a whole town of them right beside the road, with every dog sitting on top of the mound that marked his home, and uttering his shrill little bark, and marking each bark by a peculiar ...
— The Voyage of the Rattletrap • Hayden Carruth
... Feathered and ruffled in every part, Skipper Ireson stood in the cart. Scores of women, old and young, Strong of muscle, and glib of tongue, Pushed and pulled up the rocky lane, Shouting and singing the shrill refrain: "Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt By the ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... peculiarities this bird scarcely ever seemed to feel the need of utterance of any soft. On the rare occasions of any excitement he delivered a sharp, metallic "click"; a sudden alarm, like the attack of another bird, called out a war-cry loud and shrill, and very odd; and in the contest over the important question of precedence at the bath he sometimes uttered a droll squeal or whining sound. Besides these, he made singular noises in bathing and dressing his feathers, which are not uncommon among birds, but are difficult to describe. They ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... inverted prose: the profusion of metaphors clumsily tacked on to it in imitation of the lyricism of other nations produced an effect of utter falsity upon any sincere person. Christophe set no more store by these poetic dramas than he did by the Italian operas with their shrill mellifluous airs and their ornamental vocal exercises. He was much more interested in the actors than the plays. And the authors had tried hard to imitate them. "It was hopeless to think that a play could be performed with any success unless the author ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... He blew a shrill whistle, and a man stepped out of a doorway. He was an enormous Sicilian, tall, sinewy and with a countenance as dark and fierce as his master's. In his belt was a long knife, such as ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... to be a moving form. His gaze remaining fixed and fascinated on this object, distinguished at last a dark face with two gleaming eyes surmounted by horns. All Peter Rorke's vaunted courage deserted him; conscience-stricken and smitten by sudden agonising fears, he uttered a shrill quavering scream and began to totter down the hill with all the speed ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... she said, the strange passion which agitated her making her voice sound shrill and piercing—not loud, but preternaturally distinct; "here and nowhere else. How good you are—how noble and how generous! Love you! Why, there are women a hundred times my superiors in beauty and in ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... clatter by the fountain, and the shrill small pipe of D'Aurigny, the youngest boy ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... still remained fruitless; and Don Luis was the victim of an increasing and irritating restlessness. But, shortly after midnight, a shrill whistle drew all the men to the eastern extremity of the island, at the end of the ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... sensations that dispelled her sorrows; the ferry, the olive-green river rolling in the morning sun, alive with dodging, hurrying craft, each bent upon its destination with an energy, relentlessness, and selfishness of purpose that fascinated Honora. Each, with its shrill, protesting whistle, seemed to say: "My business is the most important. Make way for me." And yet, through them all, towering, stately, imperturbable, a great ocean steamer glided slowly towards the bay, by very might and majesty holding her way serene and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Well, I'll thhow you whether I am afraid of the water. I dare you to follow me." Tommy fairly flew down the pier; then, leaping up into the air, jumped far out, taking a clean feet-first dive into the pond, uttering a shrill little yell just before disappearing under the surface. But all at once she stood up, and, by raising her chin a little, was able to keep her ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... 24th of March, being the eve of the annunciation of our Lady, a Moor appeared early in the morning on the shore, abreast of the ships, calling out in a loud and shrill voice, "that if our men wanted any more water they might now come for it, when they would find such as were ready to force their return." Irritated at this bravado, and remembering the injury done him in withholding the promised pilot, and the loss of the Negro, the general resolved ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... window was lighted, her mother's. And suddenly two shadows appeared in the luminous square, two shadows, side by side. Then distracted, without reflection, without knowing what she was doing, she screamed with all her might, in a shrill voice: "Mamma!" as a person would cry out to warn people in danger ...
— Yvette • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... There was no time to lose. They worked in the small drawing-room next the summer gallery, where the theatre was already being fitted up; and the noise of hammers, the songs from the burlesque, the shrill voices, the conductor's fiddle, mingled with the loud trumpet-like calls of the peacocks, and rose upon the hot southern wind, which, not recognising it as only the mad rattle of its own grasshoppers, shook it all disdainfully on the trailing tip of ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... struggle, he had wounded the black serpent with his teeth, as it was striving, as it were, to force its head into his mouth, which wound Footnote: seemed to increase its rage. At this instant I heard the shrill sound of a whistle, and looking towards the door saw the other Arab applying a call to his mouth: the serpents listened to the music, their fury seemed to forsake them by degrees, they disengaged themselves leisurely from the apparently lifeless carcase, and creeping towards the cage, they ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... Gibbie gave a shrill loud whistle that startled her. In a few seconds, from somewhere unseen, a dog came bounding to him over stones and heather. How he spoke to the dog, or what he told him to do, she had not an idea; but the next instant Oscar was rushing ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... drank a little and then sank back upon his pillow. He gazed fixedly at Hannah for a few moments, and then suddenly threw his arms around her neck, as she stooped over him, and cried out in a voice piercing shrill ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... the moment eating the well broiled venison. Oncle Jazon's puckered lips and chin were dripping with the fragrant grease and juice, which also flowed down his sinewy, claw-like fingers. Overhead in the bare tops of the scrub oaks that covered the prairie oasis, the February wind sang a shrill ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... later that Kasia Vard, still sitting at the window staring out into the court, searching desperately through her brain for some plan of escape, was brought quivering to her feet by a shrill scream, followed by the sound of a terrible struggle on the floor above. There was a heavy tramping to and fro, the thud of falling furniture, a dull crash that shook the house—and then silence. It was over in a moment, but she stood rigid for ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... your God!" their spears are all agleam, And I can see their eyes with blood-lust shine; Their snarling voices shrill into a scream, And, mad to slay, they quiver for the sign. Deny my God! yes, I could do it well; Yet if I did, what of my race, my name? How they would spit on me, these dogs of hell! Spurn me, and put on me the brand of shame. A white man's honour! what of that, ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... arrayed, And sweetly singing as they played. Near and more near the hermit drew, And watched them at their game, And stronger still the impulse grew To question whence they came. They marked the young ascetic gaze With curious eye and wild amaze, And sweet the long-eyed damsels sang, And shrill their merry laughter rang. Then came they nearer to his side, And languishing with passion cried: "Whose son, O youth, and who art thou, Come suddenly to join us now? And why dost thou all lonely dwell In the wild wood? ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... in a little alley which was like a fiord of peace running in from the shrill storm of the Brown Borough. Here little cottages shrank together, passive resisters of the twentieth century. Low crooked windows blinked through a mask of dirty creepers. Each little front garden contained a shrub, ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... moon was low, And the shrill winds were up and away,[7] In the white curtain, to and fro, She saw the gusty shadow sway. But when the moon was very low, And wild winds bound within their cell, The shadow of the poplar fell Upon her bed, across her brow. She only said, "The night is dreary, He cometh not," she said; She ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... from a man being intent on many things which he is in a hurry to accomplish, whereas the magnanimous is intent only on great things; these are few and require great attention, wherefore they call for slow movement. Likewise shrill and rapid speaking is chiefly competent to those who are quick to quarrel about anything, and this becomes not the magnanimous who are busy only about great things. And just as these dispositions of bodily movements ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... louder as he advanced, and knocked at Gould's door; there was no response. "Gould!" he cried, "Gould! are you in?" As there was still no answer he turned the handle and looked in; there was the canary hanging in the window, through which the sun poured, and his shrill notes went through his head; but no Gould. "Plague take it!" muttered Saurin; "it is all to do now another time, and I cannot get this suspense over. I wonder where the fellow has ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... the table bright Shrill sang the samovar at eve,(44) The china teapot too ye might In clouds of steam above perceive. Into the cups already sped By Olga's hand distributed The fragrant tea in darkling stream, And a boy handed round the cream. ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... there. I have something else to say to you," she added in a shrill whisper, pushing the ...
— Mischievous Maid Faynie • Laura Jean Libbey
... a miracle to Hyde. As the door opened, he slowly turned his head. When he saw who was really there, he uttered a low cry of joy,—a cry pitiful in its shrill weakness. In a moment Katherine was close to his side. This was no time for coyness, and she was too tender and true a woman to feel or to affect it. She kissed his hands and face, and whispered on his lips the sweetest ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... rush; and out from the leaves broke some dozen or so young pigs; but espying the dog they swung about in squealing terror and plunged back again. But in that moment I let fly among them and was mighty glad to see one roll over and lie kicking, filling the air with shrill outcry; then Pluto was upon it and had quickly finished the poor beast, aye, and would have devoured it, too, had I not driven ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... his wounded wrist and grinding out curses. Then suddenly seizing with his uninjured hand the chair which Perault had thrown at him, he raised it aloft and with a wild yell brought it down upon Shock's head. With his yell mingled a shrill cry. It was little Patsy. He had stolen in behind his father, and with eyes growing wider and wider had stood listening to his father's groans ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... of a nightingale, the gleam of the glowworms, compose a scene of fantastic beauty. The slightest sounds startle her, whether it be a fish leaping at the surface of the water to seize a fly, the gurgling of a little eddy, or the shrill cry of a bat. There is a certain voluptuous beauty in the very sound of the words that describe the little nymph, kissed by ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer
... concluding the communion service, the door of the church was burst open, and old Ike, tottering into the aisle, cried out in a shrill voice:— ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... its body and pretend to be dead. The birds were fairly rioting by this time. A catbird, the Northern mocker, lit in a tree over Tom's head, and trilled out her imitations of her neighbors in a rapture of enjoyment; then a shrill jay swept down, a flash of blue flame, and stopped on a twig almost within the boy's reach, cocked his head to one side and eyed the strangers with a consuming curiosity; a gray squirrel and a big fellow of the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Again, you might join our fishing parties, where we sat perched as thick as solan-geese, a covey of little anglers, boy and girl, angling over each other's heads, to the much entanglement of lines and loss of podleys and consequent shrill recrimination—shrill as the geese themselves. Indeed, had that been all, you might have done this often; but though fishing be a fine pastime, the podley is scarce to be regarded as a dainty for the table; and it was a point of honour that a boy should eat all that he had taken. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... where the trail wound aimlessly around a low sand ridge flecked with scrubby sage half buried in gray snowbanks, a horse whinnied inquiringly; Barney, his own red-roan, perked his ears toward the sound and sent shrill answer. In that land and at that season travelers were never so numerous as to be met with indifference, and Billy felt a slight thrill of expectation. All day—or as much of it as was left after his late sleeping and later breakfast—he ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... roar and a rush as the people rose to escape from the galleries, and few observed a slender girl slip from her seat to the floor. A woman with beautiful eyes, whose face was otherwise veiled from view, stooped to her succor, then gave a shrill cry. Mary Lincoln lay lifeless. Mrs. Oswald Carey, whose shriek it was that made this known, was not one to believe that a woman can die of a broken heart. But if even such a result of her treachery had been foreshadowed to her, she would ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... celebration of the victory would now be given, after which there would be refreshments—Peter pricked up his ears at the word! —and then the plunder taken from the prisoners would be distributed among the officers and crew of the Merry Mouser. This last announcement was greeted by a volley of shrill and joyful yowls from the younger cat pirates, but Growler, frowning, whispered in ...
— The Wonderful Bed • Gertrude Knevels
... Isabel, who had seized the letter, let it drop on the table, pushed it, with averted face, towards the duke, and turned back to the cradle of her child, whom she woke with her sobs, and who wailed its shrill reply in infant petulance and terror, snatched from its slumber to the arms of ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... heard Bandy-legs give utterance to a shrill whoop they scrambled to their feet, half expecting to find that some fearful shape had darted out from the surrounding forest, and was carrying their ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie
... Danaans on, fearless of the fury and onset of the Trojans. They stood as still as clouds which the son of Saturn has spread upon the mountain tops when there is no air and fierce Boreas sleeps with the other boisterous winds whose shrill blasts scatter the clouds in all directions—even so did the Danaans stand firm and unflinching against the Trojans. The son of Atreus went about among them and exhorted them. "My friends," said he, "quit ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... a seraph host maritimal, Was gorgeous, with wings of diamond Fann'd over it, and millions beyond Of tiny waves were playing to and fro, All musical, with an incessant flow Of cadences, innumerably heard Between the shrill notes of a hermit bird, That held a solemn paean ...
— The Death-Wake - or Lunacy; a Necromaunt in Three Chimeras • Thomas T Stoddart
... behold with power as vain to shield, Earth's only blessing from her presence torn? Was there a fiercer pang for her revealed In that short conflict than she yet had known? Her dark eyes grew more wildly bright, And gleamed with an intenser light, As closer drew the venomed fang, And shrill the lone bird's accents rang. But, hark! a shot—a rustling fall— Approaching steps—a sportman's call— The parent bird is in the dust; And o'er the path that homeward led, With fleeting step fair Morna fled, And breathed a prayer of thanks and trust. Though sweet to ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... wood-pile they performed a jubilee chorus on combs, and tin kettles played like tambourines; the boys celebrated their victories with shrill whistles, and a drum accompaniment with fists on the shed walls. Billy brought his drum, and this was such an addition that Sam hunted up an old one of his little brother's, in order that he might join the drum corps. He had no sticks, however, and, ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... the country; the thunder yet roared in distant peals, and the lightning came down in such vast sheets that the carriers were often obliged to set down their burden, and cover their eyes to regain their sight. A shrill wind pierced the slight covering of the litter, and blowing it aside, discovered the mist; or the gleaming of some wandering water, as it glided away over the ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... springs, and then he shrieks out his ecstasy, startling even the sportsman with his sharp, shrill, and strangely ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... sky— When on the whispering winds there came The Teton's shrill and thrilling cry, And heaven was pierced with shafts of flame! The sun seemed rising through the haze, But with an aspect dread and dire: The very air appeared to blaze!— O God! the Prairie ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... had the troopers recovered, refilled their depleted cartridge belts from those of their dead comrades, when the onslaught came. Lashing their ponies into mad gallop, now sitting erect, the next moment lying hidden behind the plunging animals, constantly screaming their shrill war-cries, their guns brandished in air, they swept onward, seeking to crush that thin line in one terrible onset. But they reckoned wrong. The soldiers waited their coming. The short, brown-barrelled carbines gleamed at the level in the sunlight, and then belched ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... to Helen in passing, and then he began to ascend to his high platform. When he reached it and stood poised ready for his act, there came a shrill whistle from Jim Tracy, the ringmaster, who wore his usual immaculate shirt front and black evening ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum
... guns began sputtering, and their shrill treble blended with the deep bass of the heavier field guns. A moment more, and from the rifles of the American infantry a withering blast of flame sprang out and the enemy ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall
... borders of the wood, and stood astonished. One tree had fallen, others were part hewed away. There was the tribe clustered. They were back to back, and bodies lay, and blood flowed among their feet. The hue of fear was on all their faces: their voices went up to heaven shrill as ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... shrill blast of bugles. This undoubtedly told the French soldiers that victory had fallen to their portion, and that the winning of the Marne ford ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... curious relic of '98), a few herds-men's huts, and the police-station at Erriff Bridge. To those who, like myself, love animals, the drive is by no means uninteresting. As the car jolts along past "Hag's Valley," a dozen curlews take wing, and a little further on the shrill cry of the redshank strikes on the ear. Now and then a hare will start among the bent-grass, while aloft the falcon rests poised on her mighty wing. But saving these wild animals, the beautiful blackfaced sheep, and black Galloway calves, the country has no inhabitants. What little was once ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... as her own, becoming quite a considerable person amongst the villagers. She was a widow with two or three children—a girl or two, and a boy—little things. She was a stout, healthy, good-looking woman, "rising forty," with a clear, shrill voice, and good, bright black eyes in her head. She soon steadied these bonnie eyes at the widower, Lizzie's father, and not in vain; for after hailing him industriously, as he passed the door of her shop, with questions about the weather, or the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... to his interrupted thoughts, and soon forgot the small boy, who had to run to keep up with his long strides. Suddenly the little boy exclaimed in a shrill, eager treble: ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade
... carpetless room was a haven of rest where she would be left, for one night at least, to her own thoughts. As she lay in bed, however, she could hear far away the subdued murmur of Girdlestone's voice and the shrill tones of the old woman. They were in deep and animated converse. Though they were too far distant for her to distinguish a word, something told her that their talk was about herself, and the same instinct assured her that it boded ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... on eight,' exclaimed Crass, and drawing his whistle he blew a shrill blast upon it to apprise the ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... the old lady, with a shrill, piping cry. "Holy Saints! she admits so much! Do you know what people will call you when they hear of it? A ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... of the galley door, looked aft, and then withdrew from sight. Immediately after there issued from the galley the shrill caterwauling of a Chinese song, and a renewed rattle ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... breed. The Malays (7/66. Ferguson on 'Prize Poultry' page 87.) have a loud, deep, somewhat prolonged crow, but with considerable individual difference. Colonel Sykes remarks that the domestic Kulm cock in India has not the shrill clear pipe of the English bird, and "his scale of notes appears more limited." Dr. Hooker was struck with the "prolonged howling screech" of the cocks in Sikhim. (7/67. Col. Sykes in 'Proc. Zoolog. Soc.' 1832 page 151. Dr. Hooker's 'Himalayan Journals' volume 1 page 314.) The crow of the Cochin ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... miles from Harrisburg, this thing slowly upreared itself to the height of three foot eight, and, fixing its eyes on me with a mingled expression of complacency, patronage, national independence, and sympathy for all outer barbarians and foreigners, said, in shrill piping accents, 'Well now, stranger, I guess you find this a'most like an English a'ternoon,—hey?' It is unnecessary to add that I thirsted for his ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... this landscape was not, after all, doing itself full justice. Was it not rushing rather too quickly past? "James!" said a shrill, faint voice from behind, and gradually—"Oh, darling Mother, really!" protested another voice—the landscape slackened pace. But after a while, little by little, the landscape lost patience, forgot its good manners, and flew ...
— James Pethel • Max Beerbohm
... Italian, and French were all Hebrew to the good people of the inn." It was "easy to make the hostess understand that we wished to eat,—but 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 ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips
... bed of fir-boughs he had made for her, lay Gloria. He did not look that way. The wind was rising; he heard it go rushing through the tree-tops; it struck with sudden, relentless impact; it set the shivering needles to shrill whistling; it made the staunch old trunks shudder. He heard the canvas flap-flapping by Gloria's bed; above him ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... to the waist-line, so that she could wear it comfortably on horseback. Her black broadcloth skirt was in imminent danger of the same surgical revision when a shocked young waitress with the breakfast tray in her hands uttered shrill protest. ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... baked mound elevated above the surface, there is a dwarf crater filled with water that never overflows, and when tapped and exhausted, rises once more to its former level. Again, canopied by giant ti-trees amid the shrill shrieking of thousands of noisy parrots, the traveller can pick his way along the treacherous paths that wind amongst the hot springs. Or at the foot of a low range a scanty trickle fills a rocky pool, and thence ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... trudged along, with an account of the affray at the inn. My capture was exceedingly popular, and they gloated to my face over the doom in store for me, wrangling like rooks as to the likeliest spot for my gibbet. The majority fixed it at the Copt Oak, where, as they reminded me with shrill curses, I had murdered poor old Bet o' th' Brew'us for a shilling and sixpence. It was a relief to hear the host shout to Master Wicks, ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... "although wearing a hunting-shirt."] rode hither and thither with reckless bravery, his sword in his left hand-for he had never entirely regained the use of his wounded right—while he made his presence known by the shrill, ear-piercing notes of a silver whistle which he always carried. Whenever the British and tories charged with the bayonet, under Ferguson, De Peyster, or some of their lieutenants, the mountaineers were forced back down the hill; ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... feet, and gets across the shaking boards with marvellous serpentine movements in a skirt tighter even than a modern one, literally a tube wound around her legs. Then, waving her long thin hands and arms so that ripples seem to run up and down them, she sings in a thin shrill voice a long song, while one of the clowns breaks in with "Yes, yes" and "Come on," meant for us and greatly appreciated by the audience. As the song wends toward its end, Golden-Jacket looks behind her more than once, and at last stops and ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... will sometimes search the mountain pastures for days without securing his game. When the troop is grazing, a sentinel is always appointed, who stands on the watch sniffing the air. At the least approach of danger the careful sentinel gives a shrill whistling signal of warning, and instantly the troop is filing off between the rocks and along the chasms, where no human foot could follow, all whistling together as they march. The only chance of the hunter to escape detection by these watchful creatures is ...
— Harper's Young People, March 23, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... congregation, Into the school where the scholar is studying; Leave not the bridegroom quiet—no happiness must he have now with his bride, Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, ploughing his field or gathering his grain, So fierce you whirr and pound, you drums—so shrill, you bugles, blow. ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... and hurriedly made their way on foot toward their one hope of refuge. When they reached the house Betty started to knock, then paused uncertainly, her hand uplifted. For above the beat of the rain and the shrill whine of the wind came a strain of music, mournful, yet exquisitely beautiful. Amazed, forgetful of their discomfort, the girls listened while the throbbing, haunting melody ...
— The Outdoor Girls in the Saddle - Or, The Girl Miner of Gold Run • Laura Lee Hope
... elephants with towers on their backs that we read about in books of travel. When she walked, clinging painfully to the furniture, all her flesh shook and her ornaments jangled like old iron. With it all a very shrill little voice and a beautiful red face which a little negro boy kept fanning all the time with a fan of white feathers as big as a ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... the long darkness, By the stream rolling, Hour after hour went on Tolling and tolling. Long was the darkness, Lonely and stilly. Shrill came the night ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... he continued his walk with greater haste, and only heard the hollow and muffled sound of his own beating heart. At the moment he saw the lights of the chateau, another agonized cry, more shrill and alarming than the ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... the shrill sound of the whistle. The Col. Phillips—the last boat for the night—was giving out its warning. The Chautauqua bells began their parting peal. Not even for his own convenience would that marvel of punctuality have the bells tarry a moment ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... even at this late day so fired my ambition that I took the first opportunity of revisiting Lafayette Place. Choosing such persons as I thought most open to my questions, I learned that there were many who could testify to having heard a woman's shrill scream on that memorable night, just prior to the alarm given by old Cyrus, but no one who could tell from whose lips it had come. One fact, however, was immediately settled. It had not been the result of the servant-women's fears. Both of the girls were positive that they had uttered no sound, ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... Jeminy," he said, in a voice shrill with age, "another year. Time to shingle old man Crabbe's roof again. I'm spry yet." And resting a lean finger alongside his nose, he gave sound to a laugh like ...
— Autumn • Robert Nathan
... through the woods, The nimble deere to take, That with their cryes the hills and dales An eccho shrill did make. ...
— Book of Old Ballads • Selected by Beverly Nichols
... on the scene of action, whose shrill screams told her name better than anything. Not that anybody seemed hurting or molesting her, but attracted, I suppose, by the sound of the guns, she had ventured forth from her hiding place, and discovered us all ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... hear the light cicala's ceaseless din, That vibrates shrill; or the near-weeping brook That feebly winds along, And mourns his ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... related to his sympathy. It has been said that he saved his tragedies from the fatal disease of absurdity, by inoculating them with his comic virus, and that his sense of humor kept him from ever becoming shrill. This faculty enabled him to detect incongruity, to keep from overstressing a situation, to enter into the personality of others, to recover quickly from "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," and in one of ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... large concern, but, in the watchful eyes of Hillsborough, he was the embodiment of that vague and mysterious danger that seemed to be forever lurking on the outskirts of slavery, ready to sound a shrill and ghostly signal in the impenetrable swamps, and steal forth under the midnight stars to murder, rapine, and pillage—a danger always threatening, and yet never assuming shape; intangible, and yet real; impossible, and yet not improbable. Across the serene and smiling ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... shrill cry from the mountain and Maurice and Gaspare came leaping down, scattering the stones, the revolvers still ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... without comment, but with a look full of diffident gratitude. Stopping before one of the doors, the child rapped timidly—so timidly, in fact, that it could scarcely be heard. No answer coming, she rapped again, this time a little louder, and a woman's shrill voice screamed, ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... the tailors or cobblers squatting at their work; others were Jewish, with Hebrew inscriptions. There were dark Arab cafes, noisy Italian wine-shops, butchers' stalls; children of all ages played and screamed about the precipitous cobble-paved streets; and the shrill cries of Jewish women, sitting at their doors, rose in rebuke of husband or offspring. Not many lights appeared through the shuttered windows of the dark, high houses. Overhead, between two facades, one saw a strip of paleness which one knew was the moonlit sky. Conversation with my companion being ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... passionately vehement, clashed into each other, and obscured the words—what was it they were calling? His head went up to listen; he felt her hand rigid within his arm—she too was listening. The cries came nearer, hoarser, more shrill and clamorous; the empty moonlight seemed of a sudden crowded with footsteps, voices, and a fierce distant cheering. "Great victory—great victory! Official! British! Defeat of the 'Uns! Many thousand prisoners!" So it sped by, intoxicating, ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... array of buttons on his seat arms and flicked lightly at the throttle knobs. From deep within the engine compartment came the muted, shrill whine of the starter engines, followed a split-second later by the full-throated roar of the jets as they caught fire. Clay eased the throttles back and the engine noise softened ...
— Code Three • Rick Raphael
... shields to ward off the blows rained down upon them. The hillside became a seething mass of combatants; the wild, active Britons flying hither and thither to repel the advance of the steel-clad host. From the thick of the fight, Caradoc himself shouted encouragement to his soldiers, who replied by shrill cries and ...
— Stories from English History • Hilda T. Skae
... laugh, a shrill, discouraging laugh. Deslauriers felt himself suffocating with anger. He restrained his feelings, and, with the look of ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... time Harold Jones had heard a long, shrill whistle in the alley, and, answering it, he ran as rapidly as his spindling legs would carry him. He knew it was the boys. They were grinning broadly when he came to them. It was Piggy Pennington who first spoke, "Oh, pa, I won't do it any more," repeating the phrase ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... were happy boys, You drowned the taps with inharmonious noise; Above the turmoil of the lathered wave How you would bellow ditties of the brave! How, wilder that the sea-mew, through the foam Whistle shrill strains that agonised your home. In the brimmed bath you revelled; all the floor Was swamped with spindrift; underneath the door The maddened water gushed, while strong and high Your piercing top-note staggered passers-by. But now I hear the running taps alone, A faint and melancholy ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 29th, 1920 • Various |
