"Screeching" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... we are going, Our embargo's off at last; Favourable breezes blowing Bend the canvas o'er the mast. From aloft the signal's streaming, Hark! the farewell gun is fired; Women screeching, tars blaspheming, Tell us that our time's expired. Here's a rascal Come to task all, Prying from the Custom-house; Trunks unpacking Cases cracking, Not a corner for a mouse Scapes unsearched amid the racket, Ere we sail on board ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... honest man," said Dorothy, half in a screeching and half in a wailing tone of sympathy—"there he lies; his best friend slain, and he knowing as little about it as the babe new born, that kens not ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... obtained an accurate description of the man he was in search of, and had no doubt of recognizing him, should he be fortunate enough to meet him. Passing quietly along, he came to the large switch-yards, and here he was almost deafened by the rumble and noise of the trains, and the screeching and puffing of the engines. Here Manning paused awhile in the hope of seeing his man among the number of brakemen engaged about the yard; but finding no one that answered his description, he approached a party of men standing near, ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... parrot, screeching in its cage, set right out in the roadway by some fool owner, who ought to be had up ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... landlord yelling and screeching and snarling from the kitchen at the back, for all the world like a mad dog. But the Swiss Saturday evening customers at the other tables smoked on and talked in their ugly dialect, without trouble. Then the landlady came in, and ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... round her head." John Indian, on such occasions, used to confine his achievements to tumbling, and rolling his ugly body about the floor. The deepest commiseration was felt by all for the "afflicted," and men and women rushed to hold and soothe them. There was, no doubt, much loud screeching, and some miscellaneous faintings, through the whole crowd. At length, by bringing the sufferers into contact with Goody Cloyse, the diabolical fluid passed back into her, they were all relieved, and the examination was resumed. Elizabeth Procter ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... briskly again, 'she took me in, and up to her drawing-room. The window was a tiny bit open, and she made me stand just on the ledge between it and the balcony, so that I could see the parrot without his seeing me, for she said if he saw me he'd set up screeching and not talk sense any more. He knows when people are strangers. The cage was close to the old lady's end of the balcony, so that I could almost have touched it, and then I heard him say all those queer things. ...
— Peterkin • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... design is to disturb the good wark, by raising wonder and confusion in your minds; to put off from your spirits all that ye hae heard and felt.'—Sae we let go the rape," said David, "and he went adown the water screeching and bullering like a Bull of Bashan, as he's ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... of night had wrapped the earth in darkness. All nature lay clothed in solemn thought, when the defendant ruffians came rushing like a mighty torrent from the mountains down upon the abodes of peace, broke open the plaintiff's house, separated the weeping mother from the screeching infant, and carried off—my client's rifle, gentlemen of the jury, for which we claim ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... for peltries. These were brought to them in large quantities in the early summer, when the ice had broken up, and fleets of canoes descended the St. Lawrence laden with skins. Then there was amazing stir at the sleepy little posts on the great river. Painted savages, howling and screeching, mostly half-drunk, swarmed about the stations, and at night the sky was red with the glare of their {189} fires. There was an enormous profit in the traffic, for the Indians had no idea of the cheapness of the goods which they took in exchange for ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson
... was night, and he was shivering. His stomach was screeching, and his nerves dancing with high voltages. He sat up and groped for his watch, then remembered he had pawned it after the poker game. Remembering the game and the results of the game made him wince and bite his lip and ...
— The Hoofer • Walter M. Miller
... was waterlogged and as he went down it slowly, choosing his steps amid heaps of wet rubbish, he heard a mad nun screeching in the nuns' madhouse beyond ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... and rain beating him back. Suddenly a black form loomed up in the mist ahead. Full blast she came, the black smoke from her stack running ahead as if to coax her on to greater speed. The brakeman waved his red lantern frantically in the air. There was a screeching sound of brake-shoes on the wheels, a long, shrill whistle, and the train sped past him, a misty dull serpent in the storm. He turned and followed as fast as ...
— Buffalo Roost • F. H. Cheley
... he was going deaf. The shrill roar of screeching metal and throbbing dynamos that pounded at his eardrums began to fuddle his mind, until General Webb handed him a small cardboard box—also stamped, like every door and wall in the place, "Top Secret"—in which his trembling fingers located two ordinary ...
— Minor Detail • John Michael Sharkey
... in a youthful and beautiful body: and she what she was—she fell into one of those futile and dreadful fits of rage to which the evil old are subject; and mumbled with her skinny bags of lips, and shook and nodded her deathly head, and waved her claw-like hands, screeching insults ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... watch in the pocket of a tramp to be stolen; a giant meteor, the skeleton of an iguana, a twisted-looking Nerva in the Royal Museum of Berlin, I take to be indubitably original, and indubitably imitations in the college museum of a small town. The same is true of events: I hear a child screeching in the house of the surly wife of the shoemaker so I do not doubt that she is spanking it; in the mountains I infer from certain whistles the presence of chamois, and a single long drawn tone that might be due to anything I declare to have come ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... saw that tray, after I was the innocently smiling cause (or more likely screeching one) of the doctor's standing it up on a table against the wall in his consulting-room. Whenever my own father and mother were in that part of the country, I used to put my head (I have heard my own ...
— Doctor Marigold • Charles Dickens
... given no attention to the machine. Let us not call it a flying-machine. Let us call it simply an automobile. There it is on the road, jolting, screeching, rattling, perfuming. And there he is, saying: 'This road ought to be as smooth as velvet. That hill in front is ridiculous, and the descent on the other side positively dangerous. And it's all turns—I can't see a ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett
... hundreds of them in every family, and so many families that it resembled nothing so much as a puffin ghetto. I judged from the turmoil that they were screeching for "a place in the sun." The noise they made did not in the least accord with their respectable Quaker appearance. Shall I bring you one as a pet? Its austere presence would help you ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... barbs, the first horses reared in air, pawing and screeching frantically. Many sank down again, and they were limp as the life ebbed. Others crashed backward, their riders underneath, and those behind plunged over them, unable to stop. Soon it was a fearful jumble; men and beasts, hoofs ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... waters more That swelled proud Trent, shrunk themselves dry, that since No sun or moon, or other cheerful star, Looked out of heaven, but all the cope was dark As it were hung so for her exequies! And not a voice or sound to ring her knell But of that dismal pair, the screeching owl And buzzing hornet! Hark! hark! hark! the foul Bird! how she flutters with her wicker wings! Peace! ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... first. The flame had leaped high, driven everybody back, lighted up everything—and collapsed. The shed was already a heap of embers glowing fiercely. A nigger was being beaten near by. They said he had caused the fire in some way; be that as it may, he was screeching most horribly. I saw him, later, for several days, sitting in a bit of shade looking very sick and trying to recover himself; afterwards he arose and went out—and the wilderness without a sound took him into its bosom again. As I approached the ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... bit of a toy ship, and then to think of how one's felt seeing, as I did once, a good ship with her crew, men and boys, clinging to the rigging, and going down before your eyes, and you not able to help them, though they kept a-screeching out and a-calling ...
— The Story of the White-Rock Cove • Anonymous
... wilderness solitudes, trailing the savages to their very homes and ambushing the village bridlepath like a panther waiting for his prey. Often in the gray of the morning the Indians, sleeping around their camp fire, were awakened by a horrible, screeching yell. They started up in terror only to fall victims to the tomahawk of their merciless foe, or to hear a rifle shot and get a glimpse of a form with flying black hair disappearing with wonderful quickness in the forest. Wetzel always left death behind him, and ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... eleven o'clock to-night they followed me to the door in a stream, and I stooped down to stroke the one nearest to me. Bah! The brute hissed and spat, and struck at me with her paws. The claw caught my hand and drew blood in a thin line. The others danced sideways into the darkness, screeching, as though I had done them an injury. I believe these cats really hate me. Perhaps they are only waiting to be reinforced. Then they will attack me. Ha, ha! In spite of the momentary annoyance, this fancy sent me laughing upstairs to ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... they were aroused again; this time by a frightful screeching, and a sympathetic, inquiring ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... 're mistaken; there 's lots more to come, More banging, more screeching of fiddle and drum, Till when the last ending is finished and done, You feel like a horse when the winning-post ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... like a boxer, or a big bear, warded off the plunge with a violent, sweeping blow of his right paw. There was a quick flash of bloody, foam-flecked fangs, and the deadly paw was crushed between Finn's jaws. The pain of the crushing drew a screeching howl from Lupus, and in that same instant a powerful upward twist of Finn's neck threw him fairly on his back, snarling despairingly. One could not measure the fraction of time which elapsed between Finn's release of the crushed foot and his seizure of the throat—the deadly ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... also stick your claws into me, cat?" shouted Umbezi, catching the old woman a savage cut across the back with the light dancing-stick which he still held in his hand, whereon she fled away screeching ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... all right. He had struck the wrong time, that was all. Eleven o'clock at night, when you can't see him, and naturally feel that you want to, is the proper time for an owl. Perched on the roof of a cow-shed in the early dawn he looks silly. He clung there, flapping his wings and screeching at the top of his voice. What it was he wanted I am sure I don't know; and anyhow it didn't seem the way to get it. He came to this conclusion himself at the end of twenty minutes, and shut himself up and went home. I thought I was going ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... of these poor old childless couples taking a menagerie of yelping little worthless dogs to their hearts; and then adding some cursing and squawking parrots and a jackass-voiced macaw; and next a couple of hundred screeching songbirds, and presently some fetid guinea pigs and rabbits, and a howling colony of cats. It is all a groping and ignorant effort to construct out of base metal and brass filings, so to speak, something to take the place of that golden treasure denied them ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... his Mister Haggin deal death at a distance in another noise-way. From the veranda he had seen him fling sticks of exploding dynamite into a screeching mass of blacks who had come raiding from the Beyond in the long war canoes, beaked and black, carved and inlaid with mother-of-pearl, which they had left hauled up on the beach at ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... in from the sea sharp enough to take your head off your shoulders, and I thought perhaps I'd jammed the door without closing it, and it had blowed open with the wind. But when I got inside I heered something like moaning. I thought that might be the wind too, for it's for ever screeching up and down the passages like a devil, specially o' nights. I—" He stopped suddenly, with a cautious ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... course heard that the creatures were eaten, although he had never tasted monkey. He accordingly fired, and brought down two who were sitting together grinning at him. The rest on this came chattering and screeching to the boughs close above his head, and began to throw down sticks and nuts, some of the latter of which they had been eating, and to spit at him ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... right, for the future, with his wife. He paid very little attention to me, and went up stairs muttering to himself about a separation. Whether Mrs. Yatman will come cleverly out of the scrape or not seems doubtful. I should say, myself, that she will go into screeching hysterics, and so frighten the poor man into forgiving her. But this is no business of ours. So far as we are concerned, the case is now at an end; and the present report may come to a conclusion ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... had been by wanton damage done to it by the soldiery, and so much impeded by rubbish, that the knight marvelled how the old woman could find the way. She kept talking all the while as she stumbled onward. Sometimes she called out in a screeching tone, "Powheid! Lazarus Powheid!"—and then muttered—-"Ay, ay, the old man will be busy with some of his duties, as he calls them; I wonder he fashes wi' them in these times. But never mind, I warrant they will last for his day and for mine; and the times, Lord ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... without seeing that: you're the sincere artist so much more than I. No, no, don't protest," she added with one of her sudden, fine transitions to a deeper tone. "You'll do things that will hand on your name when my screeching is happily over. Only you do seem to me, I confess, rather high and dry here—I speak from the point of view of your comfort and of my personal interest in you. You strike me as kind of lonely, as the Americans say—rather cut ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... tread-wheel is usually worked by two men or women, who steady themselves by holding to a cross-bar, while their weight revolves the tread-wheel and works a chain of water-pockets. The pockets dip water from a hole or ditch and empty it into troughs, whence it spreads over the field. The screeching of these wheels can be heard for miles, and the grotesque Chinese figures stepping up, up, up in pairs, yet never ascending, the women singing in shrill, falsetto voices, and the incessant gabble of conversation, makes a picture of industry the ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... ship came the low hum that rose quickly to a screeching call of danger—the warning! The ...
— Islands of Space • John W Campbell
... car went along a rough road which led across a great stretch of pastureland. On the ridge of the hills on his right, little groups of men were at work unlimbering guns. Once or twice, with a queer, screeching sound, a shell, like a little puff of white smoke, passed high over the car and fell somewhere in the grey valley below. In the distance he could see the movements of a body of troops through the trees, ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... quaffing, now screeching now laughing, At my harp-strings tearing, and to madness nearing: That was the life I led, and which I yet do; For I will swear it, and to all the world declare it, If you would fain be ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... thought it was Berow her voice), "We would far sooner lay fire under thy coats than pray for thee." We were still sighing over such words as these when we came near to the churchyard, and there sat the accursed witch Lizzie Kolken at the door of her house with her hymn-book in her lap, screeching out at the top of her voice, "God the Father, dwell with us," as we drove past her; the which vexed my poor child so sore that she swounded, and fell like one dead upon me. I begged the driver to stop, ...
— The Amber Witch • Wilhelm Meinhold
... weathercocks at the ends of the house, which made a great jingling and whistling as they whirled about, but always pointed wrong. The appearance of the whole place was forlorn and desolate, at the best of times; but, in unruly weather, the howling of the wind about the crazy old mansion, the screeching of the weathercocks, the slamming and banging of a few loose window-shutters, had altogether so wild and dreary an effect, that the neighbourhood stood perfectly in awe of the place, and pronounced it the rendezvous of hobgoblins. I recollect the old building ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... Several of these came altogether too close for comfort. Colonel Oakford, Lieutenant-Colonel Wilcox, and I were sitting on our horses as close together as horses ordinarily stand, when one of these ugly missiles dropped down between us. It came with a shrieking, screeching sound, like the pitch of an electric car with the added noise of a dozen sky-rockets. It did not explode. It created considerable consternation and no little stir with horses and men, but did no damage further than the scare and a good showering ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... great yearly, festival of the re-election of the Sheik. Early in the morning a crowd of Takruries came pouring in from all directions, armed with sticks or spears, a few mounted, the majority on foot, all howling and screeching (I believe they call it singing), so that before even the dust raised by a new party could be seen, the ear was deafened by their clamour. Every Takrurie warrior—that is, every one who can howl and carry a bludgeon or lance—is entitled to a vote; for this privilege he pays a dollar. The polling ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... air of respectable, stand-still, and meditative repose, which, I am afraid, will entirely give way before the railroad demon, for I understand that it is soon to be connected by the Oxford, Worcester, and Wolverhampton line with all parts of the kingdom. Just think of that black little screeching imp rushing through these fields which have inspired so many fancies; how every thing poetical will fly before it! Think of such sweet snatches as these set to the tune of ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... broke into a screeching laugh, and pointed its brown finger at Tom. "Ho, ho, Tom!" says he. "Thou 'st thanked me, my lad, and I told thee ...
— More English Fairy Tales • Various
... next morning Bobby Hargrew came screeching into the rear gate of the Lockwood premises as though she was being chased ...
— The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna - or, The Crew That Won • Gertrude W. Morrison
... shelf. As he looked at it more narrowly, the ugly features of a wrinkled old woman by degrees unfolded themselves; and in a few moments, the Apple-wife of the Black Gate stood before him. She grinned and laughed at him, and cried with screeching voice: "Ey, Ey, my pretty boy, must thou lie in limbo now? To the crystal thou hast run; did I not tell thee ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... The obeah, screeching, reeled back. But he was not dead. Not dead, only stunned a moment. And Stern, horrified, found himself holding only a gun-barrel. The stock, shattered, had whirled away and vanished among ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... the advancing line filled as soon as each screeching ape went down, the attackers leaped on until Kirby knew they would be upon the girls in a matter of seconds. A sweat broke ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... one, apparently in great distress, first announced a phenomenon, which caused the excitement. The screeching proceeded from a girl of but thirteen years of age, who had previously among the Shakers been a clairvoyant, and who has since been a powerful medium for spiritual manifestation elsewhere. She soon fell upon the floor, uttering awful cries, similar to those we had often heard emanating from instruments ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... look out from beneath their hoods, grinning hideously repulsive. One reverend father has his mouth wide open, as if he had died in the midst of a howl of terror and remorse, which perhaps is even now screeching through eternity. As a general thing, however, these frocked and hooded skeletons seem to take a more cheerful view of their position, and try with ghastly smiles to turn it into a jest. But the cemetery of the Capuchins is no place ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... screeching noise outside, followed by an incredible crash. It seemed to cleave a bottomless abyss between one second and the next, so that one seemed to be conscious for the first time in an ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... moment for hesitation, one alternative. Before the priest could complete his malediction, De la Vega's knife had flashed through the fire of the cross. The priest leaped, screeching, then rolled over and down, and rebounded from the railing of ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... end of that screeching," she snapped to vent some of her fierce petulance. "Tell them I will have the rods to them if ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... strange singer. It generally begins by screeching harshly; then follow three or four flute-like notes, which seem to indicate that the bird could be a musician if it would only persevere. But it will not take the trouble. It goes on repeating its 'Lor-e-oh!' just as its tree-top companions, the cicadas, keep ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... visited the kadi, (judge,) who was holding his court in the open air, with a canvas screen to shelter his head from the sun, in the midst of orchards and a flower garden. A cause, in which some women were vociferating and screeching in Arabic, (to which that language lends peculiar facility,) was suspended in order to receive my visit, and the litigants had to remain in silence at some distance till I ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... ended. Already vast forces of Indians, flushed with victory and waving bloody scalps, were sweeping back across the ridges to attack in force. Scarcely had reinforcements attained the summit before the torrent of savagery burst screeching on their front. ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... [held in memory of Severus's reign] the statue of Mars, while being carried in procession, fell down. This perhaps would not arouse such great wonder, but listen to the greatest marvel of all. The Green faction had been defeated, whereupon, catching sight of a jackdaw, which was screeching very loud on the tip of a javelin, they all gazed at him and all of a sudden, as if by previous arrangement, cried out: "Hail Martialius, Martialius hail, long it is since we beheld thee!" It was not that the jackdaw was ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio
... did their work in grand style after we had gone to bed, and there was the mother-in-law screeching and bawling, and every hour too long for her until daylight, when I put her in the cart and drove her ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... round the bole of this tree peeped the pallid oval of a face; thrice I summoned, and getting no answer, levelled and fired point-blank, the report of my piece waking a thousand echoes and therewith a chattering and screeching from the strange beasts that stirred in the denser woods about me; and there (maugre my shot), there, I say, was the face peering at me evilly as before. But now something in its stark and utter stillness clutched me with new dread as, slinging my musket and drawing pistol, I crept towards ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... old earl was kissing her rosy cheek in the most courtly fashion, and saying while he shook her hand in his long fingers, "And how do you do, my dear?" And Mrs. Selwyn was by his other side. And Tom was screeching out, "How do you do, Granddaddy!" And then, "Oh, Elinor and Mary!" to two quiet, plain-looking girls standing in the background. And "Ah, how d'ye kids!" as the faces of his two small brothers appeared. And Polly forgot all about the fact that she was in an ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... what confusion there must be in the workrooms, with the storks flapping and screeching like newsboys outside the delivery room," mused the Doge, "and when you consider the multitudinous population of the earth, it's surprising that the good Lord is able to furnish such a variety of faces as he does. But they do say that every one of us has a few doubles. In the case of famous ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... scraped out, and when the place was cleared they reascended to the furnace-chamber, when, upon another trial being made, it was found that the weights so accurately balanced the bridge that with very little exertion the chains came screeching and groaning over the iron rollers, and the men gave a cheer as the end rose up and up till it was drawn very nearly up to the ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... had," went on the widow, bowed almost to the bar by shame, "and it always perched up on her knee, and taking food from her mouth, and she nursing it agin her face. But I had bad teeth in me head, and I couldn't get my rest, with the jaws aching, and all the whiles it screeching with the ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... fell full on the rocks, which rose in magnificent grandeur, and seemed to look with contempt on all around them. These beauties, combined with the gray tint of the stone, the cawing of the rooks, which nestle in the crevices and underwood, with now and then the screeching of the night-owl,—were such as would make the most cold and indifferent acknowledge the delight to be enjoyed in the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 333 - Vol. 12, Issue 333, September 27, 1828 • Various
... life or mine, with the amphibious natives to help us; but I was sorely afraid of being bruised, and scarred, and of breaking the horses' legs, and I said I would not cross, but would sleep among the trees; but the tumult drowned our voices, though the Hawaiians by screeching could make themselves understood. The nearest man then approached the shore, put the lasso round the nose of the woman's horse, and dragged it into the torrent; and it was exciting to see a horse creeping ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... came to him. This one was so tall and ugly and long that the lad had to look up and up, right up to the sky. And when he took him all in with his eyes, and saw how very, very tall and ugly and ragged he was, he fell a-screeching and ...
— East O' the Sun and West O' the Moon • Gudrun Thorne-Thomsen
... crooked roots, they form such a barrier as to make landing well nigh impossible. These small lakes, subject to the ebb and flow of the tides, are the resort of innumerable sea birds and water fowls of all sizes and descriptions; from the snipe to the crane, and brightly colored flamingos, from the screeching sea gulls to the serious looking pelican. They are attracted to these lakes by the solitude of the forests of mangroves that afford them excellent shelter, where to build their nests, and find protection ...
— Vestiges of the Mayas • Augustus Le Plongeon
... the haze the great buildings towered loftily. The long city raised a jagged sky-line of human immensity, and the harbor swarmed with craft,—car ferries, and sailing vessels dropping down stream carefully to take the sea breeze, steamers lined with black figures, screeching tugs, and occasionally a gleaming yacht. The three stood together on the deck looking at ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... instantly perceived his fearful mistake, and made a desperate attempt to dodge to one side, but though the loon may elude the bullet of the hunter's rifle, no man has ever yet been equal to the task. No screeching Indian was ever hit more fairly, surprised more suddenly, ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... cross another, striving to have the whip hand of him when they'd set off, why you see, his horse would get a cut of the whip itself for his pains. My uncle and I, however, did all we could to pacify them; and their own bad horsemanship, and the screeching of the women, prevented any strokes at that time. Some of them were ripping up ould sores against one another as they went along; others, particularly the youngsters, with their sweethearts behind them, coorting away for the life of them, and ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... likely they would have carried out their sinister intention, but for Judas Iscariot. Seized with a mad fear for Jesus, as though he already saw the drops of ruby blood upon His white garment, Judas threw himself in blind fury upon the crowd, scolding, screeching, beseeching, and lying, and thus gave time and opportunity to Jesus and His ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... dear. I never do." The Countess retired to the Zenith, meekly. The train was picking up its spirits, audibly, but cautiously. The flank fire of hints about speed had subsided, and it had all the world before it, subject to keeping on the line and screeching when called on to do so ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... then fast; and the flock, in a dense mass, pressed after him. His terror increased. He turned and screamed at their long white faces; and still they came on, all stuck together, like some horrible jell—. If once he got into them! Bellowing and screeching, he rushed into the undergrowth, tore himself all over, and reached home in convulsions. Mr. Failing, his only grown-up friend, was sympathetic, but quite stupid. "Pan ovium custos," he sympathetic, as he pulled out the thorns. "Why not?" "Pan ovium custos." ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... stolid, deplorable logs, with bowed backs and crossed ankles, pipy voices and heavy eyes! Who would believe that these were the merry, capering, noisy creatures, full of fun and riot, clattering and screeching, and dancing about with ecstasy at Sam's information that there was a bonfire by ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge
... might make any manner of hideous uproar—they could shake buildings; they could out-thunder the thunder, deafen the deaf, and kill the sick with noise; or they could walk the streets or drive through them bawling, squawking, or screeching, as they chose, if the noise was traceably connected with business; though street musicians were not tolerated, being considered a nuisance and an interference. A man or woman who went singing for pleasure through ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... of me—I can't abear chaffin'," was the reply of Mr. Jeames, and tears actually stood in his fine eyes as he looked at the porter and the screeching little imp ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... sustained by the spectacle in the monkey cage, to which presently they turned. A chimpanzee, with a solicitation more than human, was solemnly searching a friend for fleas in the midst of a pandemonium of chattering and screeching and chasing, of rattling of bars and trapezes ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... more possible. An ill-laid floor would have set up a ruinous screeching as he moved, however carefully, across it. Now he whispered up to Denver. The latter instantly slid down and Terry caught the solid bulk of the man under the armpits and lowered ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... the steel edge and the rail. At once, no longer buoyed up by the Elsinore's two-knot drag ahead, the wounded men began to swim and flounder. The circling hosts of huge sea-birds descended upon them, with carnivorous beaks striking at their heads and shoulders and arms. A great screeching and squawking arose from the winged things of prey as they strove for the living meat. And yet, somehow, I was not very profoundly shocked. These were the men whom I had seen eviscerate the shark and toss it overboard, and shout with joy as they watched it devoured alive ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... much more lonely than usual. The horrid screeching of the watchful sentries would almost have been welcome to him. The forest was so dark and still. Even the falling raindrops and the deep rolling thunder had no power to give the place any suggestion of ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... and scratching on the door, thought he belonged there and was trying to get in. So when he opened the door to put the groceries on the kitchen table, he let Zip in, deposited his parcels on the table and left, shutting the door after him, regardless of the fact that Polly was screeching, "Help! Murder! Thieves! Fire!" at the top of her voice, and Peter-Kins was jumping around wildly at the end of the string with which he ...
— Zip, the Adventures of a Frisky Fox Terrier • Frances Trego Montgomery
... out for her original price. He jumped ashore, intending to take the chicken. She had a few yards' start and made the most of it. In and out they chased, over hedge and ditch, down the bank and up again. Several times he almost had her. She never for a moment ceased screeching—an operation which seemed to affect her wind not a particle. At the end of fifteen minutes the Indian gave up amid the delighted jeers of his comrades, and returned shamefaced and breathless to jump aboard ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt
... sure enough of the cause. Going down into the kitchen, or the room you would find Jane and Thomas, and Robert and Susan, all and sum, playing at ball with the little princess. She was the ball herself and did not enjoy it the less for that. Away she went, flying from one to another, screeching with laughter. And the servants loved the ball itself better even than the game. But they had to take care how they threw her, for, if she received an upward direction, she would never come down with ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... mighty curious little creature. It ain't bigger than a pigeon, and is of a mottled brown colour; but what I call it curious for is this:—Whenever it sees any creature passing from place to place, it mounts up into the air, and hovers above them, keeping up a constant screeching, like the squalling of a child—and that's anything but agreeable. It does so, not only in the neighbourhood of its nest—like the plover and some other birds—but it will sometimes follow a travelling party for hours together, and ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... making a vacant place in the woods. And in this clearing, or vacant place, near the small river, were a number of rough-looking buildings. It was from one of these "shacks," as Bert afterward called them, that the screeching sound came. And puffs of steam coming from a pipe sticking out of the roof of this shack showed that there was ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Great West • Laura Lee Hope
... full of reason, but a little out of season, And the proper tone of talking Mr. Fairman did restore, When he sneered at priests and preaching, and indorsed the Index teaching, And with philanthropic screeching, said he sought for evermore The light of sense and freedom into darkened minds to pour; Truly this, ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... night, and had it hidden under her bed. The creature was quite quiet all night, as is its nature, I suppose, and very likely frightened and not knowing where it was. But this morning all of a sudden it started the most awful screeching; it really sounded much worse than common crowing, or else it was hearing it half in one's sleep like. I thought, to be sure, one of those dear boys had got some awful fit. And to think it was nothing but Miss Hoodie's naughtiness—real ...
— Hoodie • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... limes there was a hollow—the little circular copse was on the slope—and jays came to it as they worked from tree to tree across the park. Their screeching often echoed through the open casement of the gunroom. A faint mark on the sward trended towards this hollow; it was a trail made by the squire, one of whose favourite strolls was in this direction. ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... of well- fed and boisterous small boys who must skylark or "bust." From morning until night they pull each other's tails, wrestle and roll, steal each other's playthings, and wildly chase each other to and fro. There is no end of chattering, and screeching, and funny facial grimaces. A writer in Life once said that the sexes of monkeys can be distinguished by the fact that "the females chatter twice as fast as the males," but I am sure that many ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... screeching of brakes, and a man with a heavy black beard fairly leaped from the vehicle, running toward the plank which was ...
— Tom Swift and his Big Tunnel - or, The Hidden City of the Andes • Victor Appleton
... compose a beautiful, dutiful, modest, oddest, beseeching, screeching, mildish, childish epistle to her, and you shall read it, and if you approve it, we ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... girl whose father had gone to the Big War and had never been heard of since, was really frightened by the screeching voice and by feeling her hat snatched off in that strange way. Even what Ted said about being among Uncle Toby's pets did not seem to make her ...
— The Curlytops and Their Playmates - or Jolly Times Through the Holidays • Howard R. Garis
... with the child in his arms from the horrible height in the sea, Shrill screeching, "Revenge!" in the wind-rush; and pallid Maclean, Age-feeble with anger and impotent pain, Crawled up on the crag, and lay flat, and locked hold of dead roots ...
— Select Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... still one minute, as though he was thunderstruck by the sight of her,—not hesitating, you know, but just amazed to see a woman looking like that,—and then he went right up to her, and took that dirty, screeching child out of her arms; and then, I'm damned if he didn't give her his arm and walk down ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... sorts of people, spirits which assume light airy bodies, or crazed bodies coacted by foreign spirits, seem to have some pleasure (at least to assuage some pain or melancholy) by frisking and capering like satyrs, or whistling and screeching (like unlucky birds) in their unhallowed synagogues and Sabbaths. If invited and earnestly required, these companions make themselves known and familiar to men; otherwise, being in a different state and element, they neither can nor will easily converse with them. ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... hideous screeching, growling, spitting and snarling, which pierced even to the ears of the beavers and sent them scurrying wildly to their burrows in the bank. Under ordinary circumstances the wolverene, with his dauntless courage and tremendous ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... cried rudely, "this screeching will profit us nothing. Even if we must die, let us die becomingly, not shrieking like ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... is reeling in an ecstasy of mischievous mirth which has infected all his friends. They are screaming with laughter, doubled up, leaning on the furniture and against the walls, shouting, screeching, crying. ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... junior officer, on the score of recent and severe illness, had begged to be excused. Loring stood alone at the taffrail, listening in thoughtful silence to the sound of revelry within the brightly-lighted cabin, while the hoarse screeching of the 'scape-pipe drowned all other voices and proclaimed the impatient haste of the skipper to be off. Straight, but often storm-swept, was the southerly run to La Paz—over on the desolate shore of the long, arid peninsula, and the green surges were rolling higher ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... on the siding wondering what he was for and what he was to do. Suddenly he heard another car come bumping and screeching down the track. Before the new car could think what was happening,—bang!—the battered old car went smash into him. This seemed to be just what the man standing along side expected. For the car felt him swing on to the steps, and shout "Go ahead." At the same minute the car felt a piece of iron ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell
... exosted again, down she fell on the sofy, at her old trix—more screeching—more convulshuns: and she wouldn't stop, this time, till Shum had got her half a pint of her old remedy, from the "Blue Lion" over the way. She grew more easy as she finished the gin; but Mary was sent out of the room, and told not to come ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... along and angrily told Sonny Boy that that wasn't a menagerie car, and he must either throw those things away or carry them into the baggage-car. He said some people with a screeching parrot were out in the baggage-car. They would not trust their parrot there alone, and people in the ...
— Sonny Boy • Sophie Swett
... as the New Englanders are very apt to have on the second of April. The wind blew violently down the open country, shaking the scattered trees as if it meant to wake them instantly out of their winter's slumber, and screeching in the murky distances like a tomcat of the housetops, or rather like a continent of tomcats. The Doctor lost his hat, chased it a few rods, and then gave it up, lest he should miss his burglars. Once I halted and watched, thinking ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... means for the transport of water to eighteen gallons, with which we had a fair prospect of getting in all the horses, even though no more should be found on the route. Our camp was enlivened this evening by the continued screeching of a number of large bats, which kept up a vigorous fight in the trees overhead the greater part of the night, notwithstanding our shooting ten or twelve of them. They were very fat, but emitted such an intolerable ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... last, so he's it!" Like a band of savages the screeching boys and girls scuttled across the car tracks and around the corners, while Bob counted up to five hundred ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey
... track now, sir. That wasn't Donna Roma. It was the little Princess Bellini. She is always stretching her neck and screeching like ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... considerable distance. Turning off inland, they, however, quickly found themselves in the midst of hundreds of birds, when they began to lay about them right and left, knocking over vast numbers; those they missed only poking out their long necks, and quacking and screeching at them. ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... Pital. The juice is pressed out of the canes by rude wooden rollers set upright in threes, the centre one driving the one on each side of it by projecting cogs. The whole are set in motion by oxen travelling round the same as in a thrashing-mill. The ungreased axles of the rollers, squeaking and screeching like a score of tormented pigs, generally inform the traveller of their vicinity long before he reaches them. The juice is boiled, and an impure sugar made from it. I do not think that the sugar-cane was ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... sent another off with a hole in the shoulder, and fired one barrel without effect. He had but a single charge left (saving this for himself in the last extremity), when he burst through the prancing throng of screeching, thrusting ragamuffins, and reached the ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... arrangement made; while we sat looking on, subject to the continual epithets of an old squaw, whose most consoling remarks were: "How will white man like to eat fire," and then she would break out into a screeching laugh, which sounded perfectly hideous. A cold chill pervaded my frame as I gazed upon these ominous signs of death; but how often is our misery but the prelude of joy. At the moment that these horrid ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... shoulder, and thus they stood there listening to the music. It was rough enough, and could hardly have pleased at any other time; but it sounded like the symphonies of angels to them now. O, what divine strains! But the melody was all in their own hearts. The screeching wheels of a dirt cart would have failed to strike a dissonance upon their ears; for all nature rolled on in linked harmony to them; they fancied they were very near heaven, and so they were; they thought they could not be much happier ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... accompanied his master to the village I have spoken of, was tolerably certain of the direction we should take. As we walked on, feeling our way in difficult places with the long poles we carried in our hands, our ears were assailed by the screeching of night-birds and the occasional roars and mutterings of wild beasts. A feeling of awe gradually crept over me, produced by the wild sounds and the peculiar scenery through which we were passing. On one side rose the hills, with dark rocks cropping out amidst the thick foliage; while, on ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... fact, The consequence was awful in the extreme; For they, who were most ravenous in the act, Went raging mad[129]—Lord! how they did blaspheme! And foam, and roll, with strange convulsions racked, Drinking salt-water like a mountain-stream, Tearing, and grinning, howling, screeching, swearing, And, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... donnas are not in the habit of screeching at the top of their voices, and then stopping suddenly to make an effect ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... big white face. Flynn! I did my damdest, but I had no hope of stopping them, not in that little lane. When I came out on the high-road I found what was left of the politician half-way up a telegraph post, like a treed cat, screeching and scrambling and calling on the Saints, with old Actress swinging by her teeth to the tails of his shirt, Cruiskeen ripping the trousers off him a leg at a time, and the rest of the pack leaping under him like the surf of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 4, 1920 • Various
... sometimes the islands off the coast. On one occasion, accompanied by Dr. Greville, the botanist, they went to the Isle of May, and were both exceedingly amused at the effect produced upon the eminent author of the Scottish Cryptogamic Flora by the screeching of the kittiwakes and other water-fowl. He had actually to lie down on the greensward to enjoy his prolonged cachinnation. On another occasion the young naturalists were benighted on Inch Keith, but found refuge ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... the bank. Another night, eight boats ran by, throwing a shower of shot; and two burning houses made the river clear as day. One of the batteries has a remarkable gun they call 'whistling Dick,' because of the screeching, whistling sound it gives; and certainly it does sound like a tortured thing. Added to all this is the indescribable Confederate yell, which is a soul-harrowing sound to hear. I have gained respect for the mechanism ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot |
