"Screech" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of blue official paper from a drawer, and his quill pen travelled furiously over them with many a screech ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... silver-headed canes could dispense with a knocker. Gaston was afraid to strike with a stone, for fear of being denied admittance, he therefore ordered the coachman to stop, and going up a narrow lane by one side of the house, he imitated the cry of the screech-owl—a signal preconcerted. ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... concerning the "millions" which appear with such an imposing intention when reformers want to stir the public. No man's imagination was ever vitally impressed by figures, and I am a little afraid that the statistical gentlemen repel people instead of attracting them. The persons who screech and abuse the drink sellers are even less effective than the men of figures; their opponents laugh at them, and their friends grow deaf and apathetic in the storm of whirling words, while cool outsiders think that we should be better employed if we found fault with ourselves ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... express, due at eight, was only a few seconds behind time. As the screech of the approaching engine rung out from the dark wood-land, Margaret and her father exchanged rapid glances. It would take Richard ten minutes to walk from the railway station to the house,—for of course he would come there directly ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... knob of his door turned; he could not distinguish it in the uncertain light, yet he knew it was turning by a peculiarly faint screech—almost so faint as to be indistinguishable. One would not notice it except at ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... the wasted brands do glow, While the screech-owl, sounding loud, Puts the wretch that lies in woe, In remembrance of a shroud. Now it is the time of night That the graves, all gaping wide, Every one lets out its sprite, In the church-way paths to ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... stood, half finished, resembling a falling ruin. Moss, grass, and wild parsley flourished in the cracks of the walls, screech-owls already discovered convenient places for their nests, and amorous sparrows hopped lovingly about where holy priests should have ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... streaked with lapis lazuli. Nearly blinded by scuds of sand, we rode for hours through the volcanic wilderness; always the same rigid mamane, (Sophora Chrysophylla?) the same withered grass, and the same thornless thistles, through which the strong wind swept with a desolate screech. ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... Jays screech in the trees of the lane almost all the year round, though more frequently in spring and autumn, but I rarely walked here without seeing or hearing one. Beyond the stile, the lane descends into a hollow, and is bordered ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... shining with the full glare of midday heat. Tiny, gold-flecked, steel-blue flies poised in the air with vibrating wings. Their ears caught a gentle humming and buzzing all round them, and far away in the wood were heard now and again the tap-tap of the woodpecker and the screech of ...
— Immensee • Theodore W. Storm
... "Some say the screech-owl, at each midnight hour, Awakes the fairies in yon ancient tower. Their nightly dancing ring I always dread, Nor let my sheep within that circle tread; When round and round all night, in moonlight fair, They dance to some strange music ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... the rancher was an excellent marksman, and the bullet bored its way through the breast of the painted miscreant, who hardly knew what hurt him. With a screech, he threw up his arms, one grasping his gun, and toppled from the back of his pony, falling with a loud splash into the water, where for the moment he disappeared under ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... and the groves as silent as a pickpocket; he is robbing birds'-nests, and he is very anxious that nothing should be said about it, but in the fall none so quick and loud to cry "Thief, thief!" as he. One December morning a troop of jays discovered a little screech owl secreted in the hollow trunk of an old apple-tree near my house. How they found the owl out is a mystery, since it never ventures forth in the light of day; but they did, and proclaimed the fact with ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... Maximilian smiled scornfully on himself. He was only a clod of grit caught in the world's great wheels. The foreign substance had wrought a discordant screech for a moment, and then was mercilessly ground into powder and thrust out of the bearings. He pondered on the first days of the Family Group, when there was extenuation; more, when there was necessity, for a king. At any ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... yellow-faced, yellow-haired creature, such as you might expect to find on Cape Cod or thereabouts. Hollow-chested as he was, he had a yell in him which was quite surprising. From the time that he sighted the three horsemen he kept up a steady screech until he was safe under their noses. Then he fell flat and gasped for nearly a minute without speaking. His first words were, "That's pooty good sailin' for a man who ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... did not condescend to make any answer, but recommenced her leisurely counting; and then Miss Ruff uttered that terrific screech which had peculiarly excited Miss ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... boiled one eye, which revolved amid its facial seams dead-white in a sightless orbit. The sideward and downward streams had left him with a dangling atrophied arm and a scalded hip, so that he came down on me, with my preconceived ideas about him, like an actual lop-sided demon. I let out one screech, and fled; but even in the act of flight I saw the poor fellow's face, and read in it the bitter regret he felt that the disaster which had befallen him should have made him unbearable to the imagination ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... A screech, a bell, and two red eyes come gliding down the Admiralty Pier with a smoothness of motion rendered more smooth by the heaving of the boat. The sea makes noises against the pier, as if several hippopotami were lapping ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... moments. "Arise!"—At the word, with a bound, to their feet spring the vigilant Frenchmen; And the dark, dismal forests resound to the crack and the roar of their rifles; And seven writhing forms on the ground clutch the earth. From the pine-tops the screech owl Screams and flaps his wide wings in affright, and plunges away through the shadows; And swift on the wings of the night flee the dim, phantom forms of the spirit. Like cabris [80] when white wolves pursue, fled the four yet remaining Dakotas; Through forest and fen-land they ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... turned in this unexpected manner. Jack, therefore, had no hesitation in firing at the one on his right, and immediately after at his companion, whose superior speed had placed him considerably in advance. As a consequence, he missed the latter, while the first emitted a screech, leaped high in air and sprawled forward on his face as dead ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... (Strix Asio) or Screech Owl, is somewhat larger than the Acadian or Whetsaw, and not so familiar as the Barn Owl of Europe, though resembling it in general habits. He commonly builds in the hollow of an old tree, also in deserted buildings, whither he resorts in the daytime to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... bade his mother good-night, and went to his old room, to rest and sleep as the young, and healthful, and hopeful, without deep sorrows or the stings of conscience, may do. In the strange freaks of a half-sleeping fancy, in his dreams, he remembered to have heard the screech of a wild animal, and to have seen the face of Julia Markham, pale with the mingled expression ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... reached them in a sudden screech—then there was a confused noise resembling a scuffle—and Jan was again heard crying aloud for help, while at the same time his voice was interrupted, and each call appeared to come from a greater distance! Something or ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... and here it was a year! Well, if Nathan's reading of the Prophecies was right, then Athalia would never get over it. She ought never to get over it. Then what would become of the farm and the sawmill? And instantly everything was unreal again; he could hear the hum of the driving-wheel and the screech of the saw tearing through a log; how fragrant the fresh planks were, and the great heaps of sawdust—but the noise made his head ache; and—and the fire ...
— The Way to Peace • Margaret Deland
... an old castle in the middle of a vast thick wood; in it lived an old woman quite alone, and she was a witch. By day she made herself into a cat or a screech-owl, but regularly at night she ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley
... the thing about the screech-owl and the weather signs?" said the Colonel, roused at last by the jig on his toes and the rattle of improvised "bones" almost ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... 'cause I done seen 'em work for all dese years. De Lawd give de peoples a sign for all things. De moon an' de stars, dey is a sign for all them what can read 'em an' tells you when to plant de cotton an' de taters an' all your crops. De screech owls, dey give er warnin' dat some one gwine to die. About de best sign dat some person gwine die 'round close is for a cow to git to lowin' an' a lowin' constant in de middle of de night. Dat is a sign I hardly ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... vices of his heart In the imbecility of his intellect minuting down his dreams, counting the drops of blood which fell from his nose, watching the direction of the salt, and listening for the note of the screech-owls. Contemptuous mercy was the only vengeance which it became the Parliament to take on ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the tipsy-topsy-turvy feeling stopped, the cook opened her eyes, gave one sounding screech and shut them again, and Anthea took the opportunity to get the desperately howling ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... A screech owl called and startled her; Tory had a sudden attack of nerves; running ahead a few yards, she stumbled. The footsteps ...
— The Girl Scouts in Beechwood Forest • Margaret Vandercook
... and Louise paced slowly up and down the station platform, chatting about the East and Louise's last visit there, before Anne was married. Presently they were interrupted by a wild clatter of hoofs and the grind and screech of a hastily applied brake. The borrowed buckboard, strong, light, two-seated, and built for service, had arrived dramatically. Collie leaned back, the reins wrapped round his wrists, and his foot pressing the brake home. In the harness stood, or rather gyrated, Boyar and Collie's own ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... did not believe we were in earnest. I nodded to Elerson, who drew the noose tight; the prisoner's knees gave way, and he screamed; but Mount and Murphy jerked him up, and the rope strangled the screech in his throat. ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... would shake her head, or raise up her crest in rather a fierce manner. At last I couldn't stand it any longer, and I cried out in a very angry tone of voice, 'Why, what do you mean by looking at me like that? I would rather not be disturbed.' And I gave a very ugly and angry screech. ...
— The Cockatoo's Story • Mrs. George Cupples
... you will hear zis night,' he said, 'will be hissed. You will hear a chorus of screech-owls to each song of that poor Irma, whom the Italian people call "crabapple." Well; she pleases German ears, and if they can support her, it is well. But la Vittoria—your Belloni—you will not hear; and why? She has been false to her Art, false! She has become a ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... and the loneliness of the dark road. She hurried her steps, jumped at every sound and grew cold from pure terror as the awful stillness and emptiness closed in about her. She stood still every few minutes, staring at blurred bushes beside the road. The screech of an owl almost made her scream. And in the dark the hard lumpy road hurt her feet cruelly. The little slippers were never meant for dark country roads. So Jocelyn had to pick her steps, and with every second's ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... figures on the floor go reeling off in a mixture of dancing and by-play as fantastic as the music. The pianist seems to get excited and to want to prove himself a Hans von Bulow of rapid execution. The fiddler weaves excitedly over his fiddle. The cornetist toots in a screech like a car-engine whistle. The movements of the dancers grow licentious and more and more rapid. They have begun the Cancan. Feet go up. Legs are exhibited in wild abandon. Hats fly off. There are occasional exhibitions of nature that ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... all! But oftentimes the air is changed; and in the screech of the night wind, chasing navies, subverting the tall ships and the rooted cedar of the hills; in the random deadly levin or the fury of headlong floods, we recognise the "dread foundation" of life and the anger in Pan's heart. Earth ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... intirely. But, as cute as he was, he was out here, for he tuk the wrong one. "Here's to your good health, Terence," says he; "an' now pull like the very divil." An' with that he lifted the bottle of holy wather, but it was hardly to his mouth, whin he let a screech out, you'd think the room id fairly split with it, an' made one chuck that sent the leg clane aff his body in my father's hands. Down wint the squire over the table, an' bang wint my father half-way across the room on his ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... shatter the whole scene. Its echoes were mixed with the scattering of the horrified beavers as they rushed for the water—with the short screech of the lynx, as it bounced into the air and fell back on its side, dead—with an exclamation of astonishment from Jabe—and with a crashing of branches just behind the thicket. The Boy looked around, triumphant—to see that Jabe's exclamation was not at all the result of his ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... coward. Repeatedly denounced in the Assembly, he skulked instead of defending himself, and lay concealed in some obscure garret or cellar, among his cut-throats, until a storm appeared, when, like a bird of ill omen, his death-screech was again heard. Such was the strange and fatal triumvirate, in which the same degree of cannibal cruelty existed under different aspects. Danton murdered to glut his rage; Robespierre to avenge his injured vanity, or to remove a rival whom he envied! Marat, from the same instinctive ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... strange whizzing noise, and then something struck against my face, and I heard a screech in ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... what is the matter?" said Percy; "you look as if this world was a howling wilderness, and you wanted to howl too. What, crying over that bird? Poh! I can buy you a screech-owl any time, that will make twice the noise he could in his best days. Come, hurry, and put your ...
— Little Prudy's Sister Susy • Sophie May
... plenty of plantain-eaters here, but, although their screech was as appalling as I have heard in Angola, they were not regarded, by the Ajumba at any rate, as being birds of evil omen, as they are in Angola. Still, by no means all the birds here only screech and squark. Several of them have very lovely notes. ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... trips often included overnight stops with relatives living in villages undisturbed by the screech and thunder of freight and way trains, or with others living on picturesque old farms. Afterward there was always lively conversation concerning the possibilities of Cousin This or That's home as a country place. This reached ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... could go to sleep if he liked, at the fire. Joe went to sleep—HOW, I don't know. Then Dad sat beside him, and for long intervals would stare silently into the darkness. Sometimes a string of the vermin would hop past close to the fire, and another time a curlew would come near and screech its ghostly wail, but he never noticed them. Yet he seemed to ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... then, when we seed nothin' thaar, made tracks for this yere paraira, as I diskivered, when I got to the top o' that risin' ground yonder, some elk a feedin' down hyar. There was a herd of seven of 'em or more, an' soon as I gets near enuf I lets drive at 'em; and just then, hullabaloo! I heart a screech like somethin' awful, an' a Injun starts up, just like a deer a walkin' on his ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... deserted for a huge hideous barn-like depot, and all the lovely sights and sweet harmonies of nature defaced and drowned by the deformities consequent on a railroad, by the disgusting roar and screech of the steam-engine. One word to the wise! Let no man be deluded by the following pages, into the setting forth for Warwick now in search of sporting. These things are strictly as they were twenty years ago! Mr. Seward, in his zeal for the improvement ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... Chirpy Cricket was always uneasy when Simon screeched his warning that he was awake and looking for his supper. Chirpy knew that he could not depend on Simon to stay long in one place. Though you heard his screech in the orchard one moment, you might see him in the farmyard soon afterward. He never ate a whole meal in just one spot, but preferred to move about wherever his fancy took him. Simon himself said that he could eat off and on all night ...
— The Tale of Chirpy Cricket • Arthur Scott Bailey
... strait for want of provisions before he could have the heart to shoot him. He gave chase nevertheless, plunging along in a ziz-zag way over a carpet of moss and dry pine-needles, and through some dense tangles of undergrowth, uttering a welcoming screech whenever he saw the bright eyes of the little trickster peering down at him from ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... he laughed like the screech of a rusty hinge— Laughed and laughed till his face grew black; And when he choked, with a final twinge Of his stifling laughter, he thumped his back With a fist that grew on the end of his tail Till the breath came back to his lips ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IX (of X) • Various
... hail'd the bird in Spanish speech, The bird in Spanish speech replied: Flapt round his cage with joyous screech— Dropt ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... a gentle feminine girl, with a most lovely and winning countenance, and I did inherently like to hear her pronounce the word "Jack"—it was so different from the boisterous screech of the Eton boys, or the swaggering call of my ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... If I had my new lecture completed I wouldn't hesitate a moment, but really isn't "Cussed Be Canaan" too old? You know that lemon, our African brother, juicy as he was in his day, has been squeezed dry. Why howl about his wrongs after said wrongs have been redressed? Why screech about the "damnable spirit of Cahst" when the victim thereof sits at the first table, and his oppressor mildly takes, in hash, what he leaves? You see, friend Twain, the Fifteenth Amendment busted "Cussed Be Canaan." I howled feelingly on the subject while it was a living ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... come when a will now," gasped an aged man as the drenched party moved slowly away upward to the farm; "our ears be tuned to the trump o' God, for nort—no, not the screech o' horns blawed by all the angels in heaven—could sound awfuler than the tantarra o' this gert tempest. I, Gaffer Polglaze, be the auldest piece up Drift, but I never heard tell o' no sich noise, let alone havin' my ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... jolly," Percy answered. "You see, she has been with us boys, and she can play, and doesn't screech if you touch her, or mind a bit if she tears her frock. So are our cousins in England—some of them. Yes, there are some jolly girls, of course; still, after all, what's the good of them, taking them altogether? They are very nice in their way—quiet and well behaved, and so on—but ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... what I call wicked. Sposin' her money did come from England, she needn't spend it so foolishly; but then money didn't save Ella's life, and they say her mother's done nothing but screech and go on like a mad woman since she died. You'll ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... he believed in signs, Charlie replied: "I sho does for dis reason. Once jest befo my baby brother died, ole screech owl, he done come and set up in the big oak tree right at the doah by de bed and fo' the next twelve hours passed, my brother was dead. Screech owls allus holler ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... to get you!" His scream was like a woman's screech. "I've meant to get you all along, and I'm goin' to ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... ear or his heart. There was no note in its orchestra that he had not brooded on and become, which becoming is magic. The long-drawn moan of it; the thrilling whisper and hush; the shrill, sweet whistle, so thin it can scarcely be heard, and is taken more by the nerves than by the ear; the screech, sudden as a devil's yell and loud as ten thunders; the cry as of one who flies with backward look to the shelter of leaves and darkness; and the sob as of one stricken with an age-long misery, only at times remembered, but remembered then ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... me screech with laughter. He is as funny as my father-in-law is mournful—a higher compliment to his art I cannot pay. Of course, actor-like, he appreciated an Imperial Highness' applause and looked up to my box every little while. I wish, though, he hadn't acknowledged my plaudits by bowing ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... his toot, And the owl forbore his hoot, And the king-bird set his wing, And the woodpecker ceas'd his tap On the hollow beech, And the son of the loon on the neighbouring strand Gave over his idle screech, And fell to ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... some hurried word, As, "Did you hear it?"—"What was that I heard?" But well they knew; for you must understand That Camelot lay close to Fairyland, And the wild blast of fairy horns, once known, Is straightway recognized as soon as blown, Being a sound unique, unearthly, shrill,— Between a screech-owl and a whip-poor-will. The mischief is, that no one e'er can tell Whether such ...
— Gawayne And The Green Knight - A Fairy Tale • Charlton Miner Lewis
... many times a day. An unnatural and artificial thirst is first awakened in these infants by meals of salt beef, bacon, anchovies, sardines, red herrings, shrimps, olives, pea-soup, and that description of diet; and when they screech for drink, in accents that might melt a heart of stone, which they do constantly (I allude to screeching, not to melting), this liquid is introduced into their too confiding stomachs. At such an early age, and to so great an extent, is this custom of provoking thirst, then quenching it with ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
... and peered out, but he could distinguish nothing in the intense blackness. After listening a moment and hearing no sound, he closed the shutters and went back to his work. The priest waited until he again heard the screech of the file before he dared to move. This action of Pomponio recalled him to himself, and the responsibility resting on him regarding the safety of ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... "which has now flown to some other part of the plain and is hidden from us by one of the ruined palaces, which seem to rise up like ghosts in the moonlight. If Hassan means to wake us up every time he hears a bird screech we shall get little enough rest. I'm going to lie down again." He entered the tent, followed by us, and stretching himself wearily was asleep a few minutes after this, while Hassan and I sat conversing together, for the strange, bird-like ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... Will grumble at our feet, the table cry: 'Fetch my belongings for me; I am bare.' A clatter! Something in the attic falls. A ghost has lifted up his robes and fled. The loitering shadows move along the walls; Then silence very slowly lifts his head. The starling with impatient screech has flown The chimney, and is watching from the tree. They thought us gone for ever: mouse alone Stops in the middle of the floor to see. Now all you idle things, resume your toil. Hearth, put your ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 • Various
... her waist with a string of hide. Yet the old squaw's meager anatomy was wonderfully strong. She pitched the lodge, packed the horses, and did the hardest labor of the camp. From morning till night she bustled about the lodge, screaming like a screech-owl when anything displeased her. Then there was her brother, a "medicine-man," or magician, equally gaunt and sinewy with herself. His mouth spread from ear to ear, and his appetite, as we had full ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... go thy ways; but, for all that, it is more seemly for an eagle to mate with an eagle than with a screech-owl. Thou wilt see her anon; thy pet slave waiteth without for her mistress. Now go to her for me and bid her come; and, love-sick boy, be sure she does not fascinate thee that thou be so transfixed to her side that passers-by think they see two statues by Scopas, dressed by some ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... birds or the neighbours go screech after me and welcome, and I not in it to hear or ...
— New Irish Comedies • Lady Augusta Gregory
... Black Joe, and me White Joe, by way of distinction and for the convenience of his boss (my uncle), and my aunt, and mother; so, when we heard the cry of "Bla-a-ack Joe!" (the adjective drawn out until it became a screech, after several repetitions, and the "Joe" short and sharp) coming across the flat in a woman's voice, Joe knew that the missus wanted him at the house, to get wood or water, or mind the baby, and he ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... it?" I asked, as the cry resounded again, a piercing screech of pain ending in a long ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... or screech owl stir A wing about thy sepulchre! No boisterous winds or storms come hither, To starve or wither Thy soft sweet earth; but, like a spring, Love ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick
... day, died away, as if its office were now completed; and none of the dark sounds and sights of hideous Night yet dared to triumph over the death of Day. Unseen were the circling wings of the fell bat; unheard the screech of the waking owl; silent the drowsy hum of the shade-born beetle! What heart has not acknowledged the influence of this hour, the sweet and soothing hour of twilight! the hour of love, the hour of adoration, the hour of rest! ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... o'clock in the morning, when he fell into a sweet sleep. His wife, weary with anxiety and watching, was trying to get a nap in the easy chair, when, suddenly, close by them, as if in the very room, came an indescribable screech, an unearthly, long, shrill cock-a-doodle-do yell, such as only a fancy ...
— Who Spoke Next • Eliza Lee Follen
... Wood dust flew as hinge screws gave with a loud screech. The door was just hanging now. One more smash! It flew inward and Red and Brad charged, two ...
— Smugglers' Reef • John Blaine
... hollow sound, By the thunder's dreadful stound, Yells of spirits underground, I charge thee not to fear us; By the screech-owl's dismal note, By the black night-raven's throat, I charge thee, Hob, to tear thy coat With thorns, if thou ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... deer, with her hind grazing quietly beside her. They had never gone near enough to be in any danger. And they had seen no other animals in the woods in the daytime except the wild hare and the squirrels. Only at night the screech of the wildcats in the forests had penetrated behind the closed doors of their ...
— Madge Morton's Secret • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... after the whipping and the pigeon pot-pie, when the sun shone warm at noon, the fire was allowed to go down in the stove. All were at play in the sunshine, excepting Columbus Risdale, who sat solitary, like a disconsolate screech-owl, in one corner of the room. Riley and Ben Berry, still smarting from yesterday, entered, and without observing Lummy's presence, proceeded to put some gunpowder in the stove, taking pains to surround it with cool ashes, so that it ...
— The Hoosier School-boy • Edward Eggleston
... perspective before her. The way was lonely; the hard road echoed under the old cart-horse's hoofs; many a black and desolate tract of forest lay across their twenty miles' ride; more than once the tremulous shriek of a screech-owl smote ominously on Sally's wakeful sense, and quavered away like a dying groan; more than once a mournful whippoorwill cried out in pain and expostulation, and in the young leaves a shivering wind foreboded evil;—but they rode on. Presently Sally's ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... heard warbling before the day is over. Goldfinches have grown suddenly numerous, or so it seems, and not infrequently one of them breaks out in musical canary-like twitterings. On moonlight evenings the tremulous, haunting cry of the screech-owl comes to your ears, always from far away, and if you walk through the chestnut grove aforesaid in the daytime you may chance to catch his faint, vibratory, tree-frog whistle. For myself, I never enter the grove without ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... "The dismal screech (for it isn't crowing) of one of those long-legged Shanghai roosters, awoke him just as the dawn was streaking the sky; and shaking the hay from his dress, Harry went out into ...
— The Big Nightcap Letters - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... Charles de Grainberg, a Frenchman, who has been there sketching ever since the year eighteen-hundred and ten. He has, moreover, written a super-magnificent description of the ruin, in which he says, that during the day only birds of prey disturb it with their piercing cries, and at night, screech-owls, and other fallow deer. These are his own words. You must buy ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... the woods after poachers, about an hour before daybreak, I hear with extreme delight its loud, clear, and sonorous notes, resounding far and near through hill and dale. Very different from these notes is the screech of the barn owl. But Sir William Jardine informs us that this owl hoots; and that he has shot it in the act of hooting. This is stiff authority; and I believe it because it comes from the pen of Sir William Jardine. Still, however, methinks that it ought to be taken in a somewhat ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 530, January 21, 1832 • Various
... of them will be pretty sure to get chewed up, and the other won't leave the carcass. Besides, the cat's in the trap, I reckon, by the rattling." For the jingling of the chain could still be heard over the howling they were making. But ere the fight had lasted many seconds, a suppressed screech, followed by a crunching sound, told ill for one or the other of the combatants. "The cat's got ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... few words Mr. Howitt told of his meeting with the strange boy, and their conversation. When he had finished, the big man smoked in silence. It was as if he found it hard to begin. From a tree on the mountain side below, a screech owl sent up his long, quavering call; a bat darted past in the dusk; and away over on Compton Ridge a hound bayed. The mountaineer spoke; "That's Sam Wilson's dog, Ranger; must a' started a fox." The sound died away in the distance. ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright
... dog, which rushed in among the pigs, biting their ears, and making them race about, squealing piteously. Then he seized hold of the bundle of rags containing the black baby, and began to drag it over the ground, to the no small astonishment of the baby, who added his screech to the charivari of the pigs. With loud shouts of laughter, Mr. Jackson cheered on the rough animal, and was so much entertained by the scene, that he seemed to have forgotten the traveller entirely. When at last ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... and either throws three pebbles into the road, or, with the innate selfishness of fear, lets some one else go before him, and attract to himself the harm which may ensue. He has a similar dread of a screech-owl, whom he compliments in the name of its mistress, Pallas Athene. If he finds a serpent in his house, he sets up an altar to it. If he pass at a four-cross-way an anointed stone, he pours oil on it, kneels down, and adores ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... room (but I didn't mention her, she was less than nothink in our house), went up to Mrs. Deuceace at onst, and held out her arms—she had a heart, that old Kicksey, and I respect her for it. The poor hunchback flung herself into Miss's arms, with a kind of whooping screech, and kep there for some time, sobbing in quite a historical manner. I saw there was going to be a sean, and so, in ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and Jim just gave a screech that rose above the din of the dogs and the other boys, "Bunty's coming, and he's got his bulldog and his shotgun!" And then he turned and ...
— The Flight of Pony Baker - A Boy's Town Story • W. D. Howells
... continuation of the nightmare in which he had so long been wandering. And when Michael, with his brand-new bushy whiskers, broke from the grasp of the stranger and turned to run, and the weird little shaven creature in the low-necked shirt followed his example with a bird-like screech, and the stranger (finding the rest of his prey escape him) pounced with a rude grasp on Morris himself, that gentleman's frame of mind might be very nearly expressed in the colloquial phrase: "I ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Boat to the place of Execution. When the Scaffold was hoisted to a due height the seven Malefactors went up. Mr. Mather pray'd for them standing upon the Boat. Ropes were all fastened to the Gallows save King who was Reprieved. When the Scaffold was let to sink there was such a Screech of the Women that my wife heard it sitting in our Entry next the Orchard and was much surprised at it, yet the wind was sou-west. Our house is a full mile from ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... he, rising his wice; and begor, 't was like the day of gineral jedgment. Thin he tore off a black veil that was on the crucifix, and he threw it on the althar, and he held up the crucifix in the air, and he let a screech out of him that you could hear ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... burdocks, and the other fuming acid. Other side dishes, of turtles, rats, bats and moles, were garnished with live coals. For the fish course he ate a dish of snakes in boiling tar and pitch. His roast was a screech owl in a sauce of glowing brimstone. The salad proved to be spider webs full of small explosive squibs, a plate of butterfly wings and manna worms, a dish of toads surrounded with flies, crickets, grasshoppers, ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... lady, wizards know their times: Deep night, dark night, the silent of the night, The time of night when Troy was set on fire, The time when screech-owls cry and ban-dogs howl And spirits walk and ghosts break up their graves, That time best fits the work we have in hand. Madam, sit you and fear not; whom we raise, We will make fast within ...
— King Henry VI, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... great ada[']wehi, I never fail in anything. I surpass all others—I am a great ada[']wehi. Ha! It is a mere screech owl that has frightened him. Ha! now I have put it away in the laurel thickets. There ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... back dreaming, wondering why a locust who was in full screech close by, took the trouble to make that terrible row when it was so hot, and hoping that his sides might be sore with the exertion, when to my great astonishment I heard the sound of feet brushing through the grass towards me. "Black ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... enter the tug's cabin I heard Possum's shivering whimper rising to a screech, and went forward to tell Wada to take the creature in out of the cold. I found him hovering about my luggage, wedging my dressing-case securely upright by means of my little automatic rifle. I was startled by the mountain of luggage around which mine was no more than a ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... everything is still, The screech-owl and the whistler shrill, Call upon our dame aloud, And bid her quickly ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... me at least a funeral marriage crave, Nor grudge my cold embraces in the grave. I have too just a title in the strife; By me, unhappy me, he lost his life: I called him hither, 'twas my fatal breath, And I the screech-owl that proclaimed his ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... screech, that they shall," replied Hannah; "and the bacon, it shall be done as tasty and sweet as bacon can be. I'll give the last bit of my own little pigeen, with all the heart in the ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... bitterness, it was the choice which Saddletree made of a subject for his prosing harangues, being the trial of Effie Deans, and the probability of her being executed. Every word fell on Butler's ear like the knell of a death-bell, or the note of a screech-owl. ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... nose was frightfully stung. He rubbed his face with both sticky paws. The sharp stings came thicker and faster, and he wildly clawed the air. At last he forgot to hold on to the branch any longer, and with a screech he tumbled to ...
— Wigwam Evenings - Sioux Folk Tales Retold • Charles Alexander Eastman and Elaine Goodale Eastman
... again the screech of a fiddle could be heard or the lazy music of an accordion, coming from some "Sailors' Home." Steps of dancing with rattle of iron-shod boot-heels clicking over sanded floors, the hoarse shout of the "caller-off," and now and again angry tones with cracked feminine ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... things in the woods. An' he says thet they wasn't a frog, or a cricket, or katydid, or nothin', but up an' played on its little instrument, an' thet every note they sounded fitted into the church music—even to the mockin'-bird an' the screech-owl. ...
— Sonny, A Christmas Guest • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... Spring day a heavy rain had fallen, and, strange to say, ever since that time not a bird was longer to be seen there: every morning the Birdcatcher found his nets torn, his limed twigs destroyed, and even his screech-owl and other decoy-birds had vanished from their cages and perches. And yet he knew well enough there lived no other man in the whole forest who could ...
— The King of Root Valley - and his curious daughter • R. Reinick
... boy, being light, was strewed afar, but in a squatting posture; so that they sat in a sequence, like graduated specimens, the smaller howling. But soon the doctor's face filled with horror, and he uttered a far louder and unearthly screech, and kicked and struggled with wonderful agility for one ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... eagle catching, Sacrifice, Sacrifices to sun, of war party, Sai'-yiks, Sak-si-nak'-mah-yiks, Salt, Sand Hills, Sarcees, Sarvis berries, Berry Creek, Saskatchewan River, Saskatoon Creek, Scarface, Schultz, J.W., Scout of war party, Screech Owl, Seats in lodge, Secret helper, Seeking the Sun's Lodge, Thunder's Lodge, Seldom Lonesome, Self-torturings in Medicine Lodge, Servants, Seven Persons, Seven Persons Creek, Shadow, Shelter for war party, ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... firmly into their heads that I really did not want them. My behaviour on the former two occasions they had evidently judged to be mere playfulness. I had just got back to bed again when an owl began to screech. That is another sound I used to think attractive—so weird, so mysterious. It is Swinburne, I think, who says that you never get the desired one and the time and the place all right together. If the beloved one is with you, it is the wrong ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... the accelerator, trying to pull free. The truck at once swerved off the road, steering around a utility pole. As the cable tautened, there was a sickening screech of metal and the sports car was brought to a ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton
... you may listen to the plover's whistle, When high above him the wild geese screech; Or the mallard flying, as the night is dying, His neck out-stretched ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... the waxed silk all ready and chosen the right-sized needle and I'll promise not to jump or screech more than I can help. We'll make a tiny lead-pencil dot right in the middle of the lobe, then you place the needle on it, shut your eyes, and JAB HARD! I expect to faint, but when I 'come to,' we can decide which of us will pull ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the strand, They only, each by each; Home, her home, was close at hand, Utterly out of reach. Her mother in the chimney nook Heard a startled sea-gull screech, But never turned her head to look Towards the darkening beach: Neighbors here and neighbors there Heard one scream, as if a bird Shrilly screaming cleft the air:— That was all ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... see," with a twist of the lip, "it don't do to tell a—a screech owl he's a canary. He's liable to believe it by and by and start singin' in public. . . . Then he finds out he's just a fool owl, and has been all along. Humph! Me a wonder! . . ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... wood to throw it upon the hearth to-night, for that doleful wail penetrates everywhere: even the demon that lurks at the bottom of Pomoyssin must shudder as he hears it. When at length the bells stop swinging and their vibrations die away, a screech-owl flies close by the open gallery of the house, which we call a balcony, and startles me with ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... the first heel disappeared. Even as Suzanne's white teeth closed upon it, the parrot gave a vast screech of disapproval. "Quork!" cried he. "Look out! Look out!" At which warning both the twins fled precipitately underneath the bed; whence presently their heads peered out, with wide and ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... Queen. Hence, screech-owl!—Call my guards quickly there!— Put them apart in several prisons!— Alas! I had forgot, I have no guards, But those which are my jailors. Never 'till now unhappy queen! The use of power, till lost, is seldom known; Now, I should strike, I find my thunder ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... and so prevent the birds from approaching. I always knew when something of this kind had happened, because of the frightful screeching and general uproar set up by the indignant birds—that is to say, such as had the power to screech left. I would hurry to the spot and drag out the cause of the trouble with a forked stick. I never killed him, because there were already enough of his kind dead on every side. The very trees and grass died; and in this originated ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... crackle a little.... This is the biggest swamp I ever tried to wriggle through.... We'll both put on our thinking caps and I guess get quite a lot of funnies in the reminiscences.... Now here is the publisher's screech for money.... O, to get out of this History prison!... I am too tired to write—I mean too lazy.... No warhorse ever panted for the rush of battle more than I for outside work. I love to make history ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper |
