"Screech" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the river is talkin' about, in its calm gentle moods or its voylent ones. Who knows what the loud angry scream and screech of the deep waves say as the tempest and storm presses down on 'em and the Deep answers back in a voice of thunder, with its great heart beatin' and heavin' up and throbbin' in its mad pain and frenzy? Who knows what it is ...
— Samantha at Coney Island - and a Thousand Other Islands • Marietta Holley
... roused the rest of the party, and no doubt scared the cougar, for his womanish screech was not repeated. Then Jones got up and gatherered his blankets in ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... group of guards from the smoking room below came running up the stairs armed with clubs and revolvers and tried to get through the barred door at the stair head, but were checked by the captain, who was a wise tactician. The men went to their cells, and there began to howl and screech like a crazy menagerie, and kept it up for hours. Twenty or thirty of the supposed ringleaders were sent to the dark holes; but the revolt was not checked until the warden personally promised reforms, and gave his word that no further ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... leaves of the gum-trees gleaming in it like a myriad gems! A cloud of white, which I knew to be cockatoos, circled over the distant hilltop. Nearer they wheeled until I could hear their discordant screech. The thermometer on the wall rested at 104 degrees despite the dense shade thrown on the broad old veranda by the foliage of creepers, shrubs, and trees. The gurgling rush of the creek, the scent of the flower-laden garden, ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... little: "Take thou heed; from thee hath issued a bird of harm, in choler a wild screech-owl, ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... in here, son!" I heard her cry. And to my wonder now I saw the long, lean figure of Andrew Jackson McGovern come forward, a carbine clutched in his hand, while from his mouth came some sort of eerie screech of incipient courage, which seemed to give wondrous comfort to his fierce dam. At about this moment one of the Sioux, mortally wounded by our fire, turned his horse and ran straight toward us hard as he could go. He knew that he must die, and this was his way—ah, ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... lighting up, he lived in peace; but that, if he made the best of the oil-lamps in the steep and narrow streets, he usually fell over the cliff at an early age. Now, gas and electricity run to the very water's edge, and the South-Eastern Railway Company screech at us ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... denounced in the assembly, he skulked instead of defending himself, and lay concealed in some obscure garret or cellar among his cut-throats, until a storm appeared, when, like a bird of ill omen, his death-screech was again heard. Such was the strange and fatal triumvirate, in which the same degree of cannibal cruelty existed under different aspects. Danton murdered to glut his rage; Robespierre to avenge his injured vanity, or to remove a rival whom he envied; ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Supplementary Number, Issue 263, 1827 • Various
... on the accelerator, trying to pull free. The truck at once swerved off the road, steering around a utility pole. As the cable tautened, there was a sickening screech of metal and the sports car was brought to ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton
... gave, though not so loud as a screech owl, and then she tottered, swayed, and lost her senses. If she'd fallen to the left no harm had overtook her; but to the right she fell and dropped unconscious, face forward into ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... in Goulburn then, an' I'll never forget the scenes to me dyin' day. The men used to be stripped to the waist and tied on a triangle and walloped till they was cut to pieces, till they screamed like little children for mercy, and poor old wretches that had roamed the world for sixty years used to screech Mother! Mother! like little children. It was heart-renderin'! An' what used they be flogged for, do you think?—for the piggishness of the swells mostly. I'll tell you. There was a old feller lived out at Kaligiwa—that's more than ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... leafy roof overhead which was almost unbroken. Flowering plants grew everywhere; vines climbed the trees; little streams murmured here and there; and the only sound which disturbed the repose of the forest was the occasional screech of a parrot and the occasional chatter of monkeys. The first time Freddie heard the sudden scream of a parrot in the stillness he was thoroughly alarmed, but when he learned what it was, and saw the flash of the bird's plumage between the trees, he forgot all about his danger, and for the rest ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen
... answered the quavering voice; "I knew 'twere coming. I knew it. 'Tweren't for nothing that old Shep's been howling all morning. An' last night I heard the screech-owl give the death-cry, and there were something white as run across the yard yesterday; 'tweren't a cat nor a stoat, 'twere something. The fowls knew 'twere something; they all drew off to one side. Ay, there's been warnings. I ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... sum was continually sounding in her ears like the cry of a screech owl. The very ripple of the river flowing so peacefully under the blue summer sky seemed to repeat the words. Three thousand pounds! 'Is it much?' she wondered, having no standard of comparison. 'Is it very much more than my grandmother will expect me to have spent in the time? ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... unmistakable screech which is supposed to mean "Tally-ho!" from a group of beaters and keepers in the distance, and there, against the park-palings, a beautiful red thing scudding along the soft ride, flat to the ground, his bushy tail flying straight ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... I ain't gwine run away: I'm gwine to stand stiff-legged for de Lord dis blessed day. YOU screech, and swish de water, Satan! ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... A horrible screech rent the air, and, looking up, Bob saw an explosion. It was as though a bouquet of fire were falling on them; and then he heard noises such as he had never heard before. It was the groans of the wounded; the cries of men pierced by arrows ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... go reeling off in a mixture of dancing and by-play as fantastic as the music. The pianist seems to get excited and to want to prove himself a Hans von Bulow of rapid execution. The fiddler weaves excitedly over his fiddle. The cornetist toots in a screech like a car-engine whistle. The movements of the dancers grow licentious and more and more rapid. They have begun the Cancan. Feet go up. Legs are exhibited in wild abandon. Hats fly off. There are ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... the trenches, and not very far from the bit of trench in which I was singing, there was a railroad bridge of some strategic importance. And now a shell hit that bridge—not a whizz bang, but a real, big shell. It exploded with a hideous screech, as if the bridge were some human thing being struck, and screaming out its agony. The soldiers looked at me, and I saw some of them winking. They seemed to be mighty interested in the way I was ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... birds from approaching. I always knew when something of this kind had happened, because of the frightful screeching and general uproar set up by the indignant birds—that is to say, such as had the power to screech left. I would hurry to the spot and drag out the cause of the trouble with a forked stick. I never killed him, because there were already enough of his kind dead on every side. The very trees and grass died; and in this originated another almost equally terrible ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... the eyes of some vindictive demon! I struck at it right and left—the revolting combat lasted some moments—I grew sick and dizzy, yet I battled on recklessly. At last, thank Heaven! the huge owl was vanquished; it fluttered backward and downward, apparently exhausted, giving one wild screech of baffled fury, as its lamp-like eyes disappeared in the darkness. Breathless, but not subdued—every nerve in my body quivering with excitement—I pursued my way, as I thought, toward the stone staircase feeling the air ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... the gods Who rule in Lethe. Dissonant murmurs first And sounds discordant from the tongues of men She utters, scarce articulate: the bay Of wolves, and barking as of dogs, were mixed With that fell chant; the screech of nightly owl Raising her hoarse complaint; the howl of beast And sibilant hiss of snake — all these were there; And more — the waft of waters on the rock, The sound of forests and the thunder peal. Such was her voice; ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... hear the sambur-stag belling from the mountain-side, and the monotonous call of the coel, or Indian cuckoo. Afar a peacock calls from a ruined tomb, and through all the jungle concert runs the continuous screech ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... to be the last encounter, but as he tramped on over the grey shingle, amid which shone the white sprinkling of chalky pebbles, a sudden screech pierced the night and a train came rushing along the track that ran alongside the beach, its engine vomiting a lurid smoke that showed ghastly in the dark and that disappeared within the tunnel under the cliff ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... the engineer, reversing the steam, backed the train for nearly a mile—retiring, like a jumper, in order to take a longer leap. Then, with another whistle, he began to move forward; the train increased its speed, and soon its rapidity became frightful; a prolonged screech issued from the locomotive; the piston worked up and down twenty strokes to the second. They perceived that the whole train, rushing on at the rate of a hundred miles an hour, hardly bore upon the ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... end of twenty minutes Job gave a satisfied grunt, maneuvered the cannon back and forth on its swivel base once or twice, and fired. Above the roar of the discharge the boys heard the screech of the whirling chainshot, and then in the Revenge's mainsail appeared a great gaping rent, through the tattered edges of which the wind passed unhindered. There was a howl of joy from the crew, and without waiting for an order, they tumbled pell-mell down the hatches ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... 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. It seems the Boers ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... good lady, wizards know their times: Deep night, dark night, the silent of the night, The time of night when Troy was set on fire, The time when screech-owls cry and ban-dogs howl And spirits walk and ghosts break up their graves, That time best fits the work we have in hand. Madam, sit you and fear not; whom we raise, We will make fast within ...
— King Henry VI, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... Dog of Newgate. At the meetings of young men and maids I many times am, and when they are in the midst of all their good cheer, I come in, in some fearful shape, and affright them, and then carry away their good cheer, and eat it with my fellow fairies. 'Tis I that do, like a screech-owl cry at sick men's windows, which makes the hearers so fearful, that they say, that the sick person cannot live. Many other ways have I to fright the simple, but the understanding man I cannot move to fear, because he knows I have ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... never returning. As I look over the field, these yellow-wings everywhere mildly sparkling, many snowy blossoms of the wild carrot gracefully bending on their tall and taper stems—while for sounds, the distant guttural screech of a flock of guinea-hens comes shrilly yet somehow musically to my ears. And now a faint growl of heat-thunder in the north—and ever the low rising and falling wind-purr from the tops of ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... through it over and over agin, the only unpleasantness being caused by Peter Russet letting off a screech every time Ginger alluded to 'is chest wot set 'is teeth on edge, and old Sam as the landlady offering Ginger pots o' beer which ...
— Light Freights • W. W. Jacobs
... sparrows, the shouts of children in the Square and the huckster's drawling call seemed the subtones of a strangely beautiful oratorio of nature into which every sound of earth had softly melted. Even the roar of the elevated trains on Sixth Avenue and the screech of their wheels as the cars turned the corner of the filthy street in the rear were music. A secret joy filled the world. Nothing could break its spell—not even the devilish incessant rattle of the machine hammers flattening the heads of the rivets on the huge steel warehouse of the American ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... you may listen to the plover's whistle, When high above him the wild geese screech; Or the mallard flying, as the night is dying, His neck out-stretched ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... probably associated with the screech-owl (Aluco candidus) of the Philippines. It is a bird of ill-omen. Compare A. Newton, Dictionary of Birds, pp. ...
— Philippine Folk-Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss, Berton L. Maxfield, W. H. Millington,
... guilty 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 against the wall. ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... gives 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 ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... for talk. The brush was heavy, broken by thickets of plum trees and an occasional sapling of hickory; the ground was boggy in spots, and once Jerry sank almost to his knees in oozy mud. A screech owl hooted in a tree close by, and cold shivers ran up and down their backbones. Unbroken by path or opening, the island wilderness lay ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island • Gordon Stuart
... 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 ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... book, for sharing his bird-notes with the writer, and for a critical reading of the manuscript, acknowledgment should be made to Mr. Robert J. Sim. Certain events in the lives of Eve and Petro and little Solomon Otus are told with reference to his observations of eave-swallows and screech owls; his trip to an island off the Maine coast for gull-sketches added greatly to an acquaintance with Larie; and but for his six-weeks' visit with the loons of "Immer Lake," much of the story of Gavia could not ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch
... 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 white wolves pursue, fled ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... wait here. To tell you the truth, I have a queer feeling that scares me, makes my flesh creep. While I was straining the milk just now, a screech-owl flew on the top of the dairy, and its awful death-warning almost froze the blood in my veins. How I do wish Miss Elise was here! I hope it is not a sign of a railroad accident to her, or that the vessel is ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... battle which I was busily observing, was the extraordinarily small number of combatants that were visible, when suddenly—it was about two o'clock in the afternoon—the Versailles batteries at Courbevoie, which had been silent for some time, began firing furiously. The horrid screech of the mitrailleuse drowned the hissing of the shells; the whole breadth of the long avenue was covered by a kind of white mist. The bastion in front of me replied energetically. It seemed to me as if the interior part of my ear was being rent asunder, when suddenly ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... 48) Suspirius the Screech Owl. See "Rambler" for Oct. 9, 1750. (This is unjust to Goldsmith. The general idea of the character of Croaker, no doubt, closely resembles that of Suspirius, and was probably borrowed from johnson; but the details which ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... whatever in the discussion of an inspiration, "like God's omnipotence, not limited to the few writers claimed by the Jews, Christians and Mohammedans, but as extensive as the race;"[121] or perhaps as extensive as all creation, and leading us to regard even "the solemn notes of the screech owl" as inspired.[122] What manner of use could the Bible be to an ignorant soul groping its way to truth and holiness, or to a dying sinner hastening to the judgment seat of God, if it were true, that "the Bible's own teaching on the subject is that everything good in any book, ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... N. cry &c v.; voice &c (human) 580; hubbub; bark &c (animal) 412. vociferation, outcry, hullabaloo, chorus, clamor, hue and cry, plaint; lungs; stentor. V. cry, roar, shout, bawl, brawl, halloo, halloa, hoop, whoop, yell, bellow, howl, scream, screech, screak^, shriek, shrill, squeak, squeal, squall, whine, pule, pipe, yaup^. cheer; hoot; grumble, moan, groan. snore, snort; grunt &c (animal sounds) 412. vociferate; raise up the voice, lift up the voice; call out, sing out, cry out; exclaim; rend the air; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... wheeled like lightning and crouched. But the pug, enraged at being balked of his vengeance, had also wheeled, and charged again in the same half second. In the next, he had the puma by the throat. With a dreadful screech the great beast rolled over on his side and stiffened out his legs. The pug drew off, eyed him critically to make sure that he was quite dead, then ran, barking shrill triumph, to take possession of the victim's place. Then the whip cracked once more. Whereupon ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... when 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 ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... horse heard the coarse jokes of these men and women. He had long since grown painfully accustomed to it. His poor brain understood that there was no difference between the monotonous unchanging screech of a turning wheel and the ...
— Romance of the Rabbit • Francis Jammes
... the road and pricked up his ears. At the same moment Jud and Ump pulled up beside me. Perhaps their minds were in the same channel. We listened for full a minute. Far down in the marsh land I could hear the frogs chanting their mighty chorus to the stars, and the little screech-owl whining from some tree-top far up against the hill. I was about to ride on when Jud caught at the rein and put up his hand. Then I heard the sound that the horse was listening to, but at the great distance it was only a sound, a faint, wavering, ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... what'll warm up the old 'ooman's heart, like a big fire in a winter day. Won't she screech when she claps her peepers on't, an' go yellin' round among the neighbours, shewin' the pictur' o' 'her boy Abel,' an' his house ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... 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 ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... herds assail their byke, [herd-boys, nest] As open pussie's mortal foes [the hare's] When pop! she starts before their nose, As eager runs the market-crowd, When 'Catch the thief!' resounds aloud; So Maggie runs; the witches follow, Wi' mony an eldritch skriech and hollo. [weird screech] ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... 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
... in the open fair, I refuse you for my master! I won't go with you!" By that outbreak she had attracted the attention of everybody about. Nancy, too, set up a screech and everybody crowded about them. Sir Tristram dared not say a word to help himself, because if he should really displease Lady Harriet he knew it would ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... what is the matter?" said Percy; "you look as if this world was a howling wilderness, and you wanted to howl too. What, crying over that bird? Poh! I can buy you a screech-owl any time, that will make twice the noise he could in his best days. Come, hurry, ...
— Little Prudy's Sister Susy • Sophie May
... remember the thing about the screech-owl and the weather signs?" said the Colonel, roused at last by the jig on his toes and the rattle of improvised ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... around. The gloomy pile in strengthen'd horrour lower'd, Large and majestic ev'ry object tower'd: Dim thro' the gloom they shew'd their forms unknown, And tall and ghastly rose each whiten'd stone: Aloft the waking screech-owl 'gan to sing, And past him skim'd the bat with flapping wing. The fears of nature woke within his breast; He left the hallowed spot of Mary's rest, And sped his way the church-yard wall to gain, Then check'd his coward heart, and turn'd again. The ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie
... wind went "Yooooooo!" And the raven croaked in the tangled tarn— When, with a wail, the screech-owl flew Out of her lair in the haunted barn— There came three burglars down the road— Three burglars skilled in arts of sin, And they cried: "What's this? Aha! Oho!" And straightway ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... valuable on account of the splendid feathers on the back of their necks. Of the smaller birds there is the gallinetta, a kind of landrail, the curse of hunters shooting wild duck, their wretched screech warning every bird in the district. The beautifully coloured and almost transparently winged golden moorhen covers every stretch of water inland, and the "chaja" or wild turkey, one of the most useless birds in the Chaco, and quite uneatable, ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... doleful screech of an owl interrupted them, and those plaintive cries troubling the silence of night, just as they were about to entertain some hope, sounded ominous in the ears ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... ever-shifting gold sparks, and the broad, pale flashes of heat lightning which from time to time illumined the horizon. There was no motion in the heavy black foliage, but it was filled with the shrill droning of the summer insects, and high in the branches a screech-owl pierced the air with ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... the torpid stair Will grumble at our feet, the table cry: 'Fetch my belongings for me; I am bare.' A clatter! Something in the attic falls. A ghost has lifted up his robes and fled. The loitering shadows move along the walls; Then silence very slowly lifts his head. The starling with impatient screech has flown The chimney, and is watching from the tree. They thought us gone for ever: mouse alone Stops in the middle of the floor to see. Now all you idle things, resume your toil. Hearth, put your flames on. ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 • Various
... on in the woods. One looks up at the sky: the stars move, you look at them and find out from them how the time goes. One looks round—the wood is rustling; one goes on waiting, now there comes a crackling—a boar comes to rub himself; one listens to hear the young eaglets screech and then the cocks give voice in the village, or the geese. When you hear the geese you know it is not yet midnight. And I know all about it! Or when a gun is fired somewhere far away, thoughts come to me. One thinks, who is that firing? Is it another Cossack like ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... said the old warrior, as he pointed out the blackened ruins, "here stood our home, where now the screech owl haunts, and the wolf has its den. There, where the broken shaft yet remains, was the chamber in which thou first sawest the light, and wherein thy mother died there, where snake and toad have their home, was the ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... projection of earth and rock, the scattered lodges of the Indian village already partially revealed to those in advance, the riders were brought to sudden halt by a fierce crackling of rifles from rock and ravine, an outburst of fire in their faces, the wild, resounding screech of war-cries, and the scurrying across their front of dense bodies of mounted warriors, hideous in paint and feathers. Men fell cursing, and the frightened horses swerved, their riders struggling madly with their mounts, the column thrown into momentary ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... daunts us, or makes us flinch from our fell purpose. Perspiring from every pore, we labour manfully on to the bitter end. Cornet and clarionet strive for the mastery, the flutes tootle along in the rear, the violins screech and squeal, the horn brays with force and fury, and Old Colonial pounds at his drum as if he were driving piles. Not until the last notes of "God Save the Queen" have been duly murdered do we cease; then, breathless and exhausted, we row down river on our homeward way, rejoicing ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... horror! horror! horror! cease, my queen, [1] Thy voice, like twenty screech-owls, wracks ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... minutes—to the edge of the woodland, the proposed cover of the column. Ten minutes before this point was reached a tiny puff of smoke showed on the brow of the hostile ridge; then, at an interval of several seconds, followed the sound of a distant explosion; then, almost immediately, came the screech of a rifled shell. Every man who heard it swiftly asked himself, "Will it strike me?" But even as the words were thought out it had passed, high in air, clean to the rear, and burst harmlessly. A few faces turned upward ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... 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 us ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... didn't he 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 ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... akinda waumish, d'ye ken. The haivers o' the two spooney craturs juist garred me feel like's I'd taen a fizzy drink or something. You ken what I mean—the kind o' a' ower kittlie feelin' that's like to garr you screech, ye ...
— My Man Sandy • J. B. Salmond
... was no fish which the hungry gull had spied. Before he reached the water he saw his mistake, and wheeling swiftly as only a gull can, he flapped back again into the air, uttering a screech of surprise. ...
— The Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts • Abbie Farwell Brown
... sobs. He pushed open the door with his bill, but remained on the threshold, astonished at the sight which met his eyes. On the floor of the ruined chamber—which was but scantily lighted by a small barred window—sat a large screech owl. Big tears rolled from its large round eyes, and in a hoarse voice it uttered its complaints through its crooked beak. As soon as it saw the Caliph and his Vizier—who had crept up meanwhile—it gave vent to a joyful cry. It gently wiped the tears from its eyes with its ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... his room. He was welcomed by a screech from the parrot and a dignified salaam from James, who was trimming the wick of the oil-lamp. For the last year and a half this room had served as headquarters. Many a financial puzzle had been pieced together within these dull drab walls; ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... woodpeckers, bluebirds and their like, the mahogany-like dense heart-wood rots, leaving hollow passages in the trunk and larger limbs, and often in the smaller ones, too. Here are homes for all who seek complete seclusion from storms and enemies. The little screech owl loves these hollows more than those of any other tree, and sings his little quavering night song from the dusky tops, while his mate and her eggs are safely hidden in the blackness of the hollow below. The downy woodpecker bores his nest hole in the softened ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... a sup o' whiskey, Mr. Gilbert?" Deb. Smith asked. "Ugh! I'm hot and out o' breath, and yet I feel mortal cold. There was a screech-owl hootin' in the cedar; and I dunno how't is, but there always seems to be things around, where money's buried. You can't see 'em, but you hear 'em. I thought I'd ha' dropped when I turned up the sassyfrack bush, and got hold on it; and all the ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... two big alert hangar doors swung up the whining screech of the jet starters, followed by thunder of the engines, filled the airfield. The atmosphere around the Duluth Municipal Airport was closely akin to Santa Anita the ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... from behind Sailly-au-Bois, arose numerous lazy pillars of smoke from the wood fires and kitchens of an artillery encampment. An English aeroplane, with a swarm of black puffs around it betokening German shells, was gleaming in the setting sun. It purred monotonously, almost drowning the screech of occasional shells which were dropping by a distant chateau. The calm before the storm sat ...
— Attack - An Infantry Subaltern's Impression of July 1st, 1916 • Edward G. D. Liveing
... blows. We never had the pleasure of seeing a stranger among us. We might hear him approaching, nearer and nearer, till, just as the eager listener fancied he might alight in sight, there would burst upon the air the screech of a jay or the war-cry of a robin, accompanied by the precipitate flight of the whole clan, and away would go the stranger in a most sensational manner, followed by outcries and clamor enough to drive off an ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... owl beneath my eaves complaining,'" chirped Mr. Moses, taking two or three high notes in a delicate tenor voice. "'I looked forth—great Scot! How it was raining!' Is it an owl, mother? Ask it to screech to Briskin." ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... a weird screech, and the beast whirled around and around on the rocks, coming closer and closer to our hero. Once it clawed savagely at Dave, but he shoved the creature off before any damage was done. Then it fell down in a cleft of some rocks, where it snapped and snarled until Dave sent down a heavy boulder ...
— Dave Porter in the Gold Fields - The Search for the Landslide Mine • Edward Stratemeyer
... summer the discomforts were even greater from the awning which shaded the amphitheatre on the sunny side. The wide breadths of canvas were managed by means of stout ropes, and when these were pulled through the rings they rode in, they made a screech which compelled the bearer to stop his ears; and often it was necessary to duck his head not to be hit by the heavy ropes or by the awning itself. But Arsinoe only remembered these things to-day as a butterfly sporting in the sun may remember the hideous pupa-case that it has burst and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... her; and they said how it was the speerit of the ould Judge that was tormentin' her; and she used to be roaring and yelling out to hould back the big ould fellow with the crooked neck; and then she'd screech 'Oh, the master! the master! he's stampin' at me, and beckoning to me! Mother, darling, don't let me go!' And so the poor crathure died at last, and the docthers said it was wather on the brain, for it was ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 1 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... 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 own words after them—a pack of mouthers, and flatterers, and ear-wigs.—Well, ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... 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 ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Jays screech in the trees of the lane almost all the year round, though more frequently in spring and autumn, but I rarely walked here without seeing or hearing one. Beyond the stile, the lane descends into a hollow, and is bordered by a small furze common, where, under ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... as he did to dad, and I though I should die. Dad heard my snake rattle his self in the box, and he stepped on my prairie dog and yelled murder, and he got into my box of horned toads, and my young badger scratched dad's bare feet, and a young eagle I had began to screech, and dad began to have a fit. He said the air seemed fixed, and he opened the window, and sat on the window sill in his night shirt, and a fireman came up a ladder from the outside and turned the hose on dad, then the police came and broke in the door, and the landlord was along, and the porter, ...
— Peck's Bad Boy With the Cowboys • Hon. Geo. W. Peck
... it, too, and let out a screech of anger, and the creature rose on two pencil-thin legs and scuttled off with a half-terrified, half defiant squeak. It darted past us into the darkness too quickly even for Tweel, and as it ran, something waved on its body like the fluttering of a cape. ...
— Valley of Dreams • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum
... all felt tired and began to unroll the beds. A screech owl made a tremulous, eerie note, but even Jesse only ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough
... up, my tormentor uttering a raucous screech as I tossed him away. While I hastily cooked my supper, the colors of the hiding sun spread over the sky in entrancing variety. I could not see the west, but to the northeast were rifts of blood-red clouds edged with gold over a lake of pearly hue, and to the right of it a bank of smoke. ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... one's beneficence, is just what the ear-splitting blast would be; and the incongruity of startling the worshippers with the harsh notes is like the incongruity of doing good and trying to attract notice. I think Christ's ear catches the screech of the brazen abomination in a good many of the ways of raising and giving money, which find favour in the Church to-day. This is an advertising age, and flowers that used to blush unseen are forced now under glass for exhibition. No one needs to blow his own trumpet nowadays. We have improved ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... up de holler. De win' sigh en groan thru de poppaw bushes, en he wuz sad, en de dark drap down en hit wuz so lonesome; nobody but de katydids en de screech-owl en dem hawgs. Doan' yo' feel sorry fer him, frens? I do—I feel sorry fer ennybody in dat sort er fix, but feelin' sorry hain' gwine ter holp much when yo' git yo'se'f tied up in sech a box. ...
— Shawn of Skarrow • James Tandy Ellis
... so busy thinking of Pat that she hadn't heard a sound—and got to the gate in two leaps, scattering her spools and scissors and pieces of pink calico on the grass. When she saw the horses, she stood stock-still for a minute, and stared with all her eyes. Then she gave a screech like a wild Indian, and stooped and grabbed Pa's umbrella from where I had thrown it on the ground, and rushing into the middle of the road, she opened and shut it as fast as she could work her arms, and shouted as loud as ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... all the streets lie smooth and shining there. Only occasionally does a solid citizen hurry along them. A swell girl argues violently with Papa. A baker happens to be looking at the lovely sky. The dead sun, wide and thick, hangs on the houses. Four fat wives screech in front of a bar. A carriage driver falls and breaks his neck. And everything is boringly bright, healthy and clear. A gentleman with wise eyes hovers, confused, in the dark, A failing god... in this picture, that he forgot, Perhaps did not notice—he mutters this and that. Dies. And ...
— The Verse of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein
... however, found their 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 ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... outward, put in his legs, thinking to let himself drop. Andreuccio, seeing this, started up and catching the priest by one of his legs, made a show of offering to pull him down into the tomb. The other, feeling this, gave a terrible screech and flung precipitately out of the tomb; whereupon all the others fled in terror, as they were pursued by an hundred thousand devils, leaving ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... came two hunters, Wesley Wood and a Sclavonian whose name was something like Sakarovitch, and had been simplified to Joe Screech. Wood was certain that the bear had stopped in the thicket, which was almost on the verge of one of the walls of Hetch-Hetchy Valley, a replica of Yosemite on half scale, and he was too old a hand at the game to follow the trail in. One experience with a bear ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... I am a great ada[']wehi, I never fail in anything. I surpass all others—I am a great ada[']wehi. Ha! It is a mere screech owl that has frightened him. Ha! now I have put it away in the laurel thickets. There I ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... books they would all sink to nothingness before yours, that they were not fit to be mentioned in the same day, and that she felt quite discouraged from writing when she thought of yours. The whole conversation of the aunties [3] made her screech with laughing; and, in short, I can neither record nor describe all that she said; far from exaggerating it, I don't say half enough, but I only wish you had seen the effect it produced. I am sure you will be the first author of ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... a strange whizzing noise, and then something struck against my face, and I heard a screech in the darkness outside. ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... still; the breeze, which had refreshed them during the day, died away, as if its office were now completed; and none of the dark sounds and sights of hideous Night yet dared to triumph over the death of Day. Unseen were the circling wings of the fell bat; unheard the screech of the waking owl; silent the drowsy hum of the shade-born beetle! What heart has not acknowledged the influence of this hour, the sweet and soothing hour of twilight! the hour of love, the hour of adoration, the hour of rest! when we think of those we love, only to regret that we have not loved ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... yards in air above the Brown Cow. We fetched a compass around the orchard, stumbling and staggering among stumps and matted weeds and half-hidden logs without finding my grandfather, or any trace of him; and Crump having dropped behind, we had lost sight of him when that eery screech he adopted to make himself heard traveled to us down the wind. He was kneeling by the dislodged roots of our old tree, and, as he caught my eye, began an uncouth pantomime of surprise and wonder; then stooped, grasped a handful of something, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... the town saw you and I walking along on Sunday night,' said she, at the door of the vestry, 'they would screech out that we were keeping company, and in any case would couple our names together. If they did, father would make it so warm for me that I should have to tell the truth, and then—well,' added Miss Mosk, with a brilliant smile, 'you know ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... were practised could not seduce her heart. The necklaces, diamond crosses, and rich bracelets that were offered she rejected with the utmost scorn and disdain. The music and serenades that were given her sounded more ungratefully in her ears than the noise of a screech owl. However, she received Esquire South's letter by the hands of Signior Benenato with that respect which became his quality. The copy of the letter is as follows, in which you will observe he changes a little ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... to help the ladies. He was nearly taken from his feet by a wild-cat yell, and a moment later that result was actually accomplished by a rush of men that tossed him bodily onto its shoulders. At the same moment, the mill and tug whistles began to screech, miscellaneous fire-arms exploded. Even the locomotive engineer, in the spirit of the occasion, leaned down heartily on his whistle rope. The saw-dust street was filled with screaming, jostling men. The homes of the town were brilliantly draped with ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... salvation of wrecked 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 thoughtful London ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... from the latch as though it were red hot. He was not the kind of a man to make a good eavesdropper, and he wished he had knocked sooner. He pulled himself together and struck the door like a battering ram. Mary jumped and opened it with a screech. ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... smaller shields which bore the red roses of the veteran constable. As they passed over the drawbridge, Alleyne marked the gleam of arms in the embrasures to right and left, and they had scarce set foot upon the causeway ere a hoarse blare burst from a bugle, and, with screech of hinge and clank of chain, the ponderous bridge swung up into the air, drawn by unseen hands. At the same instant the huge portcullis came rattling down from above, and shut off the last fading light of day. Sir Nigel ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... 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. In Tsing- ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... agreeable suburb is adorned. The effect was wonderfully sylvan and rural, insomuch that we might have fancied ourselves in the depths of a wooded seclusion; only that, at brief intervals, we could hear the galloping sweep of a railway-train passing within a quarter of a mile, and its discordant screech, moderated by a little farther distance, as it reached the Blackheath Station. That harsh, rough sound, seeking me out so inevitably, was the voice of the great world summoning me forth. I know not whether I was the more pained or pleased to be thus constantly put in mind of the neighborhood ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the rancher was an excellent marksman, and the bullet bored its way through the breast of the painted miscreant, who hardly knew what hurt him. With a screech, he threw up his arms, one grasping his gun, and toppled from the back of his pony, falling with a loud splash into the water, where for the moment he disappeared under ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... thou screech-owl," said Egerton, starting back at that ill-omened sound; "we shall ne'er be rid o' this pestilence!" He attempted to spring aside from the object of his abhorrence; but in a moment his horse was holden by the bridle with almost more than human strength; and the malicious creature set up an ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... his sleeves rolled up, making himself mightily at home, chucking wheat and wool and cotton and sugar and stuff out of the hold, slewing it, hoisting it, and letting it down plunk onto France! The boys in khaki were on trains already. He could hear the silly, piping screech of the French locomotives. His mind was half numbed, but he hoped that all this would encourage those French people and remind them that before Uncle Sam rolled down his sleeves again, he intended to ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... masses of men: nay, are not Mankind, in whole, like tuned strings, and a cunning infinite concordance and unity; you smite one string, and all strings will begin sounding,—in soft sphere-melody, in deafening screech of madness! Mounted Gendarmerie gallop distracted; are fired on merely as a thing running; galloping over the Pont Royal, or one knows not whither. The brain of Paris, brain-fevered in the centre of it here, has gone mad; what ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... hag!" replied Front-de-Boeuf; "detestable screech-owl! it is then thou who art come to exult over the ruins thou ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... simmering oil. On each side was a dish of vegetables, one containing thistles and burdocks, and the other fuming acid. Other side dishes, of turtles, rats, bats and moles, were garnished with live coals. For the fish course he ate a dish of snakes in boiling tar and pitch. His roast was a screech owl in a sauce of glowing brimstone. The salad proved to be spider webs full of small explosive squibs, a plate of butterfly wings and manna worms, a dish of toads surrounded with flies, crickets, grasshoppers, church beetles, spiders, and ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... the 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 ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... blow like blazes. It blowed for three 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, ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... who has been there sketching ever since the year eighteen-hundred and ten. He has, moreover, written a super-magnificent description of the ruin, in which he says, that during the day only birds of prey disturb it with their piercing cries, and at night, screech-owls, and other fallow deer. These are his own words. You must buy his ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... deep pouch, is quite safe from birds of prey, except perhaps the owl. The owl, I suspect, thrusts its leg into the cavities of woodpeckers and into the pocket-like nest of the oriole, and clutches and brings forth the birds in its talons. In one case which I heard of, a screech-owl had thrust its claw into a cavity in a tree, and grasped the head of a red-headed woodpecker; being apparently unable to draw its prey forth, it had thrust its own round head into the hole, and in some way became fixed there, and had thus died with the woodpecker ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... moon should be shining on the white, clean hills, and underneath my boots the snow-crust would squeak. Perhaps a screech-owl would whistle his plaintive call in the ghostly orchard. How beautiful there the night would be! But here—" and I flung out my arm instinctively toward the walls which hemmed ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... at a discount in Boston, and Mr. Everett was speaking to a Boston audience. They are sending us their advice across the water, said Mr. Everett. And what is their advice to us? That we should come down from the high place we have built for ourselves, and be even as they are. They screech at us from the low depths in which they are wallowing in their misery, and call on us to join them in their wretchedness. I am not quoting Mr. Everett's very words, for I have not them by me; but I am not making them stronger, ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... 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 ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg
... made her screech. I threw up her clothes, for she was still on her back on the bed, I didn't see her cunt, for I was between her legs, and bent over her, lifted her legs, and pressed hard down on her belly, her clothes on it which met mine, I gave a shove, having no thought of doing ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... shell fire and the unforeseen events that the immediate future held in store for me so weighed upon my mind that I could scarcely close my eyes. I really do not understand how any of the boys slept. We could hear the screech of the shells as they whizzed by, but, fortunately, none of them hit near us. Only a few days before several hundred American boys were gassed in this same woods, and our gas guard kept a ...
— In the Flash Ranging Service - Observations of an American Soldier During His Service - With the A.E.F. in France • Edward Alva Trueblood
... time to time as if undecided, repeating the same verses over and over until he managed to pass on to new ones, uttering at the end of each strophe, according to the custom of the country, a strange screech like a peacock, a harsh and strident trill like that which accompanies the songs ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... flash Billy drew out his knife and cut the rope. There was a wild yell from below and a screech of curses and imprecations following a rather sickening sounding thud, which persuaded Billy, peering down from above, that the victim's lungs at least were unimpaired, and then to his great amazement a shot went winging ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley |
