"Screech" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is this spot, this wilderness, that resounds with the screech of owls and teems with spirits and Yakshas and Rakshasas. Terrible and awful, its aspect is like that of a mass of blue clouds. Casting off the dead body, finish the funeral rites. Indeed, throwing away the body, accomplish those rites before the sun sets and before the points of the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... the strength seemed to go from the steady arms that had supported Dlorus's head. Dusk had sneaked up on them; the clearing was full of swimming grayness, and between the woman's screams, the woods crackled. Each time Dlorus spoke, her screech was like that of an animal in the woods, and round about them crept such sinister echoes that Milt kept wanting to look ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... his 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 with what a pang! His ear knew by what successions they ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... split into a sort of skirmishing order, to act under Tresler's charge. The other party he took for his own command, selecting an advantageous position to the west. He had also established a code of signals to be used on the approach of the enemy; these took the form of the cry of the screech-owl. Thus, within a quarter of an hour after their arrival, all was in readiness for the raiders, and the valley once more returned to its ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... strewed the lordly palace In ruins on the ground, And the dismal screech of the owl is heard Where the harp was wont to sound; But the selfsame spot thou coverest With the dwellings of the poor, And a thousand happy hearts enjoy What ONE ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... devils, shrieking and showing their long white teeth, and demanding in unmistakable terms something or somebody to devour; their yells, their cries of rage, of victory, and of love, intermingled with the funereal song of the screech-owl, and the lugubrious melodies which the current from the blast without caused in the large open chimneys,—was the concert, which from December to April lulled the inmates of St. Hibaut to sleep; music that would I doubt not ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... times am, and when they are in the midst of all their good cheer, I come in, in some fearful shape, and affright them, and then carry away their good cheer, and eat it with my fellow fairies. 'Tis I that do, like a screech-owl cry at sick men's windows, which makes the hearers so fearful, that they say, that the sick person cannot live. Many other ways have I to fright the simple, but the understanding man I cannot move to fear, because he knows I have ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... twenty minutes Job gave a satisfied grunt, maneuvered the cannon back and forth on its swivel base once or twice, and fired. Above the roar of the discharge the boys heard the screech of the whirling chainshot, and then in the Revenge's mainsail appeared a great gaping rent, through the tattered edges of which the wind passed unhindered. There was a howl of joy from the crew, and without waiting for an order, they ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... a strange whizzing noise, and then something struck against my face, and I heard a screech in ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... to 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, ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... the convent, the company, the last refrain of former triumphs, the faithful romantic Matthieu de Montmorenci, and above all the poor Marechale, who will screech for ever in her garlic. Let us turn the page, we find another picture from ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... direction, steering at once for the nearest point of the river, which was at the termination of a long, sharp sweep of the stream to the west, and nearer by a mile than in most other parts of its course. I had not proceeded more than a quarter of a mile before the same savage screech,—which was more frightful than I can describe, being seemingly made up of the mingling tones of a man's and a woman's voice, raised to the highest pitch in an agony of rage or pain,—the same awful screech, I say, rose and thrilled through ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... to have him desist and go away. When the wound has not proved instantly fatal, they have been known to stop the flow of blood by pressing with the hand upon the part, and when this did not succeed, to apply leaves and grass.... When shot, they give a sudden screech, not unlike that of a human being in sudden ...
— Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature • Thomas H. Huxley
... there during the day, and then goes out hunting at night for birds and mice. What a fearful screech ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... the screech of a siren, and a demon car that spurned the road, that splattered them with pebbles, tore past and disappeared in the darkness. As it fled down the lane of their head-lights, they saw that men in khaki clung to its sides, were packed in its tonneau, ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... three days and nights, and the skipper called a council of officers to know what to do. So, when they'd smoked up all their baccy, they concluded to shorten sail, and the bo'sn came down to rouse out the crew. He ondertook to whistle, but it made such an onnateral screech, that the chaplain thought old Davy had come aboard; and he told the skipper he guessed he'd take his trick at prayin'. 'Why,' says the skipper, 'we've got on well enough without, ever since we left the Hague, hadn't we better omit it now?' ''Taint ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... old shiverin' owl[FN: screech owl] we'd th'ow salt in de fire an' th'ow a broom 'cross de do' fer folks say dat 'twas a sign of bad luck, an' a charm had to be worked fas' to keep sumpin' terrible frum happenin', an' if a big owl hollered, we wasn't 'lowed to ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Mississippi Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... the writer, and for a critical reading of the manuscript, acknowledgment should be made to Mr. Robert J. Sim. Certain events in the lives of Eve and Petro and little Solomon Otus are told with reference to his observations of eave-swallows and screech owls; his trip to an island off the Maine coast for gull-sketches added greatly to an acquaintance with Larie; and but for his six-weeks' visit with the loons of "Immer Lake," much of the story of Gavia could not have been told. Since Mr. Sim contributed not only the pictures to the book, but many ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch
... came off easily with the screech of old nails pulling loose. In a few moments enough boards were pulled away to allow them to enter on hands and knees. A top board was pulled off to admit light, and they went in together, ...
— The Blue Ghost Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... swim, and the bottom, most likely, quicksand. Out of the blackness of the opposite shore came a soft, high-pitched, quavering, long-drawn, smothered moan of woe, the call of that snivelling little sinner the screech-owl. Ferry murmured to me to answer it and I sent the same faint horror-stricken tremolo back. Again it came to us, from not farther than one might toss his cap, and I followed Ferry down to the water's edge. The grapevine guy swayed at our side, we heard the scow slide from the sands, and ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... an' de ooman she fotched a yell an' cried out, she did, 'Lan' er de mussiful! W'at cur'ous sort er wood is dish yer dat ac' lak dis?' De Owl he wuz startle' an' he look roun' suddint, dis-a-way, over his shoulder, an' de wimmins dey let out a turr'ble screech, 'kase dey seed 'twa'n't nuttin' but a big ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... the Indian village already partially revealed to those in advance, the riders were brought to sudden halt by a fierce crackling of rifles from rock and ravine, an outburst of fire in their faces, the wild, resounding screech of war-cries, and the scurrying across their front of dense bodies of mounted warriors, hideous in paint and feathers. Men fell cursing, and the frightened horses swerved, their riders struggling madly with their mounts, the column thrown into momentary confusion. ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... soothe Paquita's intense excitement and infuse a little courage into her, was too much amazed to speak; and in another moment our visitors were in the room. Paquita started up tearful and trembling; then her two young friends, after staring at her for a few moments, delivered a screech of astonishment and rushed into her arms, and all three were locked together for some time ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... Gomez, nothing of staunch Beresford, or bluff John Whitlock, or of the great hidalgo.... Stat magni nominis umbra? ... No, not even that. The shadows of the great names had gone. The dim chime of a silver bell drowned by the lowing of dying cattle, by the screech of bullock-carts, by the haggling of merchants over the price ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... Philip slept he didn't know, but he was awakened by a terrible screech, and, opening his eyes, say Henry sitting bolt upright, with trembling limbs and distended eyeballs, gazing fearfully at a tall, muscular-looking Indian, who had just stepped into the cabin ...
— The Young Musician - or, Fighting His Way • Horatio Alger
... old screech-owl," cried Nicholas. "Take her to the beacon, and, if she continues troublesome, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... night goes on and the dance is o'er, And the merry girls are homeward gone, But I see it all in my sleep once more, And I dream till the very break of dawn Of an impish dance on a red-hot griddle To the screech and scrape of a ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... so that if the lynx does not enter, he may be caught while looking in. The Indians often hunt them with dogs, for, when pursued, the lynx soon takes to a tree and then is easily shot. But the most proficient hunters like to hunt them by calling. They imitate its screech and also its whistle, for the lynx whistles somewhat like a jack-rabbit, though the sound is coarser and louder. Some Indians are very successful in this mode ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... land, given over to couch-grass, thistles, and brambles; a sort of "accursed spot, to which no one would have confided even a pinch of turnip-seed." A piece of water in front of the house attracted all the frogs in the neighbourhood; the screech-owl mewed from the tops of the plane-trees, and numerous birds, no longer disturbed by the presence of man, had domiciled themselves in the lilacs and the cypresses. A host of insects had seized upon the dwelling, ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... bare.' A clatter! Something in the attic falls. A ghost has lifted up his robes and fled. The loitering shadows move along the walls; Then silence very slowly lifts his head. The starling with impatient screech has flown The chimney, and is watching from the tree. They thought us gone for ever: mouse alone Stops in the middle of the floor to see. Now all you idle things, resume your toil. Hearth, put your flames on. ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 • Various
... 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 his eye rested upon him, he merely exclaimed, "That's a hell of a dog!" and began ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... swiftly down the hill as he spoke. The next moment he looked ahead again as they shot round a curve. As they did so his hand sought a button and an ear-splitting screech arose ...
— The Boy Inventors' Radio Telephone • Richard Bonner
... and who carried on her shoulder Nilo, looking lovely in a "strucca" striped olive-green and mulberry-red. The dear little fellow knew me at once, and almost sprang to my arms, whereupon the good housewives of Cetigna uttered a screech of delight, closed round me and kissed my cloak, hands, and even lips with a fervour ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... joke at all—yet," said Mr. Crow. And he and his companions all laughed again. "Come around to the other side of the barn," Mr. Crow continued. "It's time for the stranger to screech, for it'll be noon before ...
— The Tale of Jasper Jay - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... I am a great ada[']wehi, I never fail in anything. I surpass all others—I am a great ada[']wehi. Ha! It is a mere screech owl that has frightened him. Ha! now I have put it away in the laurel thickets. There I compel ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... promise. Spoil eberyt'ing if you screech or run to him. Look, dis way! De man what's settin' on ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... behind us gave an awful screech. We all turned sudden, and there, standing on the companion ladder, with her head and shoulders out of the hatch, was Lobelia 'Ankins, as large as life and ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... ground at such a clip that on the third day, with screech of whistle and clang of bell, we slowed at Oakland pier, where a crowd was cheering like the end of a race—which it was—and kodak fiends were underfoot as if ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower
... watch and my uncle were right—for the scream of a parrot reached my ears soon after, followed by whistlings and pipings from the forest; while soon after a horribly harsh grating screech came from overhead, and I caught a glimpse of the bird which uttered it—one of the great long-tailed Aras, on its way with three or four more to a favourite part of ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn
... white cloths, and dropped into slumber. 'Toby,' 'Nettle,' 'Whisky,' 'Pincher,' and my other terriers, resembled so many curled-up hairy balls, and were in the land of dreams. Occasionally an owl would give a melancholy hoot from the forest, or a screech owl would raise a momentary and damnable din. At intervals, the tinkle of a cow-bell sounded faintly in the distance. I tossed restlessly, thinking of various things, till I must have dropped off into an uneasy fitful sleep. ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... there was the sweet note of some bird ringing clearly in the air; then a loud and piercing screech heralded the coming of a parrot or cockatoo, which seemed tame enough to care little for the stranger who was watching ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... 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 ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... noisy screech-owl and a pregnant bitch, or a tawny wolf running down from the Lanuvian fields, or a fox with whelp conduct the impious [on their way]; may the serpent also break their undertaken journey, if, like an arrow ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... apricot wood from Lhassa, producing at the same time a beautiful one, which I believe he intended for Campbell, but his avarice got the better, and he commuted his gift into the offer of a tune, and pitching it in a high key, he went through a Tibetan air that almost deafened us by its screech. He tried bravely to maintain his equanimity, but as we preserved a frigid civility and only spoke when addressed, the tears would start from his eyes in the pauses of conversation. In the evening he came again; he was excessively agitated and covered with perspiration, and thrust himself ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... their necks to keep off the evil eye. If a weasel crosses his path, he stops, and either throws three pebbles into the road, or, with the innate selfishness of fear, lets someone 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 it. If a rat has nibbled one of his sacks he ...
— Scientific Essays and Lectures • Charles Kingsley
... the prophet, to wit, that at this day the whole circumference of the world that is without the walls and privileges of this city, it shall be but like an old ruinous house, in which dwells nothing but cormorants, bitterns, owls, ravens, dragons, satyrs, the screech-owl, the great owl, the vulture, and the like most doleful birds. All their princes shall be nothing, saith the prophet, and when they call their nobles to the kingdom, none shall be there. In their very palaces shall be thorns, and nettles, and brambles; for all among them that are ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... 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 boon companions ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... screech, much worse than my father when his legs were broken. And didn't everybody else roar and shout, and didn't I dance? Off I went right over the fat boy, who had tumbled down, up to the end of the field, then so bewildered was I with ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... comfortless than ever, after the luxuries she had grown accustomed to. Her mother and all the rest of them were sitting at dinner when Cherry opened the door. At the sound of the latch Mrs. Honey looked up, and gave one big screech. ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... mammals, such as mice, rats, and spermophiles or gophers. To the relief of the farmer, many birds feed upon these destructive little rodents. The Crow occasionally captures a mouse, while the Shrikes or Butcher-birds catch a great many. The Screech Owl feeds largely upon mice. The Red-tailed Hawk is called the Hen-hawk or Chicken-hawk by most farmers, but this is very unfair to the bird, for its principal food is mice. In fact, most of the Hawks and Owls of the United States are really valuable friends of the farmer ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... to these young creatures 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 ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
... 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
... the world that was worth having, an hundred and twenty millions of people under the wings of that one eagle. Where is she now? Ask Gibbon, the historian, in his prose poem, the "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." Ask her gigantic ruins straggling their sadness through the ages, the screech owl at windows out of which world-wide conquerors looked. Ask the day of judgment when her crowned debauchees, Commodus and Pertinax, and Caligula and Diocletian, shall answer for their infamy? As men and as nations ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... 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 ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... grew in the earth beneath his feet and in the blackness of the vaulting overhead. Terror was in him, for his blasphemy would bring death to Darion. But the vision of Dura-ki was in him too, giving strength to tortured muscles. The bolts came away with a metallic screech, piercing against ...
— Bride of the Dark One • Florence Verbell Brown
... 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 ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton
... the pipes, who is performing incessantly in the next room for the benefit of a probationary minstrel, whose pipes scream a la distance, as the young hoarse cock-chicken imitates the gallant and triumphant screech of a ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... he "nuver paid signs no mind—nuver paid no 'tention to all dem 'stitions an' sich lak." He didn't have any superstitions to tell only he did hear "ef a screech owl fly 'cross yo' do' hits er sign of a death in dat house, an' ef a whippowill calls at de' do' hit's er sign of death. Dat's what folks say, I don't know ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... things; now, he was like an old man, longing for death but afraid to lose his life. There were stars above him, but no moon, and the tall trunks of the trees stood up like black phantoms before him, moaning and crying in the wind. He could hear the screech-owls hooting in the dark, and the lonely yelp of a dog ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... burdocks, and the other fuming acid. Other side dishes, of turtles, rats, bats and moles, were garnished with live coals. For the fish course he ate a dish of snakes in boiling tar and pitch. His roast was a screech owl in a sauce of glowing brimstone. The salad proved to be spider webs full of small explosive squibs, a plate of butterfly wings and manna worms, a dish of toads surrounded with flies, crickets, grasshoppers, church beetles, ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... red hot. He was not the kind of a man to make a good eavesdropper, and he wished he had knocked sooner. He pulled himself together and struck the door like a battering ram. Mary jumped and opened it with a screech. ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... 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 wages open war against ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... proceeds, in her placid voice, to enumerate for the hundredth time her reasons for happiness, her renown, her genius, her beauty, all men at her feet, the handsomest, the most powerful; oh! yes, the most powerful, for that very day—But an ominous screech, a heart-rending wail from the jackal, maddened by the monotony of her desert, suddenly makes the studio windows rattle and sends the terrified old chrysalis back ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... throat-splitting screech of rage and hate, Bat twisted to safety between her boots. She pressed with thumb and forefinger, firing at the spacealls. The material turned to powdery flakes of ash—except for certain bits which still flapped from the scorched seat—as if something had protected them from the force of the ...
— All Cats Are Gray • Andre Alice Norton
... perches, before they saw a bear walk into the brush on one side of the valley. We waited quietly, in the midst of mosquitoes, but nothing came in sight. It was already after 10 o'clock, and so dark that the men gave up their watch, and came down to join me. Suddenly we heard a sharp screech up the stream, and when it was repeated, Vacille said it must be a young bear crying because its mother would not feed it fast enough. Here Vacille did some ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... 'bout half-way to the place whar the fox-grapes tuck holt o' the cyprus, when I was stopped by a sound far more terrefic than the screech o' the eagles. It was the creakin' an' crashin' o' timber along wi' that unairthly rumblin' ye may hear when the banks o' the Massissippi be a cavin' in, as they war then. I ked see the trees that stood atween ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... dyin' day. The men used to be stripped to the waist and tied on a triangle and walloped till they was cut to pieces, till they screamed like little children for mercy, and poor old wretches that had roamed the world for sixty years used to screech Mother! Mother! like little children. It was heart-renderin'! An' what used they be flogged for, do you think?—for the piggishness of the swells mostly. I'll tell you. There was a old feller lived out ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... 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' ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... snake rattle his self in the box, and he stepped on my prairie dog and yelled murder, and he got into my box of horned toads, and my young badger scratched dad's bare feet, and a young eagle I had began to screech, and dad began to have a fit. He said the air seemed fixed, and he opened the window, and sat on the window sill in his night shirt, and a fireman came up a ladder from the outside and turned the hose on dad, then the police came and broke in the door, and the landlord was along, and the porter, ...
— Peck's Bad Boy With the Cowboys • Hon. Geo. W. Peck
... point. The point is that I had no idea that iron traction engine wanted to marry my daughter or anybody's daughter. The tactless beast got up steam and proposed for her the day after I had offered him the living. He had never given so much as a preliminary screech on the subject, never blown a horn to show what his horrid intentions were—I only hope that if I had known I should still have had the moral courage to appoint him. The Archbishop assures me I should—but I doubt it. I was loudly accused ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... ten thousand steps, which led downward to the centre of the earth, and the only light was that which came from a number of lofty lamps, reflected in a lake of quicksilver. This lake teemed with monsters, each of which was hideous enough to have terrified one far less timid than the queen. Ravens, screech-owls, and many another bird of evil omen filled the air with harsh cries. Far off could be espied a mountain, from the slopes of which there flowed the tears of all hapless lovers. Its sluggish stream was fed ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... the huckster's drawling call seemed the subtones of a strangely beautiful oratorio of nature into which every sound of earth had softly melted. Even the roar of the elevated trains on Sixth Avenue and the screech of their wheels as the cars turned the corner of the filthy street in the rear were music. A secret joy filled the world. Nothing could break its spell—not even the devilish incessant rattle of the machine hammers flattening ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... wait here. To tell you the truth, I have a queer feeling that scares me, makes my flesh creep. While I was straining the milk just now, a screech-owl flew on the top of the dairy, and its awful death-warning almost froze the blood in my veins. How I do wish Miss Elise was here! I hope it is not a sign of a railroad accident to her, or that the vessel is ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... control of an Oriental spirit, held her bared hands and arms in the flames of a large coal oil lamp. She also heated lamp chimneys and handled them as readily as she would in their normal condition, and made several gentlemen cringe and some ladies screech by slightly touching them with the hot glass. The test was made under supervision of a committee of doctors and well known physicians, who reported at the conclusion that previous to its commencement they examined the lady's hands and arms, and that they were in their natural condition, and that ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, May 1887 - Volume 1, Number 4 • Various
... once," said Dan triumphantly. "I dreamt old Peg Bowen chased me. I thought I was up to her house and she took after me. You bet I scooted. And she caught me—yes, sir! I felt her skinny hand reach out and clutch my shoulder. I let out a screech—and woke up." ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the flitting Esmeralda, whose goal appeared to be the cupboard, into which she attempted to propel her huge bulk; but as the shelves were but nine or ten inches apart, she only succeeded in getting her head in; whereupon, with a final screech, which paled the jungle noises into ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... have known the shooting of a star spoil a night's rest; and have seen a man in love grow pale and lose his appetite, upon the plucking of a merry-thought. A screech owl at midnight has alarmed a family more than a band of robbers; nay, the voice of a cricket hath struck more terror than ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... Burt, "that your range of topics is even more sublime. From Sir Mephitis to romantic moonlight and lofty musings, no doubt, which ended with a screech-owl." ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... the words out of my mouth before the deck gave a mighty leap, a hot wind that seemed half of flame blew across my face, and the roar started the pain throbbing in my ears. At the same instant the screech of shot sounded overhead, we heard the sharp crack-crack of wood rending and splitting,—as with a great broadaxe,—and a medley of blocks and ropes rattled to the deck with the 'thud of the falling bodies. Then, instead of stillness, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... on the Mississippi—whar you run the chance of getting busted up regular every trip—and thar I turned out of my cabin slick for anything, so I wer able to help miss, har, in shaking down that dreadful old screech-owl yander, and plaster ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... 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 ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... horsemen, and indeed everything heralded its approach at a great distance. She missed the stillness of the hills, for on the night air were the barking of dogs, whinny of horses, lowing of cattle, the song of a night-prowling negro, and now and then the screech of a peacock. She missed Jason wretchedly, too, for there had been so much talk of him during the day, and she went to sleep with her lashes wet with tears. Some time during the night she was awakened by pistol-shots, and her dream of ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... discharge these fiddlers. Fellow-musicians, we are sorry that it hath been your ill-hap to have had us in your company, that are nothing but screech-owls and night-ravens, able to mar the purest melody: and, besides, our company is so ominous that, where we are, thence liberality is packing. Our resolution is therefore to wish you well, and to bid you farewell. Come, Studioso, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... "They'd not screech that way for the judges, my boy. It's the traversers—that's Dan and the rest of 'em. They're coming into court. Thank God, they'll soon be ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... and light wagon, with a chest and pillowcase, and proceeded punctually with his wife to find the hidden treasure. When they had gone as far as they could with the wagon, Joseph took the pillow-case and started for the rock. Upon passing a fence a host of devils began to screech and to scream, and make all sorts of hideous yells, for the purpose of terrifying him and preventing the attainment of his object; but Joseph was courageous and pursued his way in spite of them. Arriving at the stone, he again lifted it with ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... chivalrous man, upon whom he could always implicitly rely when his military duties prevented him from looking after them. On the day preceding the start Heideck was at tiffin with the Colonel, and coming events were being discussed in a serious manner, when from outside the dull screech of an automobile's horn caught their ears. Two minutes later, covered with dust and with his face a dark red from the heat, an officer appeared on the verandah who introduced himself as Captain ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... I asked, as the cry resounded again, a piercing screech of pain ending in a long yowl ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... instant there was a clattering of the plated hide, and that armed tail lashed out with lightning swiftness, like a porcupine's. There was a tearing screech from the rash flesh-eater, and he was plucked back sidewise, all four feet in air, deeply impaled on three of those gigantic spines. While he clawed and writhed, struggling to twist himself free, his companion sprang hardily to the rescue. She hurled herself ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... and favourites of Rome, This melancholy desert where we meet, Resembleth well young Marius' restless thoughts. Here dreadful silence, solitary caves, No chirping birds with solace singing sweetly, Are harbour'd for delight; but from the oak, Leafless and sapless through decaying age, The screech-owl chants her fatal-boding lays. Within my breast care, danger, sorrow dwell; Hope and revenge sit hammering in my heart: The baleful babes of angry Nemesis Disperse their ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... the pack forthwith led; and, no sooner have they reached it, than the wagging of their sterns clearly shows how genuine is their breed. Old Strumpet, at length, first looking up in Tom's face for applause, ventures to send forth a long-drawn howl, which, coupled with Tom's screech, setting the rest agog, away they all go, like beans; and the wind, fortunately setting towards Westerham, bears the melodious sound to the delighted ears of our "roadsters," who, forthwith catching the infection, ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... seeming protest at wearing its life away in endless journeyings over this desert waste, then settled down into one of those maddeningly monotonous reiterations to which certain inanimate things are given in seasons of nervous tension. This time it was: "All the world's—a stage—creak—screech—all—the world's a stage—creak—screech!" over and over till Mary found herself fast succumbing to the hypnotic effect of the constant repetition, listening for it, even, with the tyrannous eagerness of overwrought nerves, when the stage-driver ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... squirrels. Sometimes a particularly doughty woodsman would report that there were wildcat tracks about his trap; but none of us ever saw a wildcat, though Enoch Haver, whose father's father had heard a wildcat scream, and had taught the boy its cry, would hide in a hollow sycamore and screech until the little boys were terrified and would not go alone to their traps for days. In summer, boys, usually from the country, or from a neighbouring town, caught 'coons, and dragged them chained through alleys for our boys to see, and 'Dory Paine ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... yet all calm around, A pulseless silence, dread, profound, More awful than the tempest's sound. The diver steered for ORMUS' bowers, And moored his skiff till calmer hours; The sea-birds with portentous screech Flew fast to land;—upon the beach The pilot oft had paused, with glance Turned upward to that wild expanse;— And all was boding, drear and dark As her own soul when HINDA'S bark Went slowly from the Persian shore.— No music timed her parting oar,[244] ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... about Kookooskoos that night when I watched to find out what had struck me. I found out why he hoots. Sometimes, if he is a young owl, he hoots for practice, or to learn how; and then he makes an awful noise of it, a rasping screech, before his voice deepens. And if you are camping near and are new to the woods, the chances are that you lie awake and shiver; for there is no other sound like it in the wilderness. Sometimes, when you climb to his nest, he has ...
— Wilderness Ways • William J Long
... "They'll screech if I get up now," he thought. "Nothin' for it but to lay here till it's over. Wal', ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... canoes, hewn from trees and laden with oranges and bananas. In the stern stood a dark native wielding an enormous paddle with ease. Wild-fowl dotted the glassy expanse; white cranes and pink flamingoes graced the reedy bars; red-breasted kingfishers flew over with friendly screech. The salt breeze kissed my cheek; the sun shone with the comfortable warmth Northerners welcome in spring; from over the white sand-dunes far below came the faint ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... of the widow's syncope, bethought himself of assafoetida; and, taking down a goodly bottle of that sweet-smelling stimulant, gave the widow the benefit of the whole jar under her nose. Scarcely had the stopper been withdrawn, when she gave a louder screech than she had yet executed, and exclaiming "Faugh!" with an expression of the most concentrated disgust, opened her eyes fiercely upon the offender, and shut up her nose between her forefinger and thumb against the offence, and snuffled forth at the astonished boy, "Get ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... and Stedman joined in the conversation, and endeavored to make this midnight volley of talk the occasion for a treaty. This was received with inextinguishable laughter, which echoed through the woods like a concert of screech-owls, ending in a charivari of horns and hallooing. The colonel, persisting, offered them "life, liberty, victuals, drink, and all they wanted;" in return, they ridiculed him unmercifully. He was a half-starved ...
— Black Rebellion - Five Slave Revolts • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... (1) The screech-owl, whose cry, despite his ill name, is one o the sweetest sounds in nature, softens his voice in the same way with the most ...
— My Garden Acquaintance • James Russell Lowell
... pinned forcibly against the rack by acceleration, as Donna made the ship dodge aside. From one side, he heard a screech of grating metal. The fresh missiles must have jammed halfway out of ...
— This World Must Die! • Horace Brown Fyfe
... devils in that gal last night, from the way she carr'd on. And now she lays there jest as peaceful as a new-born babe,—that is, accordin' to the sayin' about 'em; for as to peaceful new-born babes, I never see one that come t' anything, that did n't screech as ef the haouse was afire 'n' it wanted to call all the fire-ingines ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... avenged. The hen, feverish and unhappy from the loss of her hope of progeny, had gone to the but to sip a little water. Tommy, appearing on the wall above her, startled her. She, flying up with a screech, startled Tommy, and became ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... said Strout. "In the old days, kings and queens and princes used to search for modest merit, and when found they rewarded it. Nowadays modest merit has to holler and yell and screech to make ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... salute for the Admiral, and here's to the Captain bold, And never forget the Commodore's debt when the deeds of might are told! They stand to the deck through the battle's wreck when the great shells roar and screech— And never they fear when the foe is near to practise what they preach: But off with your hat and three times three for Columbia's true-blue sons, The men below who batter the foe—the ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... 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 |
