"Shrill" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... engine, the big red one," she heard a shrill voice pipe; and she looked down to see that it was the boy's blue lips that ...
— The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch • Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter
... Didn't I always tell you so?" cried a shrill voice; and Tom looked round, to dimly make out Mother Warboys bending over her grandson, who was now sitting on the grass close under the wall, where he had been placed. "I always said it. His punishment's come at last for all his ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... restraint and gave all her pent-up nerves play. They faced each other like furies, he red and grim, she shaken and shrill. ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... from the lips of Stephen Strong, a shrill hoarse cry, more like the cry of a beast than that of a man, and the words, "By God! we've won. The A.V.'s have ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... he was enabled to fire on one of them who had sought protection behind a sapling too small to screen his body. The ball fractured his thigh, and produced death. The other, instead of pressing upon Wetsel, uttered a shrill yell, and exclaiming, "no catch him, gun always ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... three minutes, and must have been very hot while it lasted, for all through the hubbub the cries and groans of the freshly-wounded were continuous. I could hear the dull crunching sound of the sharp cutlasses shearing through bone and muscle, the shrill scream of agony, the heavy thud of bodies falling to the deck, oaths and execrations both in Spanish and in English, shouts of mutual encouragement, yells of deadly hatred, the ceaseless trampling of ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... just beyond that last steep rise, was the sea. She could hear its roar now, like a deep voice drowning the clearer pipe of the winging birds and the shrill of the little grass creatures. Often she went down to its edge, but at this hour she liked best to lie in the grass and dream her dreams ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... was mild, and the streets shrill with the careless cries of children playing games controlled by mysterious rhythms and phrases. Their elders held the doorways and steps with leisurely pipe and gossip. Paradoxically, the fire-escapes supported lovers in couples who made no attempt to fly ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... long to wait. He heard her shrill, warning whistle, then the big chuck trotted and waddled into sight, stopping occasionally to nibble or look around. Close behind her were the two fat cubs. Arrived near the den their confidence was restored, and again they began to feed, ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... and 72 and 91," cried the old gentleman, in a voice equally shrill—"why, that must mean the number of steps the pirate was counting ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... everything happened together. Mr. Jellybrand, who had been afraid of dogs ever since, as an infant, he had been mistaken for a bone by a large retriever, stepped back upon Aunt Amy, who uttered a shrill cry. Mrs. Cole, although she did not forsake her accustomed placidity, said: "Nurse... Nurse..." Jeremy cried: "It's all right, he wouldn't touch anything, he's only friendly." Mary and Helen together moved forward as though to protect Jeremy, and the Jampot could be ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... stands on yon high, high hill, Blaw, blaw, ye cauld winds blaw! He blaws a blast baith loud and shrill, The cauld wind 's blawn my ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... said a young prisoner, in a shrill and reedy voice, lisping in an affected manner, "I was betrayed by Jobert, a man who proposed an affair in the ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... bothers vexing her life. When you sit and watch the sun set in a bed of pastel glory, and let the level bars of thick gold light steal across the soft slick grass to reach to your very soul, and smell the heavenly sweetness of dew-damp roses, and listen to the shrill yet mournful even-song of the locusts—when you sit very still, just letting it all seep into you and through and through you, such a beatific sense of peace surges over you that, gradually, trivial things like athletic shortcomings ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... bloodless lips as she now dropped her knitting upon her lap, and, with her body bent forward, commenced watching the merry play of the cat on the cushion. Suddenly the silence was interrupted by a loud and shrill scream, and a very strange-sounding voice uttered a few incoherent words in English. At the same time a door was opened hastily, and another woman appeared—just as old, just as kind- looking, and with as mild and serene features as the one we have just described. Her more ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... he was riding. Wound around his riding-doublet Was a sash, to which was tied the Richly-gilded shining trumpet, Which he often with his mantle Sheltered from the falling snow-flakes; But, whene'er the wind pierced through it, Bringing forth tones shrill and wailing; Then around his mouth there played a Sweet ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... shrill, guttural voice dominating the mall, "I'm tired of living; I feel like killing myself right now. I'm sick and tired of War Paint and this other little angel from heaven won't ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela
... his walk was heavy and unmajestic; his person greatly neglected; his hair, whatever might be the skill of his hairdresser, was soon in disorder. His voice, without being harsh, was not agreeable; if he grew animated in speaking he often got above his natural pitch, and became shrill. The Abbe de Radonvilliers, his preceptor, one of the Forty of the French Academy, a learned and amiable man, had given him and Monsieur a taste for study. The King had continued to instruct himself; he ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... you to hear," piped the shrill, cracked voice, "that there are dozens of policemen walking about London who would arrest you on suspicion had you treated them as you have ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... did not wait to parley with his enemy, but skulked away through the long grass, every now and then raising his head to glare behind him. But the peccary tracked him by the smell, and on coming up to him, uttered a shrill grunt. 'The snake, finding that he was overtaken, threw himself into a coil, and prepared to give battle; while his antagonist, now looking more like a great porcupine than a pig, drew back, as if to ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 422, New Series, January 31, 1852 • Various
... put his fingers to his lips, and blew a shrill whistle that penetrated far in the forest. In a few instants, the answer, another whistle, came back from a point a few hundred yards ahead, ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... attention of the audience; and a goodly number of spectators, among them Robin Poussepain, and all the clerks at their head, gayly applauded this eccentric duet, which the scholar, with his shrill voice, and the mendicant had just improvised in ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... in the heaven and changed, as if into silvery feathers, the mimosa and acacia twigs. In the dense jungles resounded here and there the shrill and, at the same time, mockingly mirthful laugh of the hyenas, which in that gory region found far too many corpses. From time to time the detachment conducting the caravan encountered other patrols and exchanged with ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... to each other in various keys. The toads are with them, and the pretty tree-frogs that change their color to suit their emotions. And all are rapturously screaming. Their voices are not musical, according to man's standard, but seem to afford great satisfaction to the performers in the shrill orchestra of the swamps, who thus give vent to the flood of life that sweeps through them ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... on the seventeenth and eighteenth of May. The next day we made a short drive, and camped within hearing of the shrill steamboat whistle that resounded far ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... lake, curving up from the horizon, had turned from blue to lead, save where the swift waves were crested with white. The hail beat on the trees and bushes like myriads of bullets, and the wind came with a high, shrill scream. The mainland was lost in the mist and clouds, and he was not only alone on his island, but alone in his world, and separated from his foes by tumbling ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... more than an hour, and he threw himself on to his bed quite worn out, and slept at once, in spite of the nightingales, who filled the starlit, breezy, balmy night with their shrill, sweet clamor. ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... The shrill little voice stopped with a suddenness that made the woman in the door fear for Elly Precious; it seemed that he must be jolted from ...
— Miss Theodosia's Heartstrings • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... Indian who remembered the death of the two officers, stopped; the detachment also halted. He then looked around in quest of some object which might recall, distinctly, his recollection of the ground, and suddenly darted into the wood. The soldiers rested their arms without speaking. A shrill cry was soon after heard; and the other guides made signs for the troops to follow them towards the spot from which it came. In the course of a short time they reached the Indian warrior, who, by his cry, had announced to his companions that he had found the place where he was posted on the day of ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt
... cried the little girl; "you would, too, if your arm was all on fire, and shooting needles into you and not set right and has to be broken over again and all twisted up and hanging by a thread, anyway! Ow!—ow!—OW!!" Her voice rose in a shrill screech and she rocked back and forth in ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... necessity which so exasperated his naturally fiery temper that, on such occasions, he became utterly regardless of his life, and rushing upon any odds with a terrific roar of his deep bass voice, so different from the shrill yell of the Indians—would cleave his way right through their ranks with his long double-edged sword; then, returning to the charge with increased fury, would so appal and horrify them that the usual result was ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... deep-toned bark proclaimed a newcomer, or newcomers, seeing that it was answered immediately by a medley of shrill barks, in the midst of which a girl's voice sounded authoritively—"Quiet, Phil! Pat, I'm ashamed of you! Pudgey, if you're not good instantly, you shall stay ...
— The S. W. F. Club • Caroline E. Jacobs
... a shrill whistle, when the party approached within a hundred yards. Men were seen to dash out of the house, and to leap ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty
... much incensed to enter, even when the hum of united voices ceased, the rushing sound of rising was over, and measured footsteps pattered to the classes, where the manly interrogations sounded alternately with the shrill ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the river the voyagers seemed completely landlocked and allowed the current to carry them safely through the quagmires and sand bars. They floated among a number of white swans and the whole flock flew upward with shrill cries, startling the cranes that stalked in the shadows and sending clouds of cackling geese and ducks whirling up from ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... "Oh! oh!" a shrill scream was heard; and Viola Vincent pushed her way through the crowd of girls, and threw ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards
... Tarrant go to bed at unnatural hours, just to deprive him of his evenings. He walked some distance without encountering a creature or discerning an habitation; but he enjoyed the splendid starlight, the stillness, the shrill melancholy of the crickets, which seemed to make all the vague forms of the country pulsate around him; the whole impression was a bath of freshness after the long strain of the preceding two years and his recent sweltering ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... a faint and melancholy strain of music—melancholy enough to make one shiver—and shrill, shrill as the song of the grasshoppers, it began to make itself heard, very softly at first, then growing louder and rising in the silence of the noonday like the diminutive wail of some poor Japanese soul ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... platform had increased momently, until now, when, from the snorting of the engine, it seemed likely that the train might start at any minute, the crowd's excitement was extreme. Shrill cries echoed down the platform. Lost sheep, singly and in companies, rushed to and fro, peering eagerly into carriages in the search for seats. Piercing cries ordered unknown "Tommies" and "Ernies" to "keep by aunty, now." Just as Ukridge ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... up in the west again, swept back toward the east, and went out of sight in the Big Sioux. If a herd chanced to be grazing too near its path as it approached, they were scattered right and left in wild confusion by a shrill toot! toot! that could be heard at the farm-house. But when the way was clear the cloud traveled swiftly and silently, stringing itself, on sunny days, to a low white ribbon, or, if the air was damp and the heavens were gray, separating itself, from river to ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... Governor's canoe, had on its high prow, conspicuous the French guide, who for the time gave commands. The Governor always took his Highland piper with him, and now there pealed forth from the canoe the strident strains of the bagpipes, while from the second canoe sounded the shrill call of the chief factor's bugle. As the party approached the Fort they saw the Union Jack with its magic letters H.B.C. floating from the tall flag-staff of Norway pine erected on Signal Hill. Bands of Indians from all directions were assembled to meet ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... And then it started, like a guilty thing Vpon a fearfull Summons. I haue heard, The Cocke that is the Trumpet to the day, Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding Throate Awake the God of Day: and at his warning, Whether in Sea, or Fire, in Earth, or Ayre, Th' extrauagant, and erring Spirit, hyes To his Confine. And of the truth heerein, This present ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... side of the car in the darkness as despair seized him. He had always coveted adventure but this was too much and he felt himself to be utterly helpless in this dreadful predicament. Even as he stood there in a state of pitiable consternation, a shrill whistle sounded in the distance, which was echoed back from the ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... had the last of its solo performances. It persevered with undiminished ardor; but the cricket took first fiddle, and kept it. Good heaven, how it chirped! Its shrill, sharp, piercing voice resounded through the house, and seemed to twinkle in the outer darkness ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson
... drawing-room were partly closed to exclude the rays of the sun; the smell of the flowers in the jardiniere was almost oppressive, and the very cries in the street seemed uttered languidly, and without their usual shrill spirit. After breakfast I sat down at my drawing-table, and tried to finish a sketch of the inside of Westminster Abbey, which I had begun the day before. As I was preparing my colours and arranging my brushes, the door opened and Henry ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... one more glance through the window, for the wild agony on her master's face rather alarmed her. But Clorinda called out in a voice so shrill that it was not to be disregarded, and she was constrained to undertake the task assigned her without ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... approach the Indians' camp, on nearing which we were to fire a volley on them from our rifles, and, wheeling round, drive our horses off and retreat. We were within two hundred paces of the camp-fires when we were startled by the report of a rifle. A shrill whistle followed; but we still advanced, and in a few moments came up with Malcolm and Bradshaw, the sailor being supported in the arms of his companion, who called out that the man was shot, and begged me to look to him. The remainder of the party, hearing this, moved a few ...
— California • J. Tyrwhitt Brooks
... Garvin, bonny Garvin, What is the booming sound Of canvas, and the piping shrill, As ...
— Ballads of Lost Haven - A Book of the Sea • Bliss Carman
... whistle from his pocket, and at the shrill summons an old sergeant and half a dozen soldiers came ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... moment the loud, shrill crowing of a cock startled Peter; and at the same time he saw Jesus, who was being dragged through the hall from Annas to the council-room of Caiphas, the other high-priest. And the Lord turned as he was ...
— The Wonder Book of Bible Stories • Compiled by Logan Marshall
... lad, believe it, For they shall yet belie thy happy years That say thou art a man: Diana's lip Is not more smooth and rubious; thy small pipe Is as the maiden's organ, shrill and sound, And all is semblative a woman's part. I know thy constellation is right apt For this affair:—some four or five attend him: All, if you will; for I myself am best When least in company:—prosper well in this, And thou shalt live as freely ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... Tiffton's household effects. Even fair ladies, too, came in their carriages, holding high their aristocratic skirts as they threaded their way through the rooms where piles of carpeting and furniture of various kinds lay awaiting the shrill voice and hammer of the auctioneer, a portly little man, who felt more for the family ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... housewife had loosed a vicious-looking bulldog, and the tramp wisely passed by without stopping. The next house was deserted, the door of the third place was slammed in his face before he could even make known his wants, and he was beginning to wonder if he must go breakfastless when a shrill, childish treble rang out clearly on the still ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... objected, and collected a number of men who linked themselves together with ropes and surrounded the field. The horse took no notice but continued browsing. The ring gradually contracted on him. Kynaston saw the proceeding from his eyrie, and uttered a shrill whistle. At once the gallant steed pricked up his ears, snorted, ran, leaped clean over the head of a man, and scrambled up the stair in the cliff, to his master's shelter. On another occasion a thief, thinking it no harm to rob a felon, succeeded in leaping ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... stone floor of the passage to see what imperative summons this was. Then, as the front door was opened, the bell ceased as suddenly as it had begun, and the moment afterward he heard Morris's voice shrill and commanding. ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson
... the male is first seen he gives a terrific yell, that resounds far and wide through the forest, something like kh-ah! kh-ah! prolonged and shrill. His enormous jaws are widely opened at each expiration, his under lip hangs over the chin, and the hairy ridge and scalp are contracted upon the brow, presenting an ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... hiding from herself, and hiding also from everyone else. One girl, in particular, I remember, a lank figure, brightly dressed and her head adorned by a wreathed Union Jack, whirling lean arms in an ecstasy of irritability, her shrill voice mounting from scream note to scream note. A sickness of soul cried from her restless over-taxed body. She was but one unit of a whole rowdy company. Even this night was used by them to grab at something to fool men—to smother ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... more horrible from being vague, and terror more terrible from ambiguity. It was a fearful page in the record my existence, written all over with dim, and hideous, and unintelligible recollections. I strived to decypher them, but in vain; while ever and anon, like the spirit of a departed sound, the shrill and piercing shriek of a female voice seemed to be ringing in my ears. I had done a deed—what was it? I asked myself the question aloud, and the whispering echoes of the chamber answered ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... 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 ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... Arabic? Well, he asks me to give him money to pay for his dinner and his night's lodging. You must forgive him, for he is but a simple peasant, and cannot believe that anyone may be lodged and fed without payment. I will explain to him, the pig!" And explain he did in shrill, high notes, of which no one else could understand ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... sell. O what joy will fill a Bishop's heart oft a far far distant shore, When he sees our Stroke; reviving the memories of yore! Then old Cam will he revisit in fancy's fairy dream, And rouse once more with sounding oar the slow and sluggish stream: But who is this with voice so shrill, so resolute and ready? Who cries so oft "too late!" "too soon!" "quicker forward!" "Steady, steady!" Why 'tis our young toxophilite, our ARCHER bold and true, The lightest and the tightest who has ever steered light-blue. O when he pulls the yielding ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling
... Fred Starratt, making his way from the outlying districts toward the center of the town, came out of a mental turmoil that had flung him about all day in a series of blind impulses. The air was raucous with the shrill cry of newsboys announcing the details of the morning's sensation. He knew how the journalistic tale would run without bothering to glimpse the headlines. At this time it would be made up for the most part of vague speculations as to ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... said Joseph in dreamy undertones, "the midnight mass—incense and lights and the figures of saints, and wonderful painted windows, and a great multitude of weeping worshippers and music that wept with them, now shrill like the passionate cry of martyrs, now breathing the peace of the ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... overflows from the adjacent Spanish provinces and swarms in the crooked streets. It lounges all day in the public places, sprawls upon the curbstones, clings to the face of the cliffs, and vociferates continually in a shrill, strange tongue, which has no discoverable affinity with any other. The Basques look like the hardier and thriftier Neapolitan lazzaroni; if the superficial resemblance is striking, the difference is very much in their favor. Although those specimens ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... the soft, moss-covered ground and lain there hour after hour, listening to the wood-bird's song. Sometimes he would even find a reed and try to pipe a tune as sweet as did the birds, but that was all in vain, as the lad soon found. No tiny songster would linger to hearken to the shrill piping of his grassy reed, and the Prince himself was soon ready to ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... was there. Stooping forward, Abraham Lincoln began to speak, and Stephen Brice hung his head and shuddered. Could this shrill falsetto be the same voice to which he had listened only that morning? Could this awkward, yellow man with his hands behind his back be he whom he had worshipped? Ripples of derisive laughter rose here and there, on the stand and from the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... you quickly. As I late was angling In the great Lake that lies behind the Pallace, From the far shore, thicke set with reedes and Sedges, As patiently I was attending sport, I heard a voyce, a shrill one, and attentive I gave my eare, when I might well perceive T'was one that sung, and by the smallnesse of it A boy or woman. I then left my angle To his owne skill, came neere, but yet perceivd not Who made the sound, the rushes and the Reeds Had so ...
— The Two Noble Kinsmen • William Shakespeare and John Fletcher [Apocrypha]
... been groundless. The new king spoke Latin, and "peppered the Puritans soundly." The walls of Hampton Court resounded with his shrill determination to tolerate none of their nonsense; and he declared to the assembled prelates, who were dissolving in tears of joy, that bishops were the most trustworthy legs a monarch could walk on. The dissenters, who had hoped much, were disappointed in proportion; ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... along it. There was only room for one on the sand, and the other two, for they walked abreast, waded ankle-deep in the water. From the little city below them they could hear the hum of a myriad of tiny voices—thin, shrill and faint. Suddenly the Big Business Man laughed. There was no hysteria in his voice now—just amusement ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... rang out three times, clear and shrill. The cuckoo flapped his wings, made a bow to the mandarins, and retired ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth
... received, cannot refrain from turning his head to ascertain whether he is baffled, and has spent all his labour in vain. He sees her; but no sooner he sees her, than she becomes evanescent and impalpable; farther and farther she retreats before him; she utters a shrill cry, and endeavours to articulate; but she grows more and more imperceptible; and in the conclusion he is left with the scene around him in all respects the same as it had been before his incantations. The result of the whole that is known of Orpheus, is, that he was an eminently great and ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... it was the farmer of Portmark who had done this thing once too often. At least it is sure that it was to his house that the Death first came in the parish of Dour. At the sound of the shrill crying, of which they every one knew the meaning, men dropped their tools in the field and fled to the hills. It was like the Day of Judgment. The household servants disappeared. Hired men and field-workers dispersed like the wave from a stone in a pool, carrying infection with them. Men ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... I will thank you to remember you are in my house!" cries Miss Majendie, in a shrill tone that ...
— A Little Rebel - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... dainty novels—merely showing The old familiar faces of a few, The question to renew, How thou canst leave such deeds without a name, Forego the unclaim'd Dividends of fame, Forego the smiles of literary houris— Mid-Lothian's trump, and Fife's shrill note of praise, And all the Carse of Gowrie's, When thou might'st have thy statue in Cromarty— Or see thy image on Italian trays, Betwixt Queen Caroline and Buonaparte, Be painted by the Titian of R.A's, Or vie in signboards with the Royal Guelph! P'rhaps have thy bust set cheek by jowl with ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... heavily for the transplanted household, more especially for Andy and his wife, who had outgrown a love of paddling in bogholes, and had acquired a habit of wondering "what at all 'ud become of the childer, the crathurs." One shrill-blasted March morning Andy trudged off to the fair down below at Duffclane—not that he had any business to transact there, unless we reckon as such a desire to gain a respite from regretful boredom. He but partially succeeded in doing this, and returned ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... character of the whole affair fascinated me in spite of myself, and leaving the now fully aroused woman in the hall, I was half-way across the parlor floor when the latter stopped me with a shrill cry: ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... Philip opened the door, and jumped to the ground; the brother and his son followed. A moment more, and Philip was locked in Catherine's arms, her tears falling fast upon his breast; his children plucking at his coat; and the younger one crying in his shrill, impatient treble, "Papa! papa! you don't see ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... rustling of leaves beneath the window drew the attention of Florence. Thinking it her favorite Carlo, and being in no mood for a frolic, without lifting her eyes she bid him "begone;" but she was soon undeceived by a shrill voice pronouncing her name, at the same time finding her arm tightly grasped by the thin, bony fingers of Crazy Nell, the terror of all the truant children in the village. The terrified child vainly tried to disengage herself from the maniac's hold; ...
— Small Means and Great Ends • Edited by Mrs. M. H. Adams
... roadway. There are some places where it is not healthy to walk at night on shadowed pavements. They moved without haste and without loitering, as men who know exactly what they have to do. From one of the darkened houses a woman's shrill scream issued full of rage and terror. It was followed by a man's loud, angry tones, the thud of blows, shrieks, curses, and brutal laughter. Then the silence dropped over everything again. The two men had apparently paid no heed. Even had they been inclined to play the part ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... a pitch-pipe from his pocket and making a slight sound, furnished the starting note. The singing proceeded principally from a certain part of the room, as if by some understanding the singers had been collected together, although scattered sounds also, of either rumbling bass or shrill treble whose trembling modulations betrayed the advanced age of the performers, were here and there heard. Some of these guerrilla passages were sadly out of time and tune, and according to the humor of the hearer ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... army of contractors, a vaster host of persons interested in the private bills submitted to Congress, and of candidates for the numerous places of preferment which are being vacated and created daily. Before the smallest of these has lain open for an hour, there will be scores of shrill claimants wrangling over it, summoned from the four winds of heaven by the ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... screams, till they came to the tomb and stood round about it while the four men laid their master in his great coffin of black marble beneath the pines and the rhododendrons. And the pipers followed after, making shrill and dreadful music that sounded as though some supernatural beings added their voices to the universal wail of woe. And on either side of the body walked the women, the prophet's kinsfolk; but Nehushta walked by Zoroaster, and ever and anon, as the funeral procession wound through ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... moment, a little shrill voice broke out in remonstrance among the laurels—"But you know, Daisy, you are the captain of the ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... and made a stiff and feeble stir about their doorways, and the school children gave the street a little life and color, as they went to and from the Academy in their red and blue woollens. Four times a day the mill, the shrill wheeze of whose saws had become part of the habitual silence, blew its whistle for the hands to begin and leave off work, in blasts that seemed to shatter themselves against the thin air. But otherwise an ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... from comment on this remark, falling into reflection, leaning back, with one hand outstretched, on the grass. The game went on vociferously, the shrill lithe voices piercing the silence of the summer afternoon. Mr. Bentley's eyes ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... of musketry was heard. Monte-Cristo hastened in the direction of the sound, followed by Coucou and about fifty men. The camp appeared to be surrounded, yet, at a shrill cry, which seemed to be a signal, the horsemen suddenly wheeled about and ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... of the Oneidas had subtly changed their timbre so that ever amid the shrill yelling I marked the guttural snarls of baffled rage. The Mohican lay on his belly behind a tree, silent, but his eyes were like coals ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... get our hosses!" sang out Tom Dillon, and started forward on the run. Then he let out a shrill whistle, one he knew was used for calling the ...
— Dave Porter in the Gold Fields - The Search for the Landslide Mine • Edward Stratemeyer
... every minute great birds of clumsy flight, which flew in all directions. Others, more active, rose in flocks and passed in clouds over their heads. The sailor thought he recognized gulls and cormorants, whose shrill cries rose above the roaring ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... million copies weekly from Kansas City. It is a Socialism reeking with class feeling and class hatred and altogether anarchistic in spirit; a new and highly indigestible contribution to the American moral and intellectual synthesis. It is remarkable chiefly as the one shrill exception in a world ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... the eye in this description? Only the sound of the bagpipes is described, though it may suggest a picture of the Highland regiments. What words describe the music? "Wild and high", "war-note", "thrills savage and shrill". Why does the poet mention proper names—"Lochiel", "Evan", "Donald"? The bagpipes recall stirring memories of these men, which inspire the clansmen to prove worthy of their ancestors. What is the "Cameron's gathering"? ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education
... on a maze of shoals without a channel; the driving rain mingled with the falling dusk of a winter's evening; and the booming of a big clock on a tower, striking the hour, rolled past in voluminous, austere bursts of sound, with a shrill vibrating cry at the core. ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... to the lips of the Prince, but before he could give vent to it a terrible little shrill sound from the box struck his ears. In sudden dismay he unslung the baby-house, and opened it to discover what was the matter ...
— Prince Vance - The Story of a Prince with a Court in His Box • Eleanor Putnam
... chief! how we dash o'er the sand, Hissing behind us like storm-driven snow! Flash the long guns of your wild Arab band, Brandish the spears, and the light jereeds throw, As, half-winged, through the shrill singing breezes we go! ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... the hills the muscadine was growing purple. The mules, so over-worked during plow-time, now stumbled down the lane, biting at one another. The stiffening wind, fore-whistle of the season's change of tune, was shrill amid the rushes at the ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... terrible crash and grinding, shrill screams, with the sharp, taunting laughter of Dan ringing clear, as his vessel swept clear of the wreckage, flashing by the crowded small boats which had been lowered a few seconds before the crash came. Hardly knowing what she was doing, utterly beside herself, ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... fishing boat that had dropped anchor close in to the shore; it was a Honfleur craft, come to buy mussels for the Paris market. The women trudged through the water, up to their waists; they clustered about the boats like so many laden beasts. But their shrill bargaining proved ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... nearly closing time, and several friends of Garstin's, models and others, who had been scattered about in the cafe, and who were on their way out, stopped to hear what was going on. Some adherents of Jennings also came up. The discussion became animated. Voices waxed roaringly loud or piercingly shrill. The little Bolshevik, suddenly losing her round faced calm and the shepherdess look in her eyes, burst forth in a voluble outcry in praise of the beauty of anarchy, expressing herself in broken English, spoken with a cockney accent, in broken French and liquid Russian. Enid Blunt, increasingly ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... sexual longing in music is identical with that of religious longing. It is quite true, again, that a soft and gentle voice seems to every normal man as to Lear "an excellent thing in woman," and that a harsh or shrill voice may seem to deaden or even destroy altogether the attraction of a beautiful face. But the voice is not usually in itself an adequate or powerful method of evoking sexual emotion in a man. Even in its supreme vocal manifestations the ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... ship's officers had kept out of the way, glad of a little breathing-time. Soon after dark the few liberty-men and the new hands began to arrive in shore-boats rowed by white-clad Asiatics, who clamoured fiercely for payment before coming alongside the gangway-ladder. The feverish and shrill babble of Eastern language struggled against the masterful tones of tipsy seamen, who argued against brazen claims and dishonest hopes by profane shouts. The resplendent and bestarred peace of the East was torn into squalid tatters ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... every hole and seam, and presently the sound as of a hatchet employed in squaring timber echoed far and wide. But if the toil of these unearthly workmen amazed the Laird, how much more was his amazement increased when a sharp shrill voice called out, 'Ho! brother, what are you doing now?' A voice still shriller responded from the other haunted ship, 'I'm making a wife to Sandie Macharg!' and a loud quavering laugh running from ship to ship, and from ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... the night is far spent, that thou shouldst temper thy wine with water." Thus derided, Tofano came back to the door, and finding his ingress barred, began adjuring her to let him in. Whereupon, changing the low tone she had hitherto used for one so shrill that 'twas well-nigh a shriek, she broke out with:—"By the Holy Rood, tedious drunken sot that thou art, thou gettest no admittance here to-night; thy ways are more than I can endure: 'tis time I let all the world know what manner of man thou art, and at what hour ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... was immediately evident that she had carried out her program for there was a shrill cry, "Oh, for God's sake! Get her up! Get her up! Get her up! ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... was beginning to fall over the vast battlefield; and under the trees with their dense foliage, but little could be seen. Deck listened attentively, but the only sounds which reached his ears were the shrill cries of the birds, who were terrorized by the long-continued booming of cannons and sharp cracking of musketry. Occasionally the roar of a battery could be heard, or a shot from the creek; but these were gradually dying away altogether, for both armies were worn out through fighting ...
— An Undivided Union • Oliver Optic
... Inchbare, calling for the head-waiter, rose shrill and imperative from the regions of the bar. Mr. Bishopriggs disappeared. Anne remained, standing helpless by the window. It was plain by this time that the place of her retreat had been discovered at Windygates. The one doubt to decide, now, was whether it would be ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... their ears, and once more heard the yells of the man borne along by the rushing wind. Then came that other shrill ...
— The Rover Boys in the Land of Luck - Stirring Adventures in the Oil Fields • Edward Stratemeyer
... anxiety possessed almost every one present, there came from the staircase without a sudden cry of woe—a woman's shriek, long and shrill, ominous as the wail of the banshee. There was a rush to the door, and the women crowded, out in a distracted way. Lady Laura was fainting in her husband's arms, and George Fairfax was standing near her ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... atmosphere. Aida, who had been gurgling apoplectically, sprang snarling from the basket, and made for the intruder open-mouthed. Her shrill barking rang through ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... safety's sake, two men were to keep a constant watch, while the others slept; and in this duty of watching, they were to take turns. About midnight, while Boone and Holden were keeping the watch, a sharp shrill cry was heard in the woods. They sprang to their feet. "What noise is that?" said Holden. The sound was familiar to Boone. "Be still," said he; "it is only a panther; come along with me." Moving cautiously from the camp, they listened ...
— The Adventures of Daniel Boone: the Kentucky rifleman • Uncle Philip
... to slant towards the west, and the pastures took on a golden look. The lambs gambolled together with shrill bleatings. But Dot Burton slept on in her chair, a faint smile on her face of innocence. Though she could not have been dreaming in so deep a repose, her last thought ere she slept must have held happiness. Her serenity lay like a tender ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... in safety; and there were my fellow-creatures, battling, now hopelessly, with annihilation. Methought I saw them struggling—too truly did I hear their shrieks, conquering the barking surges in their shrill agony. The dark breakers threw hither and thither the fragments of the wreck; soon it disappeared. I had been fascinated to gaze till the end: at last I sank on my knees—I covered my face with my hands: I again looked up; something was floating on the billows towards the shore. ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... of the North the wild news came, Far flashing on its wings of flame, Swift as the boreal light which flies At midnight through the startled skies. And there was tumult in the air, The fife's shrill note, the drum's loud beat, And through the wide land everywhere The answering tread of hurrying feet; While the first oath of Freedom's gun, Came on the blast from Lexington; And Concord, roused, no longer tame, Forgot her old baptismal name, Made bare her patriot arm of ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... back towards the gloom of the stables. For, in that moment, above the sudden harsh jangling of chains from within, above the pattering footsteps of the fugitives without, was an appalling sound rising high and ever higher—shrill, unearthly, and full of horror and torment unspeakable. And now, sudden as it had come, it was gone, but in its place was another sound,—a sound dull and muffled, but continuous, and pierced, all at once, by the loud, hideous whinnying of a horse. Then Barnabas sprang back to the doors, beating ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... of sight, and fled towards the staircase. All thought that an end had come to the harrowing scene, and minister and people faced each other once more; when, loud and sharp from above, there rang down the shrill cry of delirium, this time in articulate words which ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... 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 the entrance ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... shrill scream. With great presence of mind he hoped to take them so by surprise that they would hesitate for the few seconds, and that in this delay he would ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... all the taverns, cabarets, and other places of amusement his small, fat, roundish little figure, his rosy cheeks, puffed out like those of a painted cupid, and the shining, humid kindly eyes were well known, his hurried, spluttering speech and shrill laughter remembered. ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... at the Bush Terminal at Brooklyn," explained Tom. "Look out there; don't get in the way of the ropes," and he pushed the crowd back from the imaginary ropes, and whistled a shrill call on ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith
... the novelist's practice to rehearse in a grove at the bottom of a big field behind the house. Nobody knew of this practice until one day the younger Charles heard sounds of violent threatening in a gruff, manly voice, and shrill calls of appeal rising in answer, and thinking that murder was being done, he unfastened a great household mastiff and raced along the field to find the tragedy of Sykes and ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... cold that paper stuck to the fingers like feathers, and the nails tingled with frost. The white earth creaked under foot, and when a sled went by the snow cried out in shrill long resistance, a spirit complaining of being trampled. Explosions came from the river, and elm limbs and timbers of the house startled us. White fur clothed the inner key holes. Tree trunks were black ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... pipe out shrill and childish, and then indulged in a maniac giggle that would get Mrs. ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford
... the summit, she climbed a rock as if she were a goat, and looked all round her. Then she uttered a shrill, peculiar cry, and listened. No answer came. Getting down as easily as she had got up, she walked along the side of the hill, making her way nearly parallel with their late racecourse, passing considerably above the spot where her defeated ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... shrill notes the pipe uttered, You heard as if an army muttered; And the muttering grew to a grumbling; And the grumbling grew to a mighty rumbling; And out of the houses the rats came tumbling. Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats, Brown rats, black rats, grey rats, tawny rats, ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... also by the rose-red light of the sunset streaming in through the curve of the oriel-window. This confused and dazzled Richard slightly, entering upon it from the silence and sober clearness of the stair-head. A shrill note of laughter.—Mr. Cathcart's voice saying, "I felt it incumbent upon me to object, Lady Calmady. I spoke very plainly to Fallowfeild."—Julius March's delicately refined tones, "I am afraid spirituality is somewhat deficient in that case."—Then the high flute-like ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... upon the human wedge and drove it, helter-skelter, down the steps; and simultaneously there arose, loud and clear, not from Cameron's Crossing, some miles distant, but just from the ravine bridge, scarcely a quarter of a mile away, the shrill whistle of ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... which we tramped was desolate and bleak, the mournful aspect seemed to add to the silence; only the shrill whistling of the north wind was heard. Snowflakes, like tiny butterflies, fluttered around us, whirling incessantly without touching ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot
... Ferval heard rapturous and mocking remarks. "Baki, Baki, the human orchestra!" cried one gossip to another. And the reverberating music swelled, multifarious and amazing as if a military band from piccolo to drum were about to descend the highway. A clatter and bang, a sweet droning and shrill scraping, and then an old man proudly limped through the gateway of the Great Clock. This was the conjurer, this white-haired fellow, who, with fife, cymbals, bells, concertinas,—he wore two strapped ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... Swiss landscape, possessing in an extraordinary degree the pure, keen atmosphere, as well as the grand mountain forms, of the Alpine spaces. To look on this piece exhilarates as does the sight of the Alps themselves; and it strikes the eye as a shrill trumpet sound the ear. This landscape, a grand antithesis to the last described, marks a great range of power in the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... an old friend of my mother’s murmur. ‘Her voice used to be so nice, and now it’s all gone!’ Taking in the situation at a glance, I threw my voice well up into my nose and started off on a well-known provincial song, in the shrill falsetto of our peasant women. The effect was instantaneous! Long before the end the performance was drowned in thunders of applause. Which proves that to be popular a singer must adapt herself to ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... and supreme contempt for, his fellows. He stood for a moment or two, in the grey, miserable street discordant with the wailings of babies and the clamour of futile little girls, who, after the manner of women, had no idea of political crisis, and the shrill objurgations of slattern mothers and the raucous cries of an idealist vendor of hyacinths, and, cocked hat on head and wooden sword in hand, he looked at his fawning army. Then came the touch of genius that was often to characterize ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... table. And in its light Byrne saw, staggering yet, the girl he had driven from the door. She had a short black skirt, an orange shawl, a dark complexion—and the escaped single hairs from the mass, sombre and thick like a forest and held up by a comb, made a black mist about her low forehead. A shrill lamentable howl of: "Misericordia!" came in two voices from the further end of the long room, where the fire-light of an open hearth played between heavy shadows. The girl recovering herself drew a hissing ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... A shrill sound of laughter and of amused voices—voices of men, women, and children—resounded in the street while this wine game lasted. There was little roughness in the sport, and much playfulness. There ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... carriages approaching, I thought it wise to retire. In the hall I encountered the Princess Kornakoff, her son, and an incredible number of daughters. They had all of them the same face as their mother, and were very ugly. None of them arrested my attention. They talked in shrill tones as they took off their cloaks and boas, and laughed as they bustled about—probably at the fact that there were so ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... discovered bluffing in another—so he resolved to investigate. Accordingly at an hour when he knew Terence should be in the engine room he took up the speaking-tube at the head of his bed and blew into it. But no shrill whistle signalled his desire in the engine room, and though Michael blew until he was red in the face and his lips hurt him cruelly, reluctantly he came to the conclusion that Herr August Carl von Staden had the situation very well in hand and Terence Reardon ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... profiled on a stormy sky, invaded by large coppery clouds which created a sort of twilight amid the night. On the left was an old abandoned mill, with its motionless wings, from the ruins of which an owl threw out its shrill, periodical, and monotonous cry. On the right and on the left of the road, which the dismal procession pursued, appeared a few low, stunted trees, which looked like deformed dwarfs crouching down to watch men traveling ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... broken tin whistle. Of him Lecky writes:—"Richard Lalor Shiel forms one of the many examples history presents of splendid oratorical powers clogged by insuperable natural defects. His person was diminutive and wholly devoid of dignity. His voice shrill, harsh, and often rising to a positive shriek. His action, when most natural, violent, without gracefulness, and ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... like of it!" exclaimed Mr. Crewe. "You say, eighty-two ounces of gold? You say it came from within fifty miles of Timber Town? Why, sir, the matter must be looked into." The old gentleman's voice rose to a shrill treble. "Yes, ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... von Bismarck, the country squire, straight from his cow-sheds and his hunting dogs; a young blond German giant, 32 years old, in the very prime of his massive strength and endurance; plentiful hair cropped short, ruddy face, blond beard, bright blue eyes, big fists; high, shrill voice, strangely out of keeping with his physical bulk. For years afterward, this peculiar voice became the stock in trade of newspaper writers. However, it was what the ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... apologetic grunting chuckle he often used when found out in any mischief, and which meant, "I know I have done wrong, but don't punish me; in fact, I did not mean to do it—it was accidental." Whenever, however, he saw he was going to be punished, he would change his tone to a shrill, threatening note, showing his teeth, and trying to intimidate. He had quite an extensive vocabulary of sounds, varying from a gruff bark to a shrill whistle; and we could tell by them, without seeing him, when it was he was hungry, eating, ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... Level, where he would receive hypnotic indoctrination and, while unconscious, have an operation performed on his ears which would enable him to hear sounds well above the normal audible range. He would be able to hear the shrill sonar-cries of bats, for instance, and, more important, he would be able to hear voices when the speaker used a First Level audio-frequency step-up phone. He would also receive a memory-obliteration from the moment of his abduction, and a set of pseudo-memories ...
— Temple Trouble • Henry Beam Piper
... during the Civil War," she exclaimed, as a shrill voice smote her ear. "I suppose we have ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... penetrate the darkness that once more enveloped No Man's Land, and then as Captain Bob came hurrying up, blowing his whistle for all he was worth to recall the retiring platoon, Dennis drew his own, and the shrill signal brought the men tumbling back again into the ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... a cry which sounded like a moan and above it the shrill fearful yell of a man who feels himself dropping out of the world's hearing. Lessingham raised the lantern which stood on the beach by Jimmy's side. The line had broken. The body of its suspended traveller had disappeared! And just then, strangely enough, for the first ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... unwary moth, or moskitoe, that float so joyously upon the evening air. One after another, sweeping in wider circles, come forth these birds of prey, till the whole air seems alive with them; darting hither and thither, and uttering wild shrill screams, as they rise higher and higher in the upper air, till some are almost lost to sight. Sometimes one of them will descend with a sudden swoop, to the lower regions of the air, just above the highest tree-tops, with a hollow ...
— Lady Mary and her Nurse • Catharine Parr Traill
... acrid, cutting; sagacious, clever, perspicacious, ingenious, bright, discerning, resourceful, astute, shrewd, apt, smart, long-headed, acuminous; fierce, fiery, unquenchable, eager; exacting, close; steep, abrupt, precipitous; pungent, piquant peppery, high-seasoned: shrill, piercing; peaked, ridged. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... through the timber and disappeared. The cowboy rode slowly, peering through the timber. Presently came the trample of frightened sheep—a shrill bleating, and then silence. Fadeaway loped out into the open. The sheep were running in all directions. He whistled the dog to him. Chance's muzzle dripped red. The dog slunk round behind the horse, knowing that ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... my lords—to your places! to your places!" cried the jester, in a shrill angry voice. "See ye not we are close upon Datchet Bridge? Ye can converse with these fair dames at a more fitting season; but it is the king's pleasure that the cavalcade should make a goodly show. To your ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the night's dead heaped about her feet? Is not death swollen, and slaughter full of meat? What, is their feast a bride-feast, where men sing and dance? A bitter, a bitter bride-song and a shrill Should the house raise that such bride-followers fill, Wherein defeat weds ruin, and takes ...
— Two Nations • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... thy nest, Robin-redbreast! Sing, birds, in every furrow; And from each hill, let music shrill Give my fair Love good-morrow! Blackbird and thrush in every bush, Stare, linnet, and cock-sparrow! You pretty elves, amongst yourselves Sing my fair Love good-morrow; To give my Love good-morrow ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... yards up the hillside when a large party of Norsemen suddenly sprang upon him. Two Saxon arrows flew true to their marks, then the Danes rushed upon them. So far no words had been spoken, but Edmund placed to his lips the whistle with which he gave orders on board the ship and blew a long shrill note, and then shouted at the top of ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... Killam, his voice sort of shrill and quivery. "I have one of the logs loose. Now pry here with your picks, everybody. Together, now! It's coming! Once more! There! Now the next one above. Oh, put your weight on it, Mr. Ellins. Get a fresh hold. Try her now. ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... shrill electric light, Dumb and sick in the whirling din We who had all of love to say And a single ...
— Rivers to the Sea • Sara Teasdale
... shadowy congregation rested still, As musing on that message we had heard, And brooding on that 'End it when you will,' Perchance awaiting yet some other word; When keen as lightning through a muffled sky Sprang forth a shrill and ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... the portentous mutterings of this rising storm could be heard deep and significant execrations and menaces, coupled with the names of leading members of the Girondist party. "Down with the aristocrats, the traitors, the Rolandists!" shouted incessantly hoarse voices and shrill voices, of drunken men, of ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... beams passed away gradually that divine musician grew dimmer to his sight. Now only the stars threw their faint light about her, but still she played on, and on, and on. The music swelled, it told of dead and ancient wars, "where all day long the noise of battle rolled"; it rose shrill and high, and in it rang the scream of the Valkyries preparing the feast of Odin. It was low, and sad, and tender, the voice of women mourning for their dead. It changed; it grew unearthly, spiritualised, such music as those might use ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... the Phrygian woods of the Goddess, where sounds the cymbal's voice, where the tambour resounds, where the Phrygian flautist pipes deep notes on the curved reed, where the ivy-clad Maenades furiously toss their heads, where they enact their sacred orgies with shrill-sounding ululations, where that wandering band of the Goddess is wont to flit about: thither 'tis meet to hasten ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... to a shrill scream. He took a furious step nearer Eric as if he would attack him. Eric looked steadily in his eyes with a calm defiance, before which his wild passion broke like foam on ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... head included, with a shawl and an old quilt. Both were silent: at intervals the girl would start up out of her wrappings and stare towards the door with a startled look on her face, apparently listening. From the street sounded the shrill animal-like cries of children playing and quarrelling, and, further away, the low, dull, continuous roar of traffic in the Edgware Road. Then she would drop back again, to crouch against the wall, drawing ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... Excellent! . . ." He looked into the schoolmaster's eyes as though he wanted to share his bliss with him. At last he could restrain himself no longer; he leapt up, and, overpowering all the other voices with his shrill little tenor, shouted: ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... same question to another gentleman present, but he happened to have none of those distinguishing marks; the chief then said, that he himself was a Toa, and shewed the scars of some wounds he had received in battle. Those who were on duty at the observatories were disturbed, during the night, with shrill and melancholy sounds, issuing from the adjacent villages, which they took to be the lamentations of the women. Perhaps the quarrel between us might have filled their minds with apprehensions for the safety of their husbands; but, be that as it may, their mournful cries struck the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... paper, but little or nothing stays with me. History is my particular game as to matter of reading, or else poetry, for which I have particular kindness and esteem: for, as Cleanthes said, as the voice, forced through the narrow passage of a trumpet, comes out more forcible and shrill: so, methinks, a sentence pressed within the harmony of verse darts out more briskly upon the understanding, and strikes my ear and apprehension with a smarter and more pleasing effect. As to the natural parts I have, of which this is the essay, I find ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... is a respectable house." This from a shrill feminine voice. "We've never had the law ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... William's bosom inside his coat, it could be partly supported by his arm outside. He descended the stairs cautiously. He tip-toed lightly past the dining-room door (which was slightly ajar), from which came the shrill, noisy, meaningless, conversation of the grown-ups. He was just about to open the front door when there came the sound of a key turning ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... cry of Nature, all suffering, thoughtless familiarity, and every frank sign of love shock this delicate medium like a bombshell; they shatter this collective fabric, this palace of clouds, this enchanted architecture, just as shrill cockcrow scatters the fairies into hiding. These fine receptions are unconsciously a work of art, a kind of poetry, by which cultivated society reconstructs an idyll that is age-long dead. They are confused memories of the golden age, or aspirations after a harmony which mundane reality ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... came rattling toward the ferry, brought a fine specimen of the juvenile vagrant and dare-devil, seated on the step. Bog looked out of the boiler yard, and hailed him with a shrill whistle, formed by thrusting two fingers in the mouth, and blowing fiercely. The boy recognized the signal of his ragged tribe, slid off the seat, and came running to where Bog was standing. As he drew near, Bog recognized him as a trusty lad whom he had employed as file leader in a walking advertisement ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton |
