"Screech" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in there to-night," he said; "that's what delayed me. If I see another one, I'll jab him with one of these knitting needles. Hear that screech-owl? He sounds like the Kaiser'll feel next year.—Do you know that ...
— Tom Slade with the Colors • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... place, only visited by the savage inhabitants when they come to collect the areca-nuts, and its solitude is undisturbed save by the flapping of the hornbill's wings as he carries food to his imprisoned mate, or the harsh screech of a white cockatoo flying overhead to ...
— A Memory Of The Southern Seas - 1904 • Louis Becke
... which these scenes of rarest pathos would labour, were they brought upon the stage, is their simplicity in contrast with the ghastly and contorted horrors that envelop them. A dialogue abounding in the passages I have already quoted—a dialogue which bandies 'O you screech-owl!' and 'Thou foul black cloud!'—in which a sister's admonition to her brother to think twice of suicide assumes a form so ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... darkness, saying, "Well, boys, don't you want company? I have got my sap all boiled in, and as I 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 ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... was pinned forcibly against the rack by acceleration, as Donna made the ship dodge aside. From one side, he heard a screech of grating metal. The fresh missiles must have jammed halfway out of ...
— This World Must Die! • Horace Brown Fyfe
... mention her, she was less than nothink in our house), went up to Mrs. Deuceace at onst, and held out her arms—she had a heart, that old Kicksey, and I respect her for it. The poor hunchback flung herself into Miss's arms, with a kind of whooping screech, and kep there for some time, sobbing in quite a historical manner. I saw there was going to be a sean, and so, in cors, left ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 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 ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • 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 ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... which would never exist if we did not make them. "We suffer," says Addison,[63] "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 and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... 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 ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... Prophecies was right, then Athalia would never get over it. She ought never to get over it. Then what would become of the farm and the sawmill? And instantly everything was unreal again; he could hear the hum of the driving-wheel and the screech of the saw tearing through a log; how fragrant the fresh planks were, and the great heaps of sawdust—but the noise made his head ache; and—and the ...
— The Way to Peace • Margaret Deland
... Silence, you screech-owl.— Come strew flowers, fair ladies, And lead into her bower our fairest bride, The cynosure of love and beauty here, Who shrines heaven's graces in earth's ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... I got to the top o' that risin' ground yonder, some elk a feedin' down hyar. There was a herd of seven of 'em or more, an' soon as I gets near enuf I lets drive at 'em; and just then, hullabaloo! I heart a screech like somethin' awful, an' a Injun starts up, just like a deer a walkin' on ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... it tethers The spoutin' gift to hev your words tu thick sot on with feathers, An' Choate ner Webster wouldn't ha' made an A 1 kin' o' speech Astride a Southun chestnut horse sharper 'n a baby's screech. Two year ago they ketched the thief, 'n' seein' I wuz innercent, They jest uncorked an' le' me run, an' in my stid the sinner sent To see how he liked pork 'n' pone flavored with wa'nut saplin', An' nary social priv'ledge but a one-hoss, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... 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)
... drays, loaded with iron, and shaking ground and houses as they went by, a piercing alarum from the neighbouring barracks, the harsh screech of a steam-tug's whistle, an organ, and the bells of Sainte-Clotilde, all united at the moment, as from time to time the noises of a great town will do, in a thundering tutti; and the outrageous babel, close to the ear, contrasted strangely with the natural field of grass and weed, ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... They arrived at 'The Moorings' exactly as the town-hall clock was chiming the quarter after four. Mr. Vicary, his face a study of patience, was standing by the side of the 'sardine-tin,' which was already packed for transit, and whose occupants set up a joyful screech of welcome. ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... word, with a bound, to their feet spring the vigilant Frenchmen; And the dark, dismal forests resound to the crack and the roar of their rifles; And seven writhing forms on the ground clutch the earth. From the pine-tops the screech owl Screams and flaps his wide wings in affright, and plunges away through the shadows; And swift on the wings of the night flee the dim, phantom forms of the spirit. Like cabris [80] when white wolves pursue, fled the four yet remaining Dakotas; Through forest and fen-land they flew, and wild terror ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... was gay with theatre posters and illustrated advertisements of tobacco, whiskey, and patent baby foods. When the window was open, there was a constant clang and whirr of electric cars, varied by the screech of machinery, the clatter of empty wagons, or ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... four white walls by a dead woman? She held me—forced my feet into her shoes— Held me for your sake. Ay: there seemed some link 'Twixt your dead grannie and you, too strong for me To break; though it's been strained to the snapping-point, Times out of mind, whenever a hoolet's screech Sang through my blood; or poaching foxes barked On a shiny night to the cackle of wild geese, Travelling from sea to sea far overhead: Or whenever, waking in the quiet dark, The ghosts of horses whinneyed in my heart. Ghosts! Nay, I've been the mare between the limmers ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... affairs must needs wait. Orders for weapons for the tilting-match had come in so thickly the day before that every hand must be employed on executing them, and the Dragon court was ringing again with the clang of hammers and screech of grind-stones. ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... it stood, raised its voice in a screech, and rushed forward again, arms flailing. And this time Nat got home. The streak passed right through the body of the monster, which collapsed into a heap of ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... don't care what they say or what they do. They think the world's bound to swallow any story they like to tell. . . He stands listening for a bit. And it gives him quite a turn to hear a thump at the door and a sort of muffled raving screech inside the captain's room. He thinks he hears his own name, too, through the awful crash as the old Sagamore rises and falls to a sea. That noise and that awful shock make him clear out of the cabin. He ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... or that the book was bewitched. Next minute I was out of bed like a rabbit, and turning off the light, dashed outside just as the second went over. I naturally looked skyward, but there was not a sign of anything and, stranger still, not even the throb of an engine. A third went over with a loud screech, and my hair was blown into the air by the rushing wind it caused. I saw a flash from the sea and Thompson said she was wakened by my voice calling, "I say, come out and see this new stunt." Soon everyone was up ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... a screech and throws her arms about my neck. I saw her hand, all hard and worn and knuckly with the work she had done for my up-bringing, and it pleaded with me as words could not have done. My heart was soft for her, but my will was as hard as a flint-edge. I put her ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... is, sir," said George, advancing with a miniature pitchfork or "tormentor" in his hand; "pardon my interrupting you, sir,—I did hear the screech, but as I couldn't say exactly for certain, you know, that it was a Kafir, not havin' seen one, I thought it best not to alarm you, sir, an' so said nothing ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... screech, that they shall," replied Hannah; "and the bacon, it shall be done as tasty and sweet as bacon can be. I'll give the last bit of my own little pigeen, with all the heart in the ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... reached the spring when all at once a shrill scolding screech rang out, cutting the stillness as with a ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie
... into slumber. 'Toby,' 'Nettle,' 'Whisky,' 'Pincher,' and my other terriers, resembled so many curled-up hairy balls, and were in the land of dreams. Occasionally an owl would give a melancholy hoot from the forest, or a screech owl would raise a momentary and damnable din. At intervals, the tinkle of a cow-bell sounded faintly in the distance. I tossed restlessly, thinking of various things, till I must have dropped off into an uneasy fitful sleep. I know not how long I had been ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... heard mamma's screech when he talked so coolly of my going out to fight! "What! send him abroad, across the horrid, horrid sea—to be wrecked and perhaps drowned, and only to land for the purpose of fighting the wicked Frenchmen,—to be ...
— The Fatal Boots • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Help this rascal to set up the coach," said the hobgoblin to me; then, with a terrific screech at three countrymen at a distance, "Here, you fellows, ain't you ashamed to stand off when a poor ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... like ships in foul weather, can be heard a mile off, owing to the humming screech of the wheels, which are never greased, but on the contrary have powdered charcoal put in them to increase the noise. Without this music (?) the bullocks do not work so well. How the poor animals could manage to draw the load was often a mystery to me, Sections of the road were ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... a competent teacher to give her lessons in voice culture, to the end that she should neither screech nor purr. Sir Charles himself read to her from the poets and she committed to memory Pope's "Essay on Man," and a whole speech by Robert Walpole, which she recited at a banquet at Strawberry Hill, to the immense surprise, not to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... I consider a fine mind—a poetic mind. His ideas respectin his property never come upon him so strong as when he sat upon a barrel- organ and had the handle turned. Arter the wibration had run through him a little time, he would screech out, "Toby, I feel my property coming—grind away! I'm counting my guineas by thousands, Toby—grind away! Toby, I shall be a man of fortun! I feel the Mint a jingling in me, Toby, and I'm swelling out ...
— A House to Let • Charles Dickens
... of answering, "I never said so," but the vicious cockatoo ruffled his clipped wings and gave a screech that set all my nerves on edge in an instant, and made me only too glad to get ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... camp at 7 A.M., and made a ghastly trip through the Zeb Dana valley and the rough mountains—horses limping and that Arab screech-owl that does most of the singing and carries the water-skins, always a thousand miles ahead, of course, and no water to drink—will he never die? Beautiful stream in a chasm, lined thick with pomegranate, fig, olive and quince ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... wonder that Chirpy Cricket was always uneasy when Simon screeched his warning that he was awake and looking for his supper. Chirpy knew that he could not depend on Simon to stay long in one place. Though you heard his screech in the orchard one moment, you might see him in the farmyard soon afterward. He never ate a whole meal in just one spot, but preferred to move about wherever his fancy took him. Simon himself said that he could eat off and on all night ...
— The Tale of Chirpy Cricket • Arthur Scott Bailey
... dislike to 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
... feeling can be kindled; it is wasting wood to throw it upon the hearth to-night, for that doleful wail penetrates everywhere: even the demon that lurks at the bottom of Pomoyssin must shudder as he hears it. When at length the bells stop swinging and their vibrations die away, a screech-owl flies close by the open gallery of the house, which we call a balcony, and startles ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... both getting slightly confused when, with a screech of brakes, the train pulled up at the little moorside station that was our destination by rail. Sunlight bathed the grey buildings on the platform and the sleepy village beyond. From the blue overhead came the thin, sweet ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... 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 on. ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 • Various
... sideways trajectory. And if, as happened to our companion (the present Cornell don), you have no special taste for a plump landlord breathing passionately and genially upon your very cheek while you strive to satisfy a legitimate appetite, you may burst into a sudden unpremeditate but uncontrollable screech of mingled laughter and dismay, meanwhile almost falling backward in your chair in an effort to evade the steady pant and roar of ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... burst out with a sudden fury, as if myriads of howling demons had all at once been loosened in the air. Now they piped and whistled with eldritch screech round the corners of the house—now they thundered down the chimney—and now they shook the door and rattled the casement—and anon mustering their forces with wild ado, seemed to career over the house, and sail high up into the murky air. The dash of the rising tide came with successive crash ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... sharp scratch in the tree above—and in the next instant a brown furry shape dropped upon him noiselessly, bearing him to the ground. This thing was a mass of teeth and claws and terrific muscles. It gave one sharp screech as the dog's yelping howl arose, then made no sound but a spitting growl as it bit and ripped. From the first the brindled mongrel had no ghost of a chance; and the struggle was over in three minutes. ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... 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 he ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... at eight, was only a few seconds behind time. As the screech of the approaching engine rung out from the dark wood-land, Margaret and her father exchanged rapid glances. It would take Richard ten minutes to walk from the railway station to the house,—for of course ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... In the strength of 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 even 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 ...
— Harper's Young People, December 16, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... In the name of the Gods, get her her pipe and stop her ill-omened mouth,' cried an Oorya, tying up his shapeless bundles of bedding. 'She and the parrots are alike. They screech in the dawn.' ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... a voice, and most Frenchwomen (excuse the impertinence) have none. I met with a friend, and got introduced to a manager; and I have been singing at the theater—not the great parts, only the second. Your amiable countrywomen could not screech me down on the stage, but they intrigued against me successfully behind the scenes. In short, I quarreled with our principal lady, quarreled with the manager, quarreled with my friend; and here I am back at Pisa, with a little money saved in my pocket, ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... the wings of that one eagle. Where is she now? Ask Gibbon, the historian, in his prose poem, the "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." Ask her gigantic ruins straggling their sadness through the ages, the screech owl at windows out of which world-wide conquerors looked. Ask the day of judgment when her crowned debauchees, Commodus and Pertinax, and Caligula and Diocletian, shall answer for their infamy? As men and as nations let us repent, and have our trust in a pardoning God, rather than depend on former ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... and peaceful, summering safe at home; You'd never think there was a bloody war on!... O yes, you would ... why, you can hear the guns. Hark! Thud, thud, thud,—quite soft ... they never cease— Those whispering guns—O Christ, I want to go out And screech at them to stop—I'm going crazy; I'm going stark, staring mad because of ...
— The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon • Siegfried Sassoon
... life on board the Tomtit. Exceptional incidents of all kinds—saving sea-sickness, to which nobody on board is liable—are never wanting to vary existence pleasantly from day to day. Sometimes Mr. Migott gets on from taking a nap to having a dream, and records the fact by a screech of terror, which rings through the vessel and wakes the sleeper himself, who always asks, "What's that, eh?"—never believes that the screech has not come from somebody else—never knows what he has been dreaming of—and never fails ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... nor did they like Harry the worse for not being the least of a milksop. Manners, you see, were looser a hundred years ago; tongues were vastly more free-and-easy; names were named, and things were done, which we should screech now to hear mentioned. Yes, madam, we are not as our ancestors were. Ought we not to thank the Fates that have improved our morals so prodigiously, and made us ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Wizards know their times: Deepe Night, darke Night, the silent of the Night, The time of Night when Troy was set on fire, The time when Screech-owles cry, and Bandogs howle, And Spirits walke, and Ghosts breake vp their Graues; That time best fits the worke we haue in hand. Madame, sit you, and feare not: whom wee rayse, Wee will make fast within a ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... swept across the stage, a cricket sang and a katydid answered, and a wood pewee wrung the heart with its lonesome cry. Then a night hawk screamed, a whip-poor-will complained, a belated killdeer swept the sky, and the night wind sang a louder song. A little screech owl tuned up in the distance, a barn owl replied, and a great horned owl drowned both their voices. The moon shone and the scene was warm with mellow light. The bird voices died and soft exquisite melody began to swell and roll. In the centre of the stage, piece by piece the grasses, ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... 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 ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... happened to be quartered, every sound of nature, at that witching hour, fluttered his excited imagination—the moan of the whip-poor-will from the hillside, the boding cry of the tree toad, that harbinger of storm, the dreary hooting of the screech owl, to the sudden rustling in the thicket of birds frightened from their roost. The fireflies, too, which sparkled most vividly in the darkest places, now and then startled him, as one of uncommon brightness would stream across his path; and if, by chance, a huge ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... 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 ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... Queen. Hence, screech-owl!—Call my guards quickly there!— Put them apart in several prisons!— Alas! I had forgot, I have no guards, But those which are my jailors. Never 'till now unhappy queen! The use of power, till lost, is seldom known; Now, I should strike, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... easily frightened; the only time I ever saw him seriously disturbed was at the sight of a stuffed screech-owl, which I brought into the room without thinking of its probable effect. I placed it on a shelf in a closet, and I soon noticed that the moment the closet door was opened the grosbeak became greatly agitated; he darted across the room to a certain retreat where he always hurried on the first ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... came from underneath our feet. With a sound that was not a groan and not a screech, the Italian reeled back against the heated iron of the brazier. Starting from that fiery contact with an unearthly shriek, he threw up his arms and dashed away into the darkness. The sound of his madly hurrying footsteps came back ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... 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 by circumstances ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... dilapidated dwelling and this deserted spot of ground; barren land, given over to couch-grass, thistles, and brambles; a sort of "accursed spot, to which no one would have confided even a pinch of turnip-seed." A piece of water in front of the house attracted all the frogs in the neighbourhood; the screech-owl mewed from the tops of the plane-trees, and numerous birds, no longer disturbed by the presence of man, had domiciled themselves in the lilacs and the cypresses. A host of insects had seized upon the dwelling, which ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... open all the night sounds came to them with startling distinctness;—the cry of the nighthawk and the chirping of a cricket, the peeping of hylas and the croaking of frogs and the wild, tremulous, mournful cry of the screech-owl. ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... gibbety repose on the lofty extreme of the great sweep, that creaked dismally, uttering a pitiful cry of complaint. If it hadn't been Sunday, I would have coaxed Aaron to pour some oil on its turbulence; but since Sunday it was, I was to be content to let it screech on. It was not a "sheep fallen into a pit," only a disturbed well-sweep. Do well-sweeps feel, I wonder? Why not? Mr. Axtell asked how I knew that the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... the young man. "Things are not often so serious as they are supposed to be. It's like being in a house that's supposed to be haunted—on All Hallow E'en, for instance—it's awfully gruesome and creepy at night when the wind moans and the owls screech. And then, the next morning, one wonders how one could have been such an idiot. Other things are often like that. You think the world's coming to an end—and then it doesn't, you know. It goes on just the same. You are rather surprised ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford
... political theories loomed far more important in their darkened minds than the salvation, by hook or crook, of the British Empire. The other faction, more patriotic in theory, cried aloud stinking fish, and by scurrilous over-statement defeated their own ends. In the general ignoble screech the pronouncements of the one or two dignified and ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... pink now; her color had turned to ashy yellow and her heart to ashes of roses. Girard could face the wind of the North, but a crying woman on a ship at anchor, whose rusty chains groaned to the dismal screech of tugging cordage, undid him. A lesser man—a devil-may-care fellow—could have met the issue. Girard, practical, sensible, silent, was no mate for prettiness, plump and pink. He should have wedded a widow, who could have passed ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... drowned by one blood-curdling screech poured from a hundred throats. Through the driving snow a dusky mass rolled forward, and when it was halfway across the space we made out no less than a score of Indians each shouldering three or four planks of short length. With ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... moment the fiddles 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 ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... There he sat down and began to see if his money was all right. Suddenly a beggarman appeared before him, so tall and big that when he got a good look at him and saw his height and length, the lad began to scream and screech. ...
— East O' the Sun and West O' the Moon • Gudrun Thorne-Thomsen
... rats, and spermophiles or gophers. To the relief of the farmer, many birds feed upon these destructive little rodents. The Crow occasionally captures a mouse, while the Shrikes or Butcher-birds catch a great many. The Screech Owl feeds largely upon mice. The Red-tailed Hawk is called the Hen-hawk or Chicken-hawk by most farmers, but this is very unfair to the bird, for its principal food is mice. In fact, most of the Hawks and Owls of the United ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... reached them in a sudden screech—then there was a confused noise resembling a scuffle—and Jan was again heard crying aloud for help, while at the same time his voice was interrupted, and each call appeared to come from a greater distance! Something or somebody ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... and the strength seemed to go from the steady arms that had supported Dlorus's head. Dusk had sneaked up on them; the clearing was full of swimming grayness, and between the woman's screams, the woods crackled. Each time Dlorus spoke, her screech was like that of an animal in the woods, and round about them crept such sinister echoes that Milt kept wanting to look back ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... signifying screech-owls), the name applied to smugglers and dealers in contraband salt, who rose in insurrection in the west of France at the time of the Revolution and joined the royalists of La Vendee. It has been ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... leading, Thorolf just behind him. Wind stirred softly in the leaves overhead, unseen birds fluttered and chirped, sunshine sifting through the maple undergrowth turned it to emerald and gold and jasper. Once there was a discordant screech from the evergreens, but it was only a brilliant blue jay with crest erect, scolding at them. A striped squirrel flashed up the trunk of a tree to his hole. Then sudden as lightning, from the bushes they had just passed, came a flight ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... with 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 ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... him before, were again fluttering to and fro over his head and crying incessantly with their sharp, small voices: "Herr Studiosus, Herr Studiosus, don't be in such a hurry! Don't peep into the clouds so! You may fall on your nose—He, he! Herr Studiosus, put your powder-mantle on; cousin Screech-Owl will frizzle your toupee." And so it went along, in all manner of stupid chatter, till ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... sneering at the people down below, who sit in the villages and make each other angry. He calls down to them:—'If you would go apart to live up on the heights like me, you would feel much better!'" The grandfather said these last words with such a wild voice, that it reminded Heidi of the eagle's screech. ...
— Heidi - (Gift Edition) • Johanna Spyri
... Joe, and me White Joe, by way of distinction and for the convenience of his boss (my uncle), and my aunt, and mother; so, when we heard the cry of "Bla-a-ack Joe!" (the adjective drawn out until it became a screech, after several repetitions, and the "Joe" short and sharp) coming across the flat in a woman's voice, Joe knew that the missus wanted him at the house, to get wood or water, or mind the baby, and ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... embarrassment upon their vis-a-vis' face had begun to swell into the cringing leer familiarly precedent to an appeal for leniency, when the fellow leaned forward, stared fearfully at the Judge, and, dropping the pullet with a screech, recoiled ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... in the blood, and laid them thereon to burn. Meanwhile the caldron with its contents was got ready. In it she put magic herbs, with seeds and flowers of acrid juice, stones from the distant east, and sand from the shore of all-surrounding ocean; hoar frost, gathered by moonlight, a screech owl's head and wings, and the entrails of a wolf. She added fragments of the shells of tortoises, and the liver of stags,—animals tenacious of life,— and the head and beak of a crow, that outlives nine generations of men. These with many other things "without a name" she ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... screech, much worse than my father when his legs were broken. And didn't everybody else roar and shout, and didn't I dance? Off I went right over the fat boy, who had tumbled down, up to the end of the field, then so bewildered was I with shock and the burning pain, ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... earl, "a false lie, forge it who list!—It is true I wore a dagger of service by my side, and not a bodkin like yours, to pick one's teeth withal—and for prompt service—Odds nouns! it should be prompt to be useful when kings are crying treason and murder with the screech of a half-throttled hen. But you young courtiers know nought of these matters, and are little better than the green geese they bring over from the Indies, whose only merit to their masters is to repeat their ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... waxed silk all ready and chosen the right-sized needle and I'll promise not to jump or screech more than I can help. We'll make a tiny lead-pencil dot right in the middle of the lobe, then you place the needle on it, shut your eyes, and JAB HARD! I expect to faint, but when I 'come to,' we can decide which of us will pull the needle through ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... find that nearly all the methods and contrivances now employed for bird-fowling were known and in use in the Middle Ages, in addition to some which have since fallen into disuse. We accordingly read in the "Roy Modus" a description of the drag-net, the mirror, the screech-owl, the bird-pipe (Fig. 161), the traps, the springs, &c., the use of all of which is now well understood. At that time, when falcons were so much required, it was necessary that people should be employed to catch them when young; and the author of this book speaks of nets of various ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... driver of the lumber wagon, with a laugh. "We're coming to your place," he added. "That's the sawmill you heard. The saw must have struck a hard knot in a log and it let out a screech. There's the sawmill!" ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Great West • Laura Lee Hope
... sound of our guns was suddenly varied by a sharp, venomous screech, clap of thunder, right over our heads, followed by a ripping, tearing, splitting crash, that filled the air; a regular blood freezer. We knew that sound! It was a bursting Parrott shell from a Federal gun! And ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame
... with an emotion which even the presence of his Reverence could not quell, let what the neighbours described afterwards as a 'screech out of her fit to wake the dead,' and fled into her house, where on her bed she had an attack which came as near being hysterical as the strong-minded woman could compass. She only recovered when Mrs. Devine and Mrs. Cahill ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... With a screech of surprise and pain the mate crumpled in the far corner of the forecastle, rammed halfway beneath a bunk by the force of the terrific blow. Like a tiger Billy Byrne was after him, and dragging the man out into the center of the floor space he beat and mauled ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... man at the table finished writing and tossed the paper into the hat. Hollis opened the rear door to allow him to go out. While the door remained open a sound floated in, which they all heard—an ear-splitting screech, followed instantly by a chorus of yells, a pistol report, more yells, and ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... waiters that you could hope to get your gin fizz now—as soon as all the other people got theirs. The hospitals were putting in extra cots for bystanders. For when little, woolly dogs loll their tongues out and say "woof, woof!" at the fleas that bite 'em, and nervous old black bombazine ladies screech "Mad dog!" and policemen begin to shoot, somebody is going to get hurt. The man from Pompton, N.J., who always wears an overcoat in July, had turned up in a Broadway hotel drinking hot Scotches and enjoying ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... weeds in yon blue fire, These screech-owl's feathers and this prickling briar, This cypress gathered at a dead man's grave, That all my fears and cares an ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... half mile to a mile wide, directly north of Hatchatchie Valley (erroneously spelled Hetch Hetchy). It appears to have no name among Americans, but the Indians call it O-wai-a-nuh, which is manifestly a dialectic variation of a-wai'-a, the generic word for "lake." Nat. Screech, a veteran mountaineer and hunter, states that he visited this region in 1850, and at that time there was a valley along the river having the same dimensions that this lake now has. Again, in 1855, he happened to pass that way and discovered that the lake ...
— Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest • Katharine Berry Judson
... will explain to you—perhaps you've guessed before The lesson that I always strive with might and main to teach— If you would frighten timid folk, alarm them with a roar, A happy, yappy, yip-ky, oodle-doodle, and a screech. ...
— The Tale of Benny Badger • Arthur Scott Bailey
... them high- pressure steamboats we hev on the Mississippi—whar you run the chance of getting busted up regular every trip—and thar I turned out of my cabin slick for anything, so I wer able to help miss, har, in shaking down that dreadful old screech-owl yander, and ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... twice in a quick, loud voice, and the third time in a slow manner, ending almost in a screech, did not come from either Toby or the skeleton, but from an enormously large woman, dressed in a gaudy red and black dress, cut very short, and with low neck and an apology for sleeves, who had just come out from the tent whereon the picture of ...
— Toby Tyler • James Otis
... of death are the moments. "Arise!"—At the word, with a bound, to their feet spring the vigilant Frenchmen; And the depths of the forest resound to the crack and the roar of their rifles; And seven writhing forms on the ground clutch the earth. From the pine-tops the screech-owl Screams and flaps his wide wings in affright, and plunges away through the shadows; And swift on the wings of the night flee the dim, phantom-forms through the darkness. Like cabris[80] when ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... 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
... something shortening: is administered to these young creatures many times a day. An unnatural and artificial thirst is first awakened in these infants by meals of salt beef, bacon, anchovies, sardines, red herrings, shrimps, olives, pea-soup, and that description of diet; and when they screech for drink, in accents that might melt a heart of stone, which they do constantly (I allude to screeching, not to melting), this liquid is introduced into their too confiding stomachs. At such an early age, and to so great an extent, is this custom of provoking thirst, then quenching it with ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
... didn't know, but he was awakened by a terrible screech, and, opening his eyes, say Henry sitting bolt upright, with trembling limbs and distended eyeballs, gazing fearfully at a tall, muscular-looking Indian, who had just stepped into the cabin ...
— The Young Musician - or, Fighting His Way • Horatio Alger
... hide yourself, and get ready for a screech. When you see the Ratura dogs come in sight, give it out—once—only once,—and if you don't screech well, I'll teach you how to do it better afterwards. Wait then till you hear and see me and my men come rushing down the track, and then screech a second time. Only once, mind! but let ...
— The Madman and the Pirate • R.M. Ballantyne
... ascended the cat ladder easily, missing no detail of the ship's interior as he passed. His expression was still one of polite interest as his guide rapped on the panel door of Jellico's cabin. And a horrible screech from Queex, the captain's pet hoobat, drowned out any immediate answer. Then followed that automatic thump on the floor of the blue-feathered, crab-parrot-toad's cage, announcing that its ...
— Voodoo Planet • Andrew North
... mountain ash round their necks to keep off the evil eye. If a weasel crosses his path, he stops, and either throws three pebbles into the road, or, with the innate selfishness of fear, lets someone else go before him, and attract to himself the harm which may ensue. He has a similar dread of a screech-owl, whom he compliments in the name of its mistress, Pallas Athene. If he finds a serpent in his house, he sets up an altar to it. If he pass at a four-cross-way an anointed stone, he pours oil on it, kneels down, and adores it. If a rat has nibbled ...
— Scientific Essays and Lectures • Charles Kingsley
... said the little thing used to stand on a chair and wash dishes, and they'd seen her carrying in sticks of wood most as big as she was many a time, and they'd heard her mother scolding her. The woman was a fine singer, and had a voice like a screech-owl when she scolded. ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... you Dutch varlet! What do you think of the mistress of the manor? The serenading anti-renters have come for her." Then he repeated more slowly: "The squaw Pewasch! For seventeen and one-half ells of duffels! A rare principality for the scornful minx! Lord! how the birds sing now around the manor—screech owls, cat-birds, bobolinks!" ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... or nearly every one, seemed to have ceased talking. Into this strange silence, through the open windows, there floated the clear call of the whippoorwill,—only one, for the buzz and clamor and clatter of many voices surged up again instantly, and the violins began to scrape and screech themselves into tune, and no one seemed to have noticed either the silence or the whippoorwill. But I could not for the life of me help one swift glance toward mademoiselle, and I met her eyes seeking mine in a ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... drinkers of these welcome stimulants; we seldom halt drinking until we have each had six or seven cups. We have also been able to provide ourselves with music, which, though harsh, is better than none. I mean the musical screech of parrots ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... 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 I'd ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower
... seemingly, into the very portals of my ear. There was no mistaking that fearful voice. I had been deceived by and answered it a dozen times while threading the forest, with the belief that it was a friendly signal. It was the screech of a mountain lion, so alarmingly near as to cause every nerve to thrill with terror. To yell in return, seize with convulsive grasp the limbs of the friendly tree, and swing myself into it, was the ...
— Thirty-Seven Days of Peril - from Scribner's Monthly Vol III Nov. 1871 • Truman Everts
... conducted illegally in important particulars. Of the six pirates named above, as executed on June 30, Lambert was a Salem man, Peterson apparently a Swede, Roach Irish, Quelch and the other two English. Judge Sewall records that "When the Scaffold was let to sink, there was such a Screech of the Women that my wife heard it sitting in our Entry next the Orchard, and was much surprised at it; yet the wind was sou-west. Our house is a full mile from the place." In 1835 the editor's grandfather saw the six pirates of the Mexican, ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... 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' blood in him—honest ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... Robert Robin fluttered down into his own big basswood tree, and he and all of his family slept soundly all night, and not even Mister Screech-owl and ...
— Exciting Adventures of Mister Robert Robin • Ben Field
... to capacity, reaching its momentary Mecca, drew up at the curb; and the guide's voice rose over the screech of ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... days and nights, and the skipper called a council of officers to know what to do. So, when they'd smoked up all their baccy, they concluded to shorten sail, and the bo'sn came down to rouse out the crew. He ondertook to whistle, but it made such an onnateral screech, that the chaplain thought old Davy had come aboard; and he told the skipper he guessed he'd take his trick at prayin'. 'Why,' says the skipper, 'we've got on well enough without, ever since we left the Hague, hadn't we better omit it now?' ''Taint possible,' says the parson. ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... kindled by the hands of Bridget below the falls, flickered and glared upon the waters; the winds had died away; the stars beamed forth, and nothing mingled with the roar of waters, save an occasional screech of some nocturnal ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... o'clock, loud claps of thunder, each in kind resembling a screech, or the blast of a trumpet, rather than the rumbling sound of thunder in Europe, burst over our heads, and were succeeded by vivid flashes of forked lightning. We now made every necessary preparation for a storm, by striking the top-gallant-masts, with their yards, close reefing ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 275, September 29, 1827 • Various
... rapid steps, Gianbattista turned his head and a part of his body to see what had happened. The sudden movement shifted the weight, and definitely destroyed the balance of the ladder. With a sharp screech, like that of a bad pencil scratching on a slate, the lower ends of the uprights slipped outward from the pillar. Gianbattista clutched at the metal bars desperately, but the long screw-driver in his hands impeded him, and he missed ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... he "nuver paid signs no mind—nuver paid no 'tention to all dem 'stitions an' sich lak." He didn't have any superstitions to tell only he did hear "ef a screech owl fly 'cross yo' do' hits er sign of a death in dat house, an' ef a whippowill calls at de' do' hit's er sign of death. Dat's what folks say, I ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... aperture — plainly a loophole of some kind. Without a moment's hesitation, Briggs hurled a Mills grenade straight through the loophole, and, forgetting for the moment that others of his troop were not with him, uttered a wild screech! ...
— The Boy Allies with Haig in Flanders • Clair W. Hayes
... straw-colour of the under portion of their extended pinions. With discordant screams they circle about, as if a little undetermined, and then perch upon the topmost branches of the tallest trees, where they screech, flap their wings, and engage in a series of either imaginary combats, or affectionate caresses, until, the coast being clear, they are again enabled to continue ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... of hers with the open back. And Carl he just 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. ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... in two leaps. Without orders he had the spray gun ready for action, on point and aimed at the bobbing machine heading toward them. From the earphones Soriki had left on the seat the gabble had risen to a screech and one part of Raf's brain noted that the sounds were repetitious: was an order to surrender being broadcast? His thumb was firm on the firing button of the gun and he was about to send a warning burst to the right of the alien ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... all cluttered up with bad habits, not havin' no family of her own to raise," Pearl said. "She wouldn't jump up and screech every time the door slams if she'd been as used to noises as Ma is, and this talk about her nerves bein' all unstrung is just plain silly—and as for her not sleepin' at nights, she sleeps as sound as any of us. ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... nodding to the auctioneer; and the lips of the latter had barely parted to parrot the bid when Victor sprang to his feet, his features working, his limbs shaking so that the legs of the chair beside him, whose back he seized, chattered on the floor, while the high-pitched voice broke into a screech: ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... fledged, standing up as if to guard the nest, the second hissing and snapping, as if a naughty boy, and two downy infants who died. One brown owl was kept tame, and lived 14 years. The village people call this bird Screech Owl, and after a sudden death ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... with the utmost good humour, and as Cunningham stepped out of the boat I saw one cafe au lait coloured young minx dart forward and laughingly throw a garland of gay-tinted flowers round his neck. The screech of delight with which this achievement was greeted reached my ears even where I was, a good half mile from the beach. The laughing, shouting crowd then closed in upon the newcomers, and once again ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... By the thunder's dreadful stound, Yells of spirits underground, I charge thee not to fear us; By the screech-owl's dismal note, By the black night-raven's throat, I charge thee, Hob, to tear thy coat With thorns, if ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... feet! Then suddenly drawing my sword, "And thou, perfidious contaminator and destroyer of my bliss! cried I—go! attend thy companion in iniquity to the black regions of everlasting torment!" So saying, I plunged my sword into his bosom. A screech of agony, attended by the exclamation, "Henry, your wife! your sister!" awoke me, too late, to terrors unutterable, to anguish unspeakable, to woes irretrievable, and insupportable despair! It was indeed my betrothed wife, it was indeed my affectionate sister, ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... he got took with one o' them fits the worst kind in the night, and liked ter died. Yer could a heerd him screech a block off." ...
— The Story of Patsy • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... When large and with an awning, it is not so uncomfortable, but 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 faster than the wooden axle. ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... A screech owl called and startled her; Tory had a sudden attack of nerves; running ahead a few yards, she stumbled. ...
— The Girl Scouts in Beechwood Forest • Margaret Vandercook
... indicating the noxious effect that each kind produces would not contribute to the object which this work has in view. For the sake of information a few examples will suffice:-In the animal kingdom there are poisonous serpents, scorpions, crocodiles, great snakes, horned owls, screech owls, mice, locusts, frogs, spiders; also flies, drones, moths, lice, mites; in a word, creatures that destroy grasses, leaves, fruits, seed, food, and drink, and are harmful to beast and man. In the vegetable kingdom there are all hurtful, ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg
... (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
... indeed everything heralded its approach at a great distance. She missed the stillness of the hills, for on the night air were the barking of dogs, whinny of horses, lowing of cattle, the song of a night-prowling negro, and now and then the screech of a peacock. She missed Jason wretchedly, too, for there had been so much talk of him during the day, and she went to sleep with her lashes wet with tears. Some time during the night she was awakened ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... ago?' 'Young lady,' Ban. Do you get that? So I says, 'You're lucky, Bud. When I get 'em, it's usually snakes and bugs and such-like rep-tyles. Besides,' I says, 'your train is about to forgit that you got off it,' I says. With that he gives another screech that don't even mean as much as Ohio and tails onto the back platform just ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... forgetting the vices of his heart In the imbecility of his intellect minuting down his dreams, counting the drops of blood which fell from his nose, watching the direction of the salt, and listening for the note of the screech-owls. Contemptuous mercy was the only vengeance which it became the Parliament to take on such a ridiculous ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... I'll set up for you. Good-by again, Lyddy." She did not kiss the girl again, or touch her hand. Their decent and sparing adieux had been made in the house. As Miss Maria returned to the door, the hens, cowering conscience-stricken under the lilacs, sprang up at sight of her with a screech of guilty alarm, and flew ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells |
