"Hoot" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... shrill, nerve-racking shriek of the fire whistle, four or five blocks away. In spite of himself, he was startled with its suddenness, and he stood tensed and waiting for the dismal hoots that would tell what ward the fire was in. One—two—three, croaked the siren like a giant hoot-owl ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... Bernard d'Elbene had celebrated mass, just as the regular preacher was about to begin his sermon, some children who were playing in the close began to hoot the 'beguinier' [a name of contempt for friars]. Some of the faithful being disturbed in their meditations, came out of the church and chastised the little Huguenots, whose parents considered themselves in consequence to have been insulted in the persons of their children. ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... invasion by man or beast, and enjoyed the well-earned repose with a full feeling of security. The owl softly winnowed the air with his feathery pinions as he searched for his prey along the beach, sending forth an occasional to-hoot! as he rested for a moment on the leafless branches of an old tree, reminding me to take a peep at the night, and to inquire "what its ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... juvenile demonstrations were allowed to pass with good-humoured forbearance by the town; but when presently, emboldened by their immunity, the schoolboys proceeded not only to hoot but occasionally to molest the opposite side, the young Shellporters began to resent the invasion. A few scuffles ensued, and the temper of both parties rose. The schoolboys waxed more and more outrageous, ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... theatre, and perhaps she hoped that he, at least, would champion her. But when she understood that in that crowd, among whom many perhaps had loved her, no one now would defend her, she rose and left her box, while some of the most excited hustled into the corridor to hoot her in passing. She at last escaped and got to her house in the Rue Guilbert, and the next ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... the cottage-door for nearly an hour, until Ingram, coming out, asked him why he had waited; whereupon he said, with an air of perfect indifference, "Oo, ay, there was something said about a dram; but hoot toots! it is of no consequence whatever!" And was it true that the sheriff of Stornoway was so kind-hearted a man that he remitted the punishment of certain culprits, ordained by the statute to be whipped with birch rods, on the ground that the island ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... is struck, at the very impact of the harpoon the whole school is "gallied" or stampeded as they hear the death-song. The dying swan may not sing, but there is no doubt about the ante-mortem Valkyrie song of the whale. From the Bowhead the sound comes like the drawn-out "hoo-hoo-oo-oo-oo" of the hoot-owl. A whaler stops coiling his harpoon-line to tell you that "beginning on 'F' the cry may rise to 'A,' 'B,' or even 'C' before slipping back to 'F' again." He assures us that, "with the Humpback the tone is much finer, sounding across the water ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... Mr. Mayor. You have had your own way, and I am going to have mine. Go and tell the town if you like that your wife has left you because you kidnapped her cousin, the boy she loved. You tell your story and I will tell mine. Why, the women in the town would hoot you, and you wouldn't dare show your face in the streets. You insist, indeed! Why, you miserable little man, my fingers are tingling now. Say another word to me and I will box your ears till you won't know whether you are standing on your head or ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... trusting, it may be, to see arrests made. But the restoration was finished and the house remained close barred; no arrest was made. As for Dr. Lalaurie, he does not appear in this scene. Then the crowd, along in the afternoon, began to grow again; then to show anger and by and by to hoot and ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... When I think what trouble you make, in your trinket-stealing, I feel inclined to send you back to the place I took you from. You are either above or below the level of society, dregs or foam; but I desire to make you enter into society. People used to hoot you as you went by. I wish them to bow to you; you were once the basest of mankind, I wish you to be more ...
— Vautrin • Honore de Balzac
... lads, hoot awa' Ha' ye heard how the Ridleys, an' Thirlwalls, an' a' Ha' set upon Albany Featherstonehaugh; And taken his life at the Deadmanshaw? There was Willimoteswick, And Hard-riding Dick, An' Hughie o' Hawdon, an' Will o' the Wa' I canno' tell a', I canno' ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry
... solemn hoot of a distant owl was heard. One of the men holding the rope dropped it, and ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... in the wilderness and possessing much knowledge of wood-ranging, heard only the coarser sounds. Therefore he lay half dreaming for some moments after the Indian raised his head and lent an attentive ear to some noise which came from far away. The night-owl's hoot was intermittent; a lone wolf howled mournfully on the hillside; in the swamp a catamount screamed as it pounced upon its prey. But it was none of these sounds which had attracted the Indian's attention. Enoch suddenly roused to see Crow Wing softly reach for his gun and bring ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... The hoot of a motor startled her, and she ran to a window which commanded the drive. An open car was rapidly approaching. A girl was driving it, with a man in chauffeur's uniform sitting behind her. She brought the car smartly up to the door, then instantly jumped out, lifted the bonnet, and stood with ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... It was the evening of June twenty-seventh, 1896. All about the lonely station the trees crowded down to the right of way, and rustled in a gentle evening breeze. Somewhere off in the wood, his ear discerned the faint hoot of an owl. Across the track in a pool under the shadow of the semaphore, he heard the full orchestra of the frogs, and saw reflected in the water the last exquisite glories of expiring day lamped by one bright star. Leaning back, he partly closed his eyelids, ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... snapped under Hugh's foot and the boys stopped short, their breath coming fast. The hoot of an owl directly overhead startled them violently and unconsciously they clutched each other's arm. The giant trees loomed black and forbidding in the darkness, and it was easy to imagine all kinds of things lurking behind ...
— Bob Cook and the German Spy • Tomlinson, Paul Greene
... little hoot of derision. "Does Ah look like peace?" he said. "Dis am a debbil-ship; Ah tells yoh dey can't be no ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... that she had come to know her son best, as she sat on the arm of his chair and listened with tactful sympathy to his stories of the big black bass that kept house in the pool at the end of the lake, or of the downy woodpecker's nest in the old hickory, or, perhaps, of the big hoot owl that perched on the granary warm nights to watch for mice. It was with a certain feeling of sadness, as well as of pride, that she watched him grow older, lose his boyhood ways, and become more and more of a man—a man just ...
— Buffalo Roost • F. H. Cheley
... "Hoot! be guided by me, man. Why, it was but an accident, after all! And we'll land at the Holy Island, at the Point of Llyn; there is an old cousin of mine, the parson, there—for the Pritchards have known better days, Squire—and we'll bury him there. ...
— The Doom of the Griffiths • Elizabeth Gaskell
... The warning hoot of a motor-horn sent them scuttling to the side of the road, and, as Sandy smilingly watched the grubby little crowd's hasty flight for safety, a big green car shot by and was swiftly lost to sight in a cloud of ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... loathed recess of his dens; Scatter his monstrous bed, And hound him to harrow and plough. She is the world's one prize; Our champion, rightfully head; The vessel whose piloted prow, Though Folly froth round, hiss and hoot, Leaves legible print at the keel. Nor least is the service she does, That service to her may cleanse The well of the Sorrows in us; For a common delight will drain The rank individual fens Of a wound refusing to heal While the old worm ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... as it would a tenderfoot. It tried to frighten her. It blew the shutters of the shanties open and slammed them to with a noise like guns. It shrieked maniacally as if rejoicing in her discomfort. At times it seemed to hoot at her. ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris
... a number of infuriated elephants would very speedily demolish it, but we were told that they rarely or never even make the attempt, for the whole corral is completely surrounded by men and boys, who hoot, and shout, and cry so vociferously, that the poor animals can never face them, but quickly rush back into the centre, to be as far off as possible ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... is a quality in the frogs' serenade that strikes the chord of sadness, to another the chord of contentment, to still another it is the chant of the savage, just as the hoot of an owl or the bark of a fox brings ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... largely composed of men, stared at them and grew suddenly silent. They recognized their wives and mothers in those serene faces, and manhood forbids that you should hoot at your own blood-and-bone kin womenfolk. So they changed the subject. They began to talk, a perfect hurricane of inconsequential comments on every imaginable subject except the subject of women ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... before.—'Surely, my dear, you jest,' cried my wife, 'we can walk it perfectly well: we want no coach to carry us now.' 'You mistake, child,' returned I, 'we do want a coach; for if we walk to church in this trim, the very children in the parish will hoot after us.'—'Indeed,' replied my wife, 'I always imagined that my Charles was fond of seeing his children neat and handsome about him.'—'You may be as neat as you please,' interrupted I, 'and I shall love you the better for it, but all this is not neatness, but frippery. These rufflings, ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... mournful hoot of an owl from the live oaks over in the pasture. Softly her clear, melodious voice flung back the signal. Again the minutes drummed eternally ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... to grow uneasy. Once or twice he thought he heard cries like the hoot of the owl or the howl of the wolf, but they were so far away that he was uncertain. Both hoot and howl might be a product of the imagination. He was so alive to the wilderness, it was so full of meaning ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Ever the eaters and drinkers, ever the upward and downward sun, ever the air and the ceaseless tides, Ever myself and my neighbors, refreshing, wicked, real, Ever the old inexplicable query, ever that thorn'd thumb, that breath of itches and thirsts, Ever the vexer's hoot! hoot! till we find where the sly one hides and bring him forth, Ever love, ever the sobbing liquid of life, Ever the bandage under the chin, ever the ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... children who read this short article ever recollect this important truth. When you behold a poor, unfortunate man, with torn and filthy garments, and perhaps intoxicated, reeling through the streets, do not hoot after, and throw stones at him, as I have known many boys do, but think within yourselves, "He is ...
— Small Means and Great Ends • Edited by Mrs. M. H. Adams
... bedlam. Dea Ebenezer Rood was set upon while in his sleigh, and some of the mob endeavored to overturn him and cause his horses to run away. But the blood of his Puritan ancestors became rampant, and in defiance he shouted: 'Rattle your pans; hoot and toot; ring your bells, ye pesky fools, if it does ye any good,' and plying his whip to his now frantic ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... seen nor heard a human being, nor were there save here and there remote traces of man's hand. No men dwell there: nothing invites men there. A few birds and fewer animals hold absolute dominion. Wandering there, one's senses become intensely alert. But for the hoot of the owl, the caw of the crow, the scream of the eagle, the infrequent twitter of small birds, the mighty but subdued roar of insects, the rush of water over the rocks and the sigh and sough of the wind among the pines, the lonely wanderer has no sign ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... ashamed of nothing in this world except doing wrong,' said George; and the motor started with a hoot of approval of this ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... awa', lads, hoot awa'; Ha' ye heard how the Ridleys, and Thirlwalls, and a', Ha' set upon Albany Featherstonhaugh, And taken his life at the Dead Man's Haugh? There was Williemoteswick And Hardriding Dick, And Hughie of Hawdon, and Will of the Wa', I canna tell ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... the possibility that my movements might be watched, I paused, wondering if the sound—which had proceeded from a low bough directly above me—had really been made by an owl or by a human mimic. For the hoot of an owl, being easy to imitate, is much favored for signaling purposes. Taking my electric torch from my pocket, I directed its ray upward into the close foliage of the oak tree; whereupon, with a ghostly fluttering of dark wings, ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... back to the forest," the eagle declared, and at once rose into the air. Twinkle and Chubbins followed him, and soon the nest on the crag was left far behind and they could no longer hear the hoot of ...
— Policeman Bluejay • L. Frank Baum
... moon in lonely silhouette. It was an enchanted wood of moonlit depth and noisy quiet, of shrilling crickets, the plaintive cries of tree frogs, the drowsy crackle of the camp fire, or the lap of water by the shore, with sometimes the lonely hoot of an owl. ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... feet down saftly, for Guy's got great white owls that watch for him, and they hoot from the old tree when the horses are coming. ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... as well begin early, and get it over." She ran a surprised eye over her aunt's severe attire. "My, Aunt Soph, you look too good to live! I'm 'most frightened of you in that bonnet. If you'd given a hoot from the window I'd have hustled up, and not kept you waiting. Just hang on two shakes while I get my hat. I won't ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... has lost all her woman's nature. She kept the other four hours at her street-door, as if she were a public show. There was time to fetch a mob of Jesuits' followers, of honest Church artizans, to hoot and hiss, while children might help by throwing stones. For these four hours she was in the pillory. Some, however, of the more dispassionate passers-by asked if the Ursulines had gotten orders to let them kill the girl. We may guess what tender jailers their sick prisoner would ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... Stonehenge. It was a fine still night, without a cloud in the pale, dusky blue sky, thinly sprinkled with stars, and the crescent moon coming up above the horizon. After the cock ceased crowing a tawny owl began to hoot, and the long tremulous mellow sound followed me for some distance from the village, and then there was perfect silence, broken occasionally by the tinkling bells of a little company of cyclists speeding past towards "The Stones." I was in no hurry: I only wished ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... days' journey to the northward for the purpose of tapping the maple trees and boiling down the syrup into sugar. As before mentioned, they are friendly and inoffensive in their dealings with the white people, but their patience must be sorely tried sometimes. The town-boys hoot at them, throw stones at their ponies, and try in many ways to annoy them. I remember once seeing them pass through another town on their annual spring excursion to the sugar-camps. Two of the pack-ponies had ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... principal for sale, or introduce him to the street with an indicating finger. The gloom grew, calling out the lights into strength, but the concourse did not thin: it only gathered in numbers, and the long, moaning hoot of an out-going tramp filled the air as though with a wail of sorrow at departure. Lascars in coal-begrimed tunics joined in with the rest, adding their voices to the babel, and round-hatted sailors from the Royal Indian Marine ships mingled ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... coastal forest that there forms their home. I remember their cries as vividly as if I had heard them again this morning. While feeding, or quietly enjoying the morning sun, the gray gibbon (Hylobates concolor) emits in leisurely succession a low staccato, whistle-like cry, like "Hoot! Hoot! Hoot!" which one can easily counterfeit by whistling. This is varied by another whistle cry of three notes, thus: "Who-ee-hoo! Who-ee-hoo!" also to be duplicated by whistling. In hunting for specimens of that gibbon, for American museums, ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... about five o'clock in the afternoon crowds were formed in the streets, directed by leaders, and amongst these leaders were two hide-tanners, whom the gendarmes arrested with promptitude. The crowd, thus raked together, then began to hoot at and insult the gendarmes, and at last attempted to rescue the prisoners. Not succeeding in this attempt, the rioters, whose numbers had now been swollen by a lot of idle fellows from the vilest rabble, crowded together into ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... neighborhood are always pitted against those of an adjoining neighborhood, or of one end of the town against those of the other end. A bridge, a river, a railroad track, are always boundaries of hostile or semi-hostile tribes. The boys that go up the road from the country school hoot derisively at those that go down the road, and not infrequently add the insult of stones; and the down-roaders return the hooting ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... resplendent motor-car, in which reposed a young lady whose face decorates the covers of the popular magazines every month, and as the wounded soldier finished speaking it moved away with a raucous hoot. ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... but there came a long crescendo hoot, rising into a shrill wail. The shell hummed over the soldiers like a great bee, and sloshed into soft earth behind them. Then another—and yet another—and yet another. But there was no time to heed them, for there was the hillside and there the enemy. So at it again ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a hoot of derision, and his sister, who sat close by, sketching an old gate, looked up to see what was ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... friend, at whose house I am now visiting, has tried all the owls that are his near neighbours with a pitch-pipe set at concert pitch, and finds they all hoot in B flat. He will ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... it we? we lov'd him, but, like beasts, And cowardly nobles, gave way unto your clusters, Who did hoot him out o' ...
— The Tragedy of Coriolanus • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... right. Take away the castles, and not even a German would give a hoot for it. It's not so much what a thing is over here as what reputation it's got. The whole thing is a ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright
... face turned to the road, the wind-sloped trees, the dark levels of the Burrows, and the white line of breakers falling nine-deep along the Pebbleridge. Far down the steep-banked Devonshire lane he heard the husky hoot of the carrier's horn. There was a ghost of melody in it, as it might have been the wind in a gin-bottle essaying to sing, "It's a way ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... laughter in his eyes; "And I do truly think that Eden bloom'd "Deep in the heart of tall, green maple groves, "With sudden scents of pine from mountain sides "And prairies with their breasts against the skies. "And Eve was only little Katie's height." "Hoot, lad! you speak as ev'ry Adam speaks "About his bonnie Eve; but what says Kate?" "O Adam had not Max's soul,' she said; "And these wild woods and plains are fairer far "Than Eden's self. O bounteous mothers they! ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... dare check anything and anybody I happen to be personally interested in," he stormed. "As a potential bed partner I wouldn't give a hoot who you were or what you were. But before I go to the point of dividing the rest of my life on an exclusive contract, I have the right to know what I'm splitting ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... poplars, so that they drooped and nodded like the plumes of some cosmic funeral. "It is, indeed," said Dr. Hagg, "the whole universe weeping over the frustration of its most magnificent birth." But I thought that there was a hoot of laughter in the high ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... Chicago that used to hoot at me and my scholars as we passed their house sometimes. One day one of the boys came into the Sunday-school and made light of it, As he went away, I told him I was glad to see him there and hoped he would come again. He came and still made a noise, ...
— Moody's Anecdotes And Illustrations - Related in his Revival Work by the Great Evangilist • Dwight L. Moody
... the water were wading across the river towards the bateau, evidently in the belief that the party had deserted her. They continued to hoot and yell, while they advanced, as though they intended to storm a garrisoned fortress, instead of ...
— Hope and Have - or, Fanny Grant Among the Indians, A Story for Young People • Oliver Optic
... say that this little owl is a very useful bird, for it keeps mice, bats, beetles, and other creatures in check, which might otherwise multiply too fast. On a spring or summer evening you may hear its plaintive hoot among the apple-blossoms of an orchard, or the sheaves of a cornfield. Curiously enough, this simple sound earned the little bird the name of being the harbinger of death, and peasants believed that whenever ...
— Chatterbox Stories of Natural History • Anonymous
... "we will stay there long enough to get well rested and enjoy ourselves; but when the sun goes down and it grows dark, then we will go. Then all the little birds are silent in the trees and the old night-owl begins to hoot." ...
— What Sami Sings with the Birds • Johanna Spyri
... gross. Pausing a moment to accustom his eyes to the blackness, there came to him from without the hoot of an owl. It was the signal agreed upon between him and his companion, and he wheeled to face ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... The woods became alive with night creatures, and the most harmless made the most noise. The owls began to hoot, and soon we heard the wildcat, whose cry—a screech like that of a lost and panic-stricken child—is one of the most appalling sounds of the forest. Later the wolves added their howls to the uproar, but though darkness ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... lute, Were night-owl's hoot To my low-whispered coo - Were I thy bride! The skylark's trill Were but discordance shrill To the soft thrill Of wooing as I'd woo - Were I ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... held his head very straight. In 1843, the period of which I write, it was the fashion for gentlemen to wear straps upon their pantaloons; and accordingly Master Simon Sneed wore straps on his pantaloons, though, it is true, the boys in the street used to laugh and hoot at him for doing so; but they were very ill-mannered boys, and could not appreciate the dignity of him ...
— Poor and Proud - or The Fortunes of Katy Redburn • Oliver Optic
... "Hoot toot, Mistress Findlay," interposed Malcolm, as his grandfather strode from the door; "ye maunna forget 'at he's auld an' blin'; an' a' heelan' fowk's some kittle (touchy) ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... seemed a heap worse, an' he was sort o' flushed an' feverish, an' wife she thought she heard a owl hoot, an' Rover made a mighty funny gurgly sound in his th'oat like ez ef he had bad news to tell us, but didn't have the courage to ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... this time it did its work effectually, for Olive awoke. Awoke—was it waking?—to find herself all in the dark, stiff and cold, and her head aching with the bump she had given it against the old tree-trunk, while farther off now she heard the same shrill hoot or cry of some early astir night-bird, which had sounded before in ...
— A Christmas Posy • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... as good temper, in the management of his flock, if we may judge from the following anecdote:—Talking with an obstinate self-confident farmer, when the conversation happened to turn on the subject of the motion of the earth, the farmer would not be convinced that the earth moved at all. "Hoot, minister," the man roared out; "d'ye see the earth never gaes oot o' the pairt, and it maun be that the sun gaes round: we a' ken he rises i' the east and sets i' the west." Then, as if to silence all argument, he added triumphantly, "As if the sun didna gae round the earth, when ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... deliquescent, from door to door; to ask, with damnable iteration, if Mr. So-and-so is at home, and to meet the invariable rejoinder, "No, he isn't," not seldom running on with—"And, if he was, he wouldn't see you;" to find oneself (being Blue) in a Red quarter, where the very children hoot at you, and inebriate matrons shout personalities from upper windows—all this is detestable enough. But to find the voter at home and unfriendly is an experience which plunges the candidate lower still. A curious ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... craft, while from one of the lake steamers, decks and rigging outlined in quivering points of light, came the inspiriting strains of a band. Snatches of song drifted across the water, and now and again the melancholy long-drawn hoot of ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... wind died in the most distant pine woods with a long hoot as of mockery Father Brown, with an utterly impassive ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... clouds roll past. Heavy Gatling guns boom. Pandemonium. Troops deploy. Gallop of hoofs. Artillery. Hoarse commands. Bells clang. Backers shout. Drunkards bawl. Whores screech. Foghorns hoot. Cries of valour. Shrieks of dying. Pikes clash on cuirasses. Thieves rob the slain. Birds of prey, winging from the sea, rising from marshlands, swooping from eyries, hover screaming, gannets, cormorants, vultures, ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... is this possibly you, Don Quickshot? And how are ye? And how's your father? And what's all this we hear of you? It seems you're a most extraordinary leveller, by all tales. No king, no parliaments, and your gorge rises at the macers, worthy men! Hoot, toot! Dear, dear me! Your father's son ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... long, melancholy hoot of the owl, and he did it so well that he was surprised at his own skill. The note, full of desolation and menace, seemed to come back in many echoes. He saw the swart leader and the men with him start and look fearfully toward the forest that curved ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... is to drink great quantities of strong coffee three times a day. If you find that after you turn in for the night, you are lying awake for a long time watching the stars and listening to the fish splashing in the lake or the hoot owl mournfully "too-hooing" far off in the woods, do not blame your bed or commence to wonder if you are not getting sick. Just cut out the ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... a great silence reigned in the Mission valley, broken only by the hoot of the owl, the singing of birds, the flight of horses across the plain. Even the low huddle of Mission buildings and the few homes beyond looked an anomaly in that vast quiet valley asleep and unknown for so many centuries in the wide embrace of the hills. Its jewel ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... little gasp at the loveliness spread before her. She rested her elbows on the low window sill and leaned forward, drinking in the scent of new hay and roses and dewy grass. The shrill, insistent chorus of insects was music, and when the mournful cry of a distant hoot owl came out of the woods that rose shadowy and dark across the white ribbon of road, why that was music, too. Country nights are no more absolutely silent than nights in the town or city, but some ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence
... the clear moonlight, interrupted only by Shot's occasional growl, and the distant hoot of an owl or bark of a coyote, Andrew Malden told his life story to the boy at his side, the boy who was just passing up to young manhood. He told of Mary Moore; of the weary tramp behind an ox-team across the prairies ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... At last they were seen out upon the cold snow-covered prairie. A wild shout went up from the inmates of the house, and it was answered from tree to tree through all the wintry wood. In the exuberance of his delight, one Indian would yelp like a hungry wolf who sighted his prey; and another would hoot like an owl in the middle of the night. At last the police and civilians were close at hand. The meeting took place in a hollow. Beyond was the dim illimitable prairie, on either hand were clumps of naked, dismal poplar, and clusters ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... "Hoot, hoot! that would never have done. Na, na," said the man of law, "this was a case where a little prudence was worth all the pistols and ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... of Chinna Tumbe walks,—that always at midnight, when the Indian nightingale fills the Baboo's banian topes with her lugubrious song, and the weird ulus hoot from the peepul tops, a child, girt with silver bells, and followed by a Persian kitten and a mungooz, shakes the Baboo's gate, blows upon a silver whistle, and cries, so ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... as summer, went to church and Sunday school. Beany has got a job blowing the organ for Kate Wells. he only let the wind go out 2 times today. it was funny becaus when the organ stopped Mister Wood who was singing let out an auful hoot before he knowed what he was doing Beany will lose his job if ...
— The Real Diary of a Real Boy • Henry A. Shute
... but up came the steeple- crowned hat again, next minute, and he was seen reposing, as on a sofa, entertaining himself with the idea, and crying, 'Ha, ha! what next! Oh the devil! Faster too! Shoo—hoo—o—o!' (This last ejaculation, an inexpressibly defiant hoot.) Being anxious to reach our immediate destination that night, I ventured, by-and-by, to repeat the experiment on my own account. It produced exactly the same effect. Round flew the whip with the same scornful flourish, up came the heels, down went the steeple-crowned hat, ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... is necessary in one who is called upon to bear calumny such as this from his society and his castemen. But there are other forces more threatening still. The rowdier section of the people never fails to hoot the man out on every possible occasion and even the women of his family may be subjected to indignities. The vakils are a very powerful class in the Deccan. Many of them do not openly dabble in politics; but you can ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... I picture thee some bloodstained Holyrood, Dread haunted palace of the bat and owl, whence steal, Shrouded all day, lost murdered spirits of the wood, And fright young happy nests with homeless hoot and squeal. ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson, an Elegy; And Other Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... broken by many a shout of exultation or banter, many a merry sound of jest or fun, as the back of the night's task was fairly broken. One husker mimicked the hoot of an owl in the thickets below; another sang a melody popular at the time, the refrain of ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... was surrounded by such a gang of desperadoes as never disgraced a meeting of highwaymen and pickpockets in the purlieus of St. Giles's. This gang was headed by the notorious John Benett, of Pyt-House, from whom they took the word of command, when to be silent and when to bellow, hoot, hallow, and make all sorts of discordant vulgar noises, such as would have degraded and lowered the character of a horde of drunken prostitutes and pickpockets, in the most abandoned brothel in the universe.—The plan of operations had been previously arranged, and a set of wretches ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... said Panton, as the peculiar laughing hoot of a great owl was heard, raising up quite a chorus from the nearest patch of forest, but silenced ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... belt of mist. It shut him in so that he could see nothing ahead, but there was a strong fence between him and the river, and he went on, lost in thought, until the mist was suddenly illuminated and a bright light flashed along the road. The hoot of a motor-horn broke out behind him, and, rudely startled, he sprang aside. He was too late; somebody cried out in warning, and the next moment he was conscious of a blow that flung him bodily ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... upon the bare earth at his feet. With jeers and smirking faces the dancers mock the Dakota captive. Rowdy braves and small boys hoot and yell ...
— American Indian stories • Zitkala-Sa
... There was a hoot of derision at this. "The English Government has surrendered," said the same man. "The country is given up, and the British are to evacuate it in ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... other ryveres meten hem there, and gon in to that ryvere. And sum men clepen it Ganges; for a kyng that was in Ynde, that highte Gangeres, and that it ran thorge out his lond. And that water is in sum place clere, and in sum place trouble: in sum place hoot, and in sum place cole. The seconde ryvere is clept Nilus or Gyson: for it is alle weye trouble: and Gyson, in the langage of Ethiope, is to seye trouble: and in the langage of Egipt also. The thridde ryvere, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt
... the public. In the lobbies outside stand scores of excited men and women begging, imploring, threatening—using every means to get admission into the galleries to witness a historic and immortal scene. Outside there is an even denser crowd—ready to hoot or cheer their favourites. The galleries are all crowded; peers stand on each other's toes, and patiently wait for hours. About ten o'clock a man rushes into the lobby, and there is a movement that looks most like ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... broken by the metallic tongue that dirged out "twelve." The last stroke of the bronze hammer echoed drearily; the old year lay stark and cold on its bier; Munin flapped his dusky wings with a long, sepulchral, blood-curdling hoot, and the dying man opened his dim, failing eyes, and fixed them for the last time ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... "Hoot, hoot, hoot," said the barber, "nae kind of a man, nae kind of a man at all;" and began to ask me very shrewdly what my business was; but I was more than a match for him at that, and he went on to his next customer no ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the heart, when hope has fled; That heart is as some ruin old, With ancient arch and wall, o'erspread With moss, and desolating mold; Whose banquet halls, where once the sound Of revelry rang unconfined, Now, with the hoot of owls resound, Or echo back the mournful wind; In whose foul nooks the gruesome bat is found. The heart a ruin is, when unresigned; No hope before, and ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... much with thinking of women—light or dark. I was thinking of the groom's place at the great house, and I tried to say so. My aunt Chance wouldn't listen. She treated my interpretation with contempt. "Hoot-toot! there's the caird in your hand! If ye're no thinking of her the day, ye'll be thinking of her the morrow. Where's the harm of thinking of a dairk woman! I was ance a dairk woman myself, before my hair was gray. Haud yer peace, Francie, ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... dwelling in a hut of clods and turf, with a brick chimney for cooking. Here they observed the nightly progress of the moon and stars, grew familiar with the heaving of moles, the dancing of rabbits on the hillocks, the distant hoot of owls, the bark of foxes from woods further inland; but saw not a sign of the enemy. As, night after night, they walked round the two ricks which it was their duty to fire at a signal—one being of furze for a quick ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... as men have root Deep in apparent and substantial things. Birds on your branches leap and shake their wings, Long ere night falls the soft owl loosens her slow hoot From the unfathomed fountains of your gloom. Late western sunbeams on your broad trunks bloom, Levelled from the low opposing hill, and fold Your inmost conclave with a burning gold. ... Than those night-ghosts awhile more solid, ...
— Poems New and Old • John Freeman
... defiance of common censure, and an appeal from general laws to private judgment: he, therefore, who differs from others without apparent advantage, ought not to be angry if his arrogance is punished with ridicule; if those whose example he superciliously overlooks, point him out to derision, and hoot him back again into the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... silence was broken by the far off echoing scream of a prowling coyote or the distant hoot of an owl. But the Overlanders did not hear. They were sleeping soundly, storing up energy for the coming day, a day that was destined to be filled with hardships and excitement ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert • Jessie Graham Flower
... flocks upon the wild karoos of South Africa; are inoffensive animals, except when wounded; and then the old bulls are exceedingly dangerous, and will attack the hunter both with horns and hoot. They can run with great swiftness, though they scarce ever go clear off, but, keeping at a wary distance, circle around the hunter, curvetting in all directions, menacing with their heads lowered to the ground, kicking up the dust with their heels, ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... work, the river slapping against piles and the iron sides of vessels, the whirr and clank of steam-cranes. Wreaths of brown smoke blew gustily in the sunlight; a train boomed across the latticed bridge; and the hoot of a siren tore all other sounds in shreds. Creakily our ship was warped in by straining cables, and I said to myself, "The overture's finished. The play ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... sounds. Once, an owl, attracted by the fire, perched on a low overhanging branch and stared into the flames with great blinking yellow eyes; then, startled by an uneasy movement of the sleeper, it flew away with a dismal hoot. ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Geological Survey • Robert Shaler
... mad chthonophagy bids slave and chief Through endless cycles bite the earth like beef, By turns each cannibal and each the meal? Turn we to nature Webster, and we see Your whidah bird refuse all strobile fruit, Your tragacanth in tears ooze from the tree ... We hear your flammulated owlets hoot! Turn we to nature, Webster, and we find Few creatures have a quite contented mind. Your koulan there, with dyslogistic snort, Will leave his phacoid food on worts to browse, While glactophorous ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... began with excited sleeplessness and glowing health, and ended with a headache and great tiredness. There was the bustle of embarkation on to the boat; the rattle and bang of falling luggage; the jangle of French and English tongues; the unstraining of mighty ropes; the "hoot! hoot!" from the funnel, a side-splitting incident; the suff-suff-lap-suff of the ploughed-up sea; the spray of the Channel, which sprinkling one's cheeks, caused one to roar with laughter, till more moderation was enjoined; the incessant throb of the engines; the vision of white cliffs, and the ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... right out in the night, like a hoot owl only fiercer!" insisted one of her followers. "And she ain't safe to be loose ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... Russell Lowell was a student, said Wetmore Story, he and Story went to Faneuil Hall to hear Webster. They meant to hoot him for his remaining in Tyler's cabinet. It would be easy, they reasoned, to get the three thousand people to join them. When he begun, Lowell turned pale, and Story livid. His great eyes, they thought, were fixed on them. His opening words changed their scorn to admiration, and ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... Waterton saw his barn owl fly off with a rat he had just shot. And at another time she plunged into the water and brought up in her claws a fish, which she carried away to her nest. The Barn Owl is white, and does not hoot, at least by many this is thought to be the case. The Brown Owl is the hooting or screech owl, and makes ...
— Mamma's Stories about Birds • Anonymous (AKA the author of "Chickseed without Chickweed")
... in his eyes and drumbeat in his bony little breast Tim sits on his pallet below a lantern hung to a beam, listening whilst the old building rolls and pitches to the passing trains and loose shingles hoot in the blast above. And 't is worthy of note that spiders swing down from cobwebbed rafters to glare at him with interest as a comrade weaving a web of his own; and the mice do not come out at present, but scurry all to set their nests in order and be ready for the part they are to play ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... "Hoot awa, wuman! dinna tak on like that," returned her husband. "The laddie's like the lave o' laddies! They're a' jist like pup-doggies till their een comes oppen, and they ken them 'at broucht them here. He's bun' to mak a guid man in time, and he canna ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... leaving his friend's house, he felt a vicious little twitch at his hair, which he wore in a queue tied with a black ribbon after the fashion of the period. Twitch, twitch, twitch! The water came into Samuel Wales' eyes, and the blood to his cheeks, while the passers-by began to hoot and laugh. His horse became alarmed at the hubbub, and started up. For a few minutes the poor man could do nothing to free himself. It was wonderful what strength the little creature had; she clinched her tiny fingers in the braid, and pulled, and pulled. Then, ...
— The Adventures of Ann - Stories of Colonial Times • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... "The good-night hoot of an owl or some other sound awakened me just as the first streaks of the dawn began to flush the face ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin
... the chiefs, sir," said Wyatt. "If we don't there will be trouble, and the whole expedition will fail before it's fairly started. While we were asleep they heard an owl hoot from several different points of the compass, and they think it an omen of evil. They may be right, because a scout, a man of uncommon skill, whom they sent out two hours ago with instructions to return in an hour or less, has not come back. If you consider the ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... I; "we do want a coach, for if we walk to church in this trim, the very children in the parish will hoot after us." ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... pirogue and paddler into a strange and lonely world. The tall cypress-trees on each bank, draped with funeral moss, cast impenetrable shadows on the water; the deathlike silence was broken only by the occasional ominous hoot of an owl or the wheezy snort of an alligator; the clammy air breathed poison. But the stars overhead were bright, and ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... and looked out of the window. The hum of traffic came up from the dark gaps between the buildings and he heard a locomotive bell and the clash of freight-cars by the wharf. Then the hoot of a deep whistle rang across the town, and red and white flashes pierced the darkness down the river. A big liner, signaling her tug, was coming up stream, and presently her long hull was marked by lights that rose in tiers above the water. ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss
... ceiling in oak and dimly lighted by Gothic windows of excellent stained glass. Here a silence, amazing in its profundity, permitted the very ticking of the clocks to be heard. All sounds from without, the hoot of the motors, the laughter of children, the grating voices of loafers on the Heath, were instantly shut out. An odor of flowers and fine shrubs permeated the apartment. The air was cool and clear as though it had passed through ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... night, and he could see across the lake with ease. All was quiet saving for the distant hoot of an owl and the occasional bark of a fox. The wind had gone down and not a ...
— Guns And Snowshoes • Captain Ralph Bonehill
... upon him. Then he leaped for his life and stood half-blinded amid whirling ballast and a rushing wind, as, veiled in thick dust, the great box cars clanged by. He was savage with dismay, for it seemed that the engineer had not seen his signal; then his heart bounded, a shrill hoot from two whistles was followed by the screaming of brakes. When he came up with the standing train at the end of the trestle, one engineer, leaning down from the rail of ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... dare spread his unclean leathern wings across this charmed place, and the very owls that wink and blink in the hollow trees near by keep their unmusical "hoot toot" ...
— The Fairy Nightcaps • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... Tahitian temple). All at once the appearance passed above them: a form of light; the head round and greenish; the body long, red, and with a focus of yet redder brilliancy about the midst. A buzzing hoot accompanied its passage; it flew direct out of one marae, and direct for another down the mountain-side. And this, as my informant argued, is suggestive. For why should a mere meteor frequent the altars of abominable gods? The ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the awful growing stillness of that afternoon as the hours flew by, for all traffic was at an end. Now and again in the general silence one heard the crack of a rifle, the hoot of a captured motor and the cry "Stop, in the name of the Irish Republic!" from the Volunteers, and the ghastly howling of the mob as more shop-fronts gave way—but all these sounds came spasmodically and only intensified the surrounding stillness. And all the while everyone ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard
... out that the old girlie in the dollman is a mighty patron of this hospital, so everybody says I am in for nasty weather. But hoot! My heart's in the Hielan's, my heart is not here; my heart's in the Hielan's, sae ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... from the threshold of the hut was watching Poeri go away, thought she heard a faint sigh. She listened; some dogs were baying to the moon, an owl uttered its doleful hoot, and the crocodiles moaned between the reeds of the river, imitating the cry of a child in distress. The young Israelite was about to re-enter the hut when a more distinct moan, which could not be attributed to the vague sounds of night, and which certainly came from a human breast, again struck ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... The clergy are always talking about dying, about the grave and eternal pain. They do not add to the sunshine of life. If they could have their way all the birds would stop singing, the flowers would lose their color and perfume, and all the owls would sit on dead trees and hoot, "Broad is the road that leads ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... a raven croak, an' t' seame-like thrice cam t' hoot Frae t' ullets' tree; doon chimleys three there ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... could be seen, high, brown, thatched roofs with a line of sword-leaved irises growing along the roof-ridge like a crown. These native cottages looked like timid animals, cowering in their forms under the protecting trees. One felt that at any time an indiscreet hoot of the steamer might send them scuttering back to the forest depths. There were no signs of life in these submerged villages, where the fight between the forester's axe and primal vegetation seemed still undecided. Life was there; but it was hidden under ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... yellow moon, and wondered what she was, and thought that she looked at him. And he watched the moonlight on the rippling river, and the black heads of the firs, and the silver-frosted lawns, and listened to the owl's hoot, and the snipe's bleat, and the fox's bark, and the otter's laugh; and smelt the soft perfume of the birches, and the wafts of heather honey off the grouse moor far above; and felt very happy. You, of course, would ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... repeated Ransie, with a solemn nod. "We-all can't git along together nohow. It's lonesome enough fur to live in the mount'ins when a man and a woman keers fur one another. But when she's a-spittin' like a wildcat or a-sullenin' like a hoot-owl in the cabin, a man ain't got no call ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... machinery to the end for which machinery is valuable, this and that man, and this and that body of men, all over the country, are beginning to assert and put in practice an Englishman's right to do what he likes; his right to march where he likes, meet where he likes, enter where he likes, hoot as he likes, threaten as he likes, smash as he likes. All this, I say, tends to anarchy; and though a number of excellent people, and particularly my friends of the liberal or progressive party, as they [59] call themselves, are kind enough ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... thirty,[1228] lead the majority, and they do not allow them to free themselves.—On the 28th of May, Malouet, having demanded a secret session to discuss the conciliatory measures which the King had proposed, the galleries hoot at him, and a deputy, M. Bourche, addresses him in very plain terms. "You must know, sir, that we are deliberating here in the presence of our masters, and that we must account to them for our opinions." This is the doctrine of the Contrat-Social. Through timidity, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... pleasure. "You gals look purty enough to charm a hoot owl right off'n his perch!" he shot back. Both Phyl and Sandy were wearing gay calico dresses ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton
... A hoot of laughter interrupted him. It reminded me of Jock, except that Mr. O'Brien's laugh had such a flavour of ill-nature. The man might or might not be what I suspected, but ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... night at all. It was a moonlight night and just the kind of a night to be out. Instead Whitefoot lay in his little bed and shivered and shook, for all through that long night every once in a while Hooty the Owl would hoot from the top ...
— Whitefoot the Wood Mouse • Thornton W. Burgess
... Atuona Valley, the hoot of the owl, the kouku, which in Malay is the ghost-bird, the burong-hantu, seemed to deepen the silence. Does not that word hantu, meaning in Malay an evil spirit, have some obscure connection with our American negro "hant," a goblin or ghost? Certainly the bird's long and dismal "Hoo-oo-oo" ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... footsteps died away a low hoot like a plaintive owl was heard, and they knew their ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... mind his snapping and hissing. I want him to see me, and know me. Then perhaps he'll get to like me, and be tame, and sit on the nursery clock and look wise. Captain Barton's owl used to sit on his clock. Poor fellow! Dear old owlie! Don't growl, my owl. Can you hoot, darling? I should like ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... hotel lobby in which they performed should be fireproof; the wife of the mining engineer fell in love with the barytone, and her husband hired a number of hoodlums to take their places in the gallery and hoot and hiss when the time came. And those who nag under any circumstances requested more cheerfulness. They found the "Czar and Zimmermann" too dull, the "Muette de Portici" too hackneyed. They insisted on "Madame Angot" and ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... "Hoot! Taniel," said he, somewhat peevishly, "keep your coortin' till efter breakfast, man! It iss a wolf that will be livin' inside o' me for the last few tays—a hungry wolf too—an' nothin' for him to eat. That's right, Okematan, on wi' the kettle; it iss yourself ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... sport! There's nane ava', Ye'll sit and glower ahint the wa' At bleesin' breakers till ye staw, If that's yer wush; 'There's aye the Stinchar.' Hoot awa', ...
— Ban and Arriere Ban • Andrew Lang
... could have heard a pin drop till the Prince put his foot upon the threshold, when the whole assembly rose with a tremendous shout of applause. The Prince was supremely gratified, and said to the Emperor of Russia, "You heard the London mob hoot me, but you see how I am received by the young gentlemen ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... powder, of burned stuffs and calcined earth which roams in sheets about the country, all the menagerie is let loose and gives battle. Bellowings, roarings, growlings, strange and savage; feline caterwaulings that fiercely rend your ears and search your belly, or the long-drawn piercing hoot like the siren of a ship in distress. At times, even, something like shouts cross each other in the air-currents, with curious variation of tone that make the sound human. The country is bodily lifted in places and falls ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... so dreadful as the universal groan or hoot of this great crowd. There was some speaking, a good deal of speaking, from the window of the hotel, praising the crowd for their self-control, and advising them to go home quietly for the honor of the country and the ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... me if you will, Fairfax. Hoot! Hiss me off the stage! I am no longer worthy of the confraternity of honest, bold, free and successful fellows. I am dwindling into a whining, submissive, crouching, very humble, yes if you please, no thank you Madam, dangler! I have been to school! Have had ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... bloated face; Mark my faltering step and my weak, palsied hand, And the mark on my brow that is worse than Cain's brand; See my crownless old hat, and my elbows and knees, Alike, warmed by the sun, or chilled by the breeze. Why, even the children will hoot as I pass;— But I've drank my last glass, boys, I ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... has been going down to Wall Street every morning and frightening us into fits? Well, instead of finishing the work then and there, she suddenly quit and steamed off up the river in the same insolent, don't-give-a-hoot way that Merriman comes up from Wall Street every afternoon. Of course, when the Merrimac came down to finish destroying the fleet the next day, the Monitor had arrived during the night and gave her fits, and they called the ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... the traffic in the street overhead was beginning to diminish—the rumbling of drays or heavy four-wheelers had almost ceased, whilst the jingling of hansoms and even the piercing hoot-hoot and loud birr-birr of motors was fast becoming less and less frequent. I put out my candle and waited; and, as I waited, the hush and gloom of the house deepened and intensified, until, by midnight, all round me was black and silent—black with a blackness ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... to Poultney Masters's glistening little beads, were unable to endure the vicious amusement which he read therein. For the first time in his life he was stared down. He passed on, followed by a low and scornful hoot. ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... hoot owl," Bowie said sadly. "Ord, you and Travis got to look at it both ways. We ain't all in the right in this war—we ...
— Remember the Alamo • R. R. Fehrenbach
... his property with a keen glance at my face to see whether I had read anything. I intended of course to put on what Jack calls my "rag doll expression," one which I find most useful in social intercourse. But the man didn't start. He could not have helped hearing my siren hoot, but he never turned a hair or anything else. He went on pointing out perfectly irrelevant porpoises. I had to admire his nerve! For instantly I seemed to read the inner workings of his mind, and understood that he'd deliberately ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... fresh founts of courage and resolution, he settled himself anew to his task. His elbows and knees ached and it was difficult to carry his rifle as he crawled along, but his ambition was as high as ever, and he would not complain. The lone hoot of an owl came from the point on the right, where one of the Indian groups lay, and it was promptly answered by a like sound from the left where ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... sheep on the hill sides. His father was a hard working farmer, who every year tried to coax to grow out of the stony ground some oats, barley, leeks and cabbage. In summer, he worked hard, from the first croak of the raven to the last hoot of the owl, to provide food for his wife and baby daughter. When his boy was born, he took him to the church to be christened Gruffyd, but every body called him "Gruff." In time several little sisters came to keep the ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis |
