"Screeching" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his attention to a boy, and falling into raptures with a boy when he ought to be enchanted with a girl. Then the dessert comes, and there is a vast deal of scrambling after fruit, and sudden spirting forth of juice out of tight oranges into infant eyes, and much screeching and wailing in consequence. At length it becomes time for Mrs. Whiffler to retire, and all the children are by force of arms compelled to kiss and love Mr. Saunders before going up-stairs, except Tom, who, lying on his back in the hall, proclaims that Mr. Saunders 'is a naughty ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... challenge, for round the bole of this tree peeped the pallid oval of a face; thrice I summoned, and getting no answer, levelled and fired point-blank, the report of my piece waking a thousand echoes and therewith a chattering and screeching from the strange beasts that stirred in the denser woods about me; and there (maugre my shot), there, I say, was the face peering at me evilly as before. But now something in its stark and utter stillness clutched me with new dread ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... howlings echoing through the forest. Numerous macaws passed above us, giving vent to strange harsh cries; while whole families of parrots screamed in various notes. Cicadas set up the most piercing chirp, becoming shriller and shriller, till it ended in a sharp screeching whistle. Other creatures—birds, beasts, and insects—added their voices to the concert, till the whole forest seemed in an uproar. As the sky grew darker, and the shades of night came thickly round us, the noises gradually ceased, but were soon succeeded by the drumming, hoohooing, and ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... when we emerged suddenly into the highroad. A flash of lights and the whir of a motor went past us at the same moment at uncomfortably close quarters. A thud and a sharp screeching yell followed a second later. The car drew up, and when I had ridden back to the spot I found a young man bending over a dark motionless mass lying ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... hears it crying, In the shape of an owl or bat, And she'll bring us our darling Anna In place of her screeching brat." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... high, with all sorts of odd characters in it: a clown, with his "Here we are again!" playing pranks on two sedate-looking Chinamen; a little fairy boy or girl, flirting with a magician; dragons snapping; strange birds screeching; three bears, one playing a violin, but the tune it plays is drowned by the hubbub of noise and bands. A lady, of the time of Elizabeth, gorgeous in ruffles, follows on horseback. Then knights in armour, one of them with a stuffed 'possum snarling ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... darting monster. And monster it was, for this rooster stood no less than three feet in height and appeared more ferocious than a large turkey. Old Crompton had his shopping bag, a large one of burlap which he always carried to town, and he summoned enough courage to throw it over the head of the screeching, over-sized fowl. So tangled did the panic-stricken bird become that it was a comparatively simple matter to effect his capture, and the old man rose to his feet triumphant with the bag securely closed over ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... clock in High Street was only just chiming Eight; while the ships' bells over the water were repeating the same piece of information in various tones and the shrill steam whistle from the dockyard workshops hard by screeching its confirmation of ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... deep wicker chair and breathed in the glory and the freshness of the scene. Across the broad river, right ahead of the boat, a flock of parroquets was flying, screeching their raucous chorus. The sun caught their brilliant plumage, and she saw, as it ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... swans, chattering of jays, peeping of chickens, singing of larks, creaking of geese, chirping of swallows, clucking of moorfowls, cucking of cuckoos, bumbling of bees, rammage of hawks, chirming of linnets, croaking of ravens, screeching of owls, whicking of pigs, gushing of hogs, curring of pigeons, grumbling of cushat-doves, howling of panthers, curkling of quails, chirping of sparrows, crackling of crows, nuzzing of camels, wheening of whelps, buzzing of dromedaries, mumbling ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... the morning of Palm Sunday I heard the sharp sound of a screeching fife, the metallic clash of cymbals, the shouts of boys, the rattle of a little drum. It was the rataplan beating before a troop of wrestlers and jugglers who were traversing the Marche and Reggio Emilia. The troop stationed themselves in a little square burnt by the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... ride out with us. I really felt afraid of him, but Mrs. O'Shaughnessy thinks herself a match for any mere man, so she drew up and the man climbed in. He took the lines and we snuggled down under the robes and listened to the runners, shrill screeching over the frozen surface. ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... Continue your trade. Mix and knead together all the state business as you do for your sausages. To win the people, always cook them some savoury that pleases them. Besides, you possess all the attributes of a demagogue; a screeching, horrible voice, a perverse, cross-grained nature and the language of the market-place. In you all is united which is needful for governing. The oracles are in your favour, even including that of Delphi. Come, take ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... sentimental indiscretions concerning his marriage and his sorrows and quarrels, and his impenetrable reserve about himself as displayed in his published correspondence. He writes to his family about waiters, about hotels, about screeching tumblers of hot brandy and water, and about the seasick man in the next berth, but never one really intimate word, never a real confession of his soul. David Copperfield is a failure as an autobiography because when he comes to deal with the grown-up ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... grew, thickened by tales of lights that had been seen moving mysteriously in the woods of Craffroe. Even the hounds were subpoenaed as witnesses; Patsey Crimmeen's mother stating that for three nights after Patsey had seen that Thing they were singing and screeching to ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... VASHTI and laying her hand on her.] I'll put summat in your mouth as'll stop you if you start screeching, mother. Why, hark you here. 'Tis enough of this old place as I've had this night, and 'tis out upon the roads as I be going. Th' old woman— there's naught much changed in she—And Steve—well, Steve be ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... screeching woman with no control over your tongue?" I exclaimed angrily, panting for breath. "'T is likely that priest will rouse the tribe, and we shall have a run for it. What caused you ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... piece of stray wire sprang from some hole and hung caracoling about my ankle. Tin cans spun from my stride. But we made a conspicuous race. Two of us waved hats, and there was no moment that some one of us was not screeching. It meant twenty-four ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... to come back, whether or no," said Mr Winterbones, screeching out of the window, and putting all his ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... amid deafening uproar it clattered to and fro, growing thinner and flatter and longer. The ingot seemed almost a living thing; it did not want to run this mad course, but it was in the grip of fate, it was tumbled on, screeching and clanking and shivering in protest. By and by it was long and thin, a great red snake escaped from purgatory; and then, as it slid through the rollers, you would have sworn that it was alive—it writhed and squirmed, ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... on their migratory flight; they were plodding steadily on against a stormy southerly breeze, spread out like a line of skirmishers, not very high, but at a good distance apart; there was none of the wild dashing about and screeching which one usually connects with the flight of the Swift, but a steady business-like flight; they went a little to the eastward of our course in the steamer, and this would have brought them to land in ...
— Birds of Guernsey (1879) • Cecil Smith
... I was fastened to the wall by a chain and there I was disciplined once every other day for the first three weeks, and then I was left to myself, and my chain, and hunger; and there I sat in the dungeon, sometimes screeching, sometimes holloaing, for I soon became frighted, having nothing in the cell to divert me. At last the cook found his way to me by stealth, and comforted me a little, bringing me tidbits out of the kitchen; and he visited me again and again—not ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... you have hit it. Eve, who openly quizzed her brother, but secretly adored him, and loved to display all his accomplishments, had egged on Mr. Fountain to ask David to bring his violin next time. Lucy had shivered internally. "Now, of all the screeching, whining things that I dislike, a violin!"—and thus thinking, gushed out, "Oh, pray do, Mr. Dodd," with a gentle warmth that settled the matter and imposed ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... perhaps I'd jammed the door without closing it, and it had blowed open with the wind. But when I got inside I heered something like moaning. I thought that might be the wind too, for it's for ever screeching up and down the passages like a devil, specially o' nights. I—" He stopped suddenly, with a cautious sidelong look ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... a pigeon, and is of a mottled brown colour; but what I call it curious for is this:—Whenever it sees any creature passing from place to place, it mounts up into the air, and hovers above them, keeping up a constant screeching, like the squalling of a child—and that's anything but agreeable. It does so, not only in the neighbourhood of its nest—like the plover and some other birds—but it will sometimes follow a travelling party for hours together, and for miles across ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... to do so. The deadly tubes were not used. The screeching gargoyles, instead, devoted all their efforts to merely hurling their attenuated bodies on the two men as though they wished to capture ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst
... louder 265 Rose from the darkened field The braying of the war-horns, The clang of sword and shield, The rush of squadrons sweeping Like whirlwinds o'er the plain, The shouting of the slayers, 270 And screeching of the slain. ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson
... placed a guard. The officers bad been so completely bewildered by the suddenness of the affair, that their wits had been exercised in an extraordinary direction. They had commenced firing Hale's rockets while we were in advance pursuing the enemy, and a couple of these screeching projectiles had ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... steps and with an expression of horror and astonishment. Down in the court the grimy-nosed little brats were screeching, as they wheeled hand in hand round the sewer-grating—it was splendid ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... and when the place was cleared they reascended to the furnace-chamber, when, upon another trial being made, it was found that the weights so accurately balanced the bridge that with very little exertion the chains came screeching and groaning over the iron rollers, and the men gave a cheer as the end rose up and up till it was drawn very nearly up to the face ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... cackling tones from his thin lips, through which shone a few fanglike teeth. By some incomprehensible cooerdination of muscular movements he contrived to make sound simultaneously his curious armoury of instruments, and the whistling, screeching, scratching, drumming, wheezing, and tinkling of metal were appalling. But it was rhythmic, and at intervals the edge of a tune could be discerned, cutting sharply through the dense cloud of vibrations, like the prow of a boat cleaving the fog. Baki, his face red and swollen by his ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... on the same side of it and pushed with all their strength. The chest moved a little and made a horrible screeching ...
— The Spartan Twins • Lucy (Fitch) Perkins
... terrace was waterlogged and as he went down it slowly, choosing his steps amid heaps of wet rubbish, he heard a mad nun screeching in the nuns' ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... Mattie to her feet in an unknown terror; it brought Red from the barn in a full cognizance—he had heard that sound before, when a mad coyote landed in a cabin-full of fairly strong nerved cowmen, and set them screeching like hysterical women before a ...
— Red Saunders • Henry Wallace Phillips
... me. God in Heaven! I died a hundred deaths in that old ruin. Once a shell hit what roof there was and a score of bricks came crashing about me. Not one touched. I seemed charmed. I could hear the shells screeching through the air a second before they burst near where I lay. Of bodily pain I had little. The discomfort was great; the thirst was appalling. I thought I should bleed to death before help reached me. But there was nothing to compare with the mental strain of waiting—waiting—waiting ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... but not drown; his design is to disturb the good wark, by raising wonder and confusion in your minds; to put off from your spirits all that ye hae heard and felt.'—Sae we let go the rape," said David, "and he went adown the water screeching and bullering like a Bull of Bashan, as ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... the Renault soared into the air. There was a shout, a slight swaying as the trailing hooves struck the heads of mucketeers who had been stupid enough not to duck, and the vehicle landed with a screeching lurch, upright, on the other side of the Ford. Nor did ...
— Rastignac the Devil • Philip Jose Farmer
... sombre hue of evening fell full on the rocks, which rose in magnificent grandeur, and seemed to look with contempt on all around them. These beauties, combined with the gray tint of the stone, the cawing of the rooks, which nestle in the crevices and underwood, with now and then the screeching of the night-owl,—were such as would make the most cold and indifferent acknowledge the delight to be enjoyed in the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 333 - Vol. 12, Issue 333, September 27, 1828 • Various
... testament, and the old testament, and hugging and smugging. And the two shawls killed with the laughing, picking his pockets, the bloody fool and he spilling the porter all over the bed and the two shawls screeching laughing at one another. How is your testament? Have you got an old testament? Only Paddy was passing there, I tell you what. Then see him of a Sunday with his little concubine of a wife, and she ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... therefore no option but to pass the night well above the jungle perils in the suapattah hut, like a cockatoo screeching defiance at a cat from the safety of its perch; and to which safety you climb almost flat on your face by means of a rocking, slender bamboo ladder, and with about as much grace as a monkey ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... out to them to take themselves off or they would be sorry for it; and when they saw us bringing our rifles to our shoulders, they put spurs to their horses, and galloped away to a distance of some five hundred yards. There they halted, and set up such a screeching as almost deafened us, fired off some of their old rusty guns, and then rode away. We all laughed at their bragging and cowardice, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... West—stopped down to Rat Portage![1] Well, anyways, good luck to ye both; but ef ye don't git it, young fellers, don't ye go blamin' me, by Jupiter!" He cracked his whip. "Come up out o' that, ye God-forsaken old skates!" And, mud-caked wheels screeching, tin pans banging and glaring, he jolted back to the trail that led away in distance to No Place ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... the first of the fifth, with two out, Prince met one of Ken's straight ones hard and fair and drove the ball into the bleachers for a home-run. That solid blue-and-gold square of Place supporters suddenly became an insane tossing, screeching melee. ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... that his private life was pure; that his home life was good and kind and true, and all the charges made and howled and screeched and printed and sworn to harmed only those who did the making and the howling, the screeching and the swearing. I never knew a man in whose perfect integrity I had more perfect confidence, and in less than one year even the men who have slandered ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... no more than started when the squire gave a great, screeching howl and sprang from his chair and staggered backward, his eyes popped and the pouch under his chin quivering as though it had a separate life all its own. Startled, the constable made toward him and they struck together heavily and went down—both on their all ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... undesirable but conduct the slightest sound. Rachael's room adjoined her mother's. She knew that the older woman was as uneasily awake as herself, though from vastly different manifestations of the same cause. At four o'clock, when the guinea fowl were screeching like demons, and had awakened the roosters and the dogs to swell the infernal chorus of a West Indian morning, Rachael sat up in bed ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... them. Here a young woman, who had been stooping down digging potatoes, started up. "I was, of course," he continues, "naked, my head excepted. She was, or appeared to be, excessively frightened, and ran towards a house, screeching and screaming at every step." Hawkins ran in the other direction, and got safely away. At last the poor boy found another barn, and lay, that night, upon a heap of flax. After sunrise next morning he concluded to go on his way. "I could see the farmers at their labor ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... themselves dry, that since No sun or moon, or other cheerful star, Looked out of heaven, but all the cope was dark As it were hung so for her exequies! And not a voice or sound to ring her knell But of that dismal pair, the screeching owl And buzzing hornet! Hark! hark! hark! the foul Bird! how she flutters with her wicker wings! Peace! you ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... inland, they, however, quickly found themselves in the midst of hundreds of birds, when they began to lay about them right and left, knocking over vast numbers; those they missed only poking out their long necks, and quacking and screeching at them. ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... Unorna's surprised face with delight. "Did I not tell you that I was going to make love to you? That I was old and hideous and had everything against me? That it was all a comedy for your amusement? That there was to be nothing but deception from beginning to end? That I was like a decrepit owl screeching at the moon, and many other ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... now, sir. That wasn't Donna Roma. It was the little Princess Bellini. She is always stretching her neck and screeching like an old ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... screeching cry, which was followed by a sound of wildly beating wings. Sin Sin Wa, hands tucked in sleeves, turned and walked from the inner room, closing the sliding door behind him with a movement ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... "Nothing here to steal! Why'd he stand there like that?" Every night she had expected him to say something, but he never did. Instead, he would take a long breath, almost like a sigh, and, after closing his eyes for a moment, he would move into the room and light the screeching gas-jet. "Never thought of turning down the gas." This, particularly, was a sore point with Great Taylor. "Never thought of anything. Just dropped ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... armed were there to guard their women; the flags of all the crafts were on the wind; the priests carried blessed banners; so with this goodly company, and her confessor, and her father's old kinswoman, Elliot rode away. The jackanapes was screeching on her saddle- bow, her yellow hair was lifted on her shoulder with the light breeze; her father rode the first two stages with them. Merry enough they seemed that went, and the bells were chiming, but I was left alone, my heart empty, or only full of useless longings. I betook ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... town. And then one evening when she was least watchful and tired from the long day's sport, a glaring red motor came honking unexpectedly around the corner. So sudden was its appearance, so startling its body in the sunset light, so shrill its screeching siren, that the young horse reared. And ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... thee makes thy flesh to tremble, and thine hair ready to stand upright on thy head. But O! what wilt thou do, when not only the supposition of the devils appearing, but the real society of all the devils in hell will be with thee howling and roaring, screeching and roaring in such a hideous manner, that thou wilt be even at thy wits' end, and be ready to run stark mad again ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... He jabbed the knife at my face, screeching through gritted teeth. I jerked my head aside far enough that the scalpel grated along my cheekbone instead of slashing my mouth. I hardly ...
— Greylorn • John Keith Laumer
... decay, The many clouds, the sea, the rock, the sands, Lie in the silent moonshine: and the owl, (Strange! very strange!) the scritch-owl only wakes! Sole voice, sole eye of all this world of beauty! Unless, perhaps, she sing her screeching song To a herd of wolves, that skulk athirst for blood. Why such a thing am I?—Where are these men? I need the sympathy of human faces, To beat away this deep contempt for all things, Which quenches my revenge. O! would to Alla, The raven, or the sea-mew, were appointed To bring ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... man," Jan would cry. And Abel did so, bit by bit, to Jan's dictation. Thus "Make's head. Make un round. Make two eyes. Make a nose. Make a mouth. Make's arms. Make's fingers," etc. And, with some "free-handling," Abel would strike the five fingers off, one by one, in five screeching strokes of the slate-pencil. But his art was conventional, and when Jan said, "Make un a miller's thumb," he was puzzled, and could only bend the shortest of the five strokes slightly backwards to represent ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... of bed at six o'clock that same morning he heard surprising sounds outside. Slipping on his clothes he went to the window and looked out. Men were yelling at one another, screeching delightful oaths, capering about hatless, coatless, in the rain that still came steadily down. The corral yard was a mire of sticky mud in which the horses reared and plunged in evident appreciation of the welcome change from dry heat to lifegiving ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... path through booths and carriages and throngs of people, and never once stopped to look behind. The bell was ringing and the course was cleared by the time they reached the ropes, but they dashed across it insensible to the shouts and screeching that assailed them for breaking in upon its sanctity, and creeping under the brow of the hill at a quick pace, made for ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... the ground and the lower branches of the trees, but vouchsafing no song. In the same woodland the mountain jays held carnival—a bacchanalian revel, judging from the noise they made; the ruby-crowned kinglets piped their galloping roundels; a number of wood-pewees—western species—were screeching, thinking themselves musical; siskins were flitting about, though not as numerous as they had been in the piny regions below Gray's Peak; and here for the first time I saw olive-sided flycatchers among the mountains. I find by consulting Professor Cooke that ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... Izan grumbled, "'tis the brat of a scatter-brained woman—Kate, wife to Howel the mason. She came screeching at me saying the babe was a changeling I had left in place of her child of two years, and I should care for it. I have no mind for the tending of babes at my time of life, but I could not let the creature starve. Natheless 'tis but ill fed, for my cow was lost in the marsh, and none will let me have ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... about and screeching, always playing and fighting, always skip—skip—skipping on the pavement, and chalking it for their games! Oh—I know their tricks and their manners!" Shaking the little fist as before. "And that's not all. Ever so often calling names in through a person's keyhole, and imitating ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... brawling and swearing, the rude songs and disorderly shouts, the drumming of clenched fists upon the oak tables, the wild laughter of drunken soldiers, the giggling and screeching of bar-maids, and the scolding and imperious commands of the host, they proved that the green bush had not lied, for the wine really did come from a freshly opened cask just brought up from the cellar. But as the niche was illumined only by the tiny oil lamp burning beneath the image ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... shore I frequently saw clumsy carts moving at a snail-like pace between the villages. Each cart had its wheels fixed on an axle that generally turned with them. Frequently there was a lack of grease, and the screeching of the vehicle was ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... would have carried out their sinister intention, but for Judas Iscariot. Seized with a mad fear for Jesus, as though he already saw the drops of ruby blood upon His white garment, Judas threw himself in blind fury upon the crowd, scolding, screeching, beseeching, and lying, and thus gave time and opportunity to Jesus and ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... talked to them in a soothing voice and told them there wasn't any danger. But nobody thought of talking to old dog Spot. Every one forgot about him. And he was just as badly frightened as the bays, especially when a terrible tooting and screeching burst forth. ...
— The Tale of Old Dog Spot • Arthur Scott Bailey
... for the "zero" hour. Exactly at the designated time the artillery opened. It was as though all the hounds of hell were let loose. Such a wailing and screeching and hissing as filled the air, from the eighteen-pounders ("whizz-bangs"), which seemed to just shave our own parapet, to the gigantic missiles from the "How-guns," as the Howitzers are affectionately called, each with its own peculiar noise. ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride
... bottle; and when one horseman would cross another, striving to have the whip hand of him when they'd set off, why you see, his horse would get a cut of the whip itself for his pains. My uncle and I, however, did all we could to pacify them; and their own bad horsemanship, and the screeching of the women, prevented any strokes at that time. Some of them were ripping up ould sores against one another as they went along; others, particularly the youngsters, with their sweethearts behind them, coorting away for the life of them, and some might be heard miles ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... a mighty, hideous, screeching burst of noise, hundreds of guns spoke. The men in the front trenches were deafened by the sharp reports of the field-guns spitting out their shells at close range to cut through the Germans' barbed wire entanglements. ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... danced ... we all danced and howled in Indian disharmony ... wailing ... screeching ... falling ... getting up again ... when I danced and leaped the world resumed its order ... when I stood still or sat down plump, the trees took up the gyrations where I had left off, and went about in solemn, ringing circles ... green and ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... impression, he took hold of one of the hazels above his head, and, trusting to old forest recollections in the days when he had hunted rabbits with Fred Forrester, he shook the bough above him so as to make a sharp rustling noise, and uttered with his compressed lips a sharp screeching sound such as is made by the little white-tailed furry denizen of the wood when trapped ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... Strong and Tom heard the hiss of the reactant mass feeding into the rocket motors, and the screeching whine of the mighty pumps that kept the mass from building ...
— Stand by for Mars! • Carey Rockwell
... locked into position and the entire arm split open in a "V" from its base. Martin pressed steadily on the two levers controlling each side of the divided arm and the tusks dug into the sides of the smashed window. There was a steady screeching of tearing and ripping metal as the crane tore window and frame apart. "Hold it," Ferguson yelled and then eased himself ...
— Code Three • Rick Raphael
... camp about 1,000 feet below the top, among the pines, with snow lying all around us, and in the night a flock of parrots flew screeching past the tents. I was surprised to find the temperature so mild; there was no ice on the water, not even at night. The aneroid showed the height of the top to be 10,266 feet (20.60 in. at a temperature ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... of reason, but a little out of season, And the proper tone of talking Mr. Fairman did restore, When he sneered at priests and preaching, and indorsed the Index teaching, And with philanthropic screeching, said he sought for evermore The light of sense and freedom into darkened minds to pour; ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... that Grumpy knew exactly what her son was crying for. But it is sure that as soon as she showed an inclination to go back into the pines, Johnny protested in such an outrageous and heart-rending screeching that his mother simply could not leave him, and he showed no sign of coming down ...
— Johnny Bear - And Other Stories From Lives of the Hunted • E. T. Seton
... are still in the big cabin at the end of the saloon where you left them when you went away, and, I'm afraid they are very ill indeed, for all the time the firing was going on overhead Madame was screeching and screaming, and I am sure I heard Monsieur groaning a good deal. He was doing so again just now, before I found my way upstairs to you, to find you, and to see what had happened, everything had become so suddenly still after all the noise, and—and—those—awful ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... the car rushed along, screeching around curves and banging over switches, Eleanor said, "I've come out here four times a week for four ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... putrid, and in the first stage of decomposition, from the action of the scorching rays of an August sun—surrounded by vultures and crows, and all species of carrion fowl; many of which, having gorged themselves on the horrid repast, were either sweeping overhead in large flocks, and screeching their funeral dirges, or wiping their bloody bills on the neighboring trees. Some of the bodies in the stream had been gnawed by fishes—others by wolves—and all had been so disfigured, by one means and another, ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... most interesting moment the successive bells and whistles are screeching, and the rapido is hurrying me away from Aranjuez. We are leaving a railway station, but presently it is as if we had set sail on a gray sea, with a long ground-swell such as we remembered from Old Castile. These innumerable pastures and wheat-fields are in New Castile, and ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... place horror upon the stoutest heart in the world; nor was it one scream or one cry, but the fright having seized her spirits, she—fainted first, then recovered, then ran all over the house, up the stairs and down the stairs, like one distracted, and indeed really was distracted, and continued screeching and crying out for several hours void of all sense, or at least government of her senses, and, as I was told, never came thoroughly to herself again. As to the young maiden, she was a dead corpse from that moment, for the ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe
... she's left th' stage. What 'ud be th' sense o' her painting her face and screeching her chest out night after night for a crowd o' blockheads, when I can keep her like a lady. Dost think her's a fool? Her's the only woman wi' any sense as ever I met in all ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... collecting into one body, came screeching like so many jackdaws, claiming in a rude manner the attention of the emperor himself, and of the prefects of the praetorium, and demanding the restoration of the contributions which they had been compelled to ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... redskins, who not only desire to kill him then and there, but have, further, the sportsman-like anxiety to strip his scalp, and hang the dearly-beloved trophy in some filthy lodge, where it will gradually dry up, and remain the most valued heirloom in the family of the "Big Snake," or the "Screeching Eagle," or some other no ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... the fact that there are few really qualified observers on this earth is the power of suggestion. About the time someone yells "UFO!" and points, all powers of reasoning come to a screeching halt. ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... around it at a proper distance; and every other necessary arrangement made; while we sat looking on, subject to the continual epithets of an old squaw, whose most consoling remarks were: "How will white man like to eat fire," and then she would break into a screeching laugh, which sounded perfectly hideous. A cold chill pervaded my frame as I gazed upon these ominous signs of death; but how often is our misery but the prelude of joy. At the moment that these horrid preparations were finished, a ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... and a panic was imminent; when all at once a stranger of reverend aspect and stately form, with white beard flowing on his bosom, appeared among them and took command with an air of authority which none could gainsay. He bade them charge on the screeching rabble, and after a short sharp skirmish the tawny foe was put to flight. When the pursuers came together again, after the excitement of the rout, their deliverer was not to be found. In their wonder, as they knew not whence he came or whither ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... valour; his thin voice darted in prolonged squeaks upon the sea, he tiptoed back and forth for the better emphasis of utterance, and suddenly pitched down head-first as though he had been clubbed from behind. He said 'Damn!' as he tumbled; an instant of silence followed upon his screeching: Jim and the skipper staggered forward by common accord, and catching themselves up, stood very stiff and still gazing, amazed, at the undisturbed level of the sea. Then they looked upwards at ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... night I find the grounds strung up with these Chinese lanterns, and I can not even sleep in my bed for the eternal brass bands at night; and in the daytime not a moment's quiet do I get for these infernal sonatas and screeching trills of the piano. I tell you plainly, I shall not stand this thing a day longer. I am master of Whitestone Hall yet, and while I live I shall have things my own way. After I die you can turn it into a pandemonium, for all ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... guess he named her rightly. There must be something altogether wrong with the poor creature to make her wander about these wet woods, screeching like a loon." ...
— Ruth Fielding Down East - Or, The Hermit of Beach Plum Point • Alice B. Emerson
... beautiful ducks were close about her, and that she was kissing each one somewhere with her great red bill. And then she saw that upon the bank a nervous, hysterical guinea-hen was tearing along, and in a voice like a carving-knife screeching aloud with terror. It went through Quackalina's bosom like a neuralgia, but she didn't mind it very much. Indeed, she forgot it instantly when she looked down upon her ducklings again, and she even forgot to think about it any more. And so it was that the beautiful ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... a hollow—the little circular copse was on the slope—and jays came to it as they worked from tree to tree across the park. Their screeching often echoed through the open casement of the gunroom. A faint mark on the sward trended towards this hollow; it was a trail made by the squire, one of whose favourite strolls was in this direction. This summer morning, taking his gun, he followed ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... blue and silver, and lit by a huge crystal chandelier—should be put at her disposal night and day; that the electric lights should be replaced with dozens of wax candles (after the manner of the ballrooms of her native Russia), and that her one-eyed companion, with his wicker cage of screeching parakeets, should come and go when and where and how he listed, and that an electric alarm bell be connected with her sleeping apartment ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... came whizzing into the room in a Palm Beach tricycle-chair trimmed with orchids and propelled by Peter Tappan; and from her seat amid the flowers she distributed favours—live white cockatoos, clinging, flapping, screeching on gilded wands; fans spangled with tiny electric jewels; parasols of pink silk set with incandescent lights; crystal cages containing great, pale-green Luna moths alive and fluttering; circus hoops of gilt filled with white tissue paper, through ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... terror split the midnight stillness. Shriek after shriek rent the air. Freund tumbled convulsively to the ground at his colonel's feet, gripping the officer's booted knees and screeching for protection. The colonel, raging that the surprise attack should be imperiled by such a racket, beat the frantic man over the mouth with his heavy fist, kicking ferociously at his upturned writhing face, and snarling ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... quaffing, now screeching now laughing, At my harp-strings tearing, and to madness nearing: That was the life I led, and which I yet do; For I will swear it, and to all the world declare it, If you would fain be happy, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... flight. Then she lifted the lower wire of the barbed fence. Pete crouched, and wiggled his flattened body through. Ben hadn't expected this—he turned and ran. The skurrying legs of the dog carried him quickly on after the fisherman. While Ben, screeching like a great night owl, hooted out his fear of the maddened dog, and yelled for Tess ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... wish you could take my place and know the unhappiness that is in my heart tonight!" said Matilda, "You would see that a lot of children screeching about the house with all their presents ...
— Friendly Fairies • Johnny Gruelle
... live in such close ties of friendship, it was necessary that my friend should have a name, and that he, too, should be able to address me by mine. The title, "Friend Parrot," was rather too formal, and his screeching at me in some unmeaning way every time he wanted me could ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... and shriek and bellow; and here they came roaring through the village like a hurricane, and took the funeral procession right in the center, and sent that section of it sprawling, and galloped over it, and the rest scattered apart and fled screeching in every direction, every person with a layer of bees on him, and not a rag of that funeral left but the corpse; and finally the bull broke for the river and jumped in, and when they fished Uncle Laxart out he was nearly drowned, and his face ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... in two lines, I found myself almost alone. . . . There was nobody in the house to join in my huzzahs but my youngest infant. And my conduct very much resembled that of the excellent Philip II. when he heard the fall of Antwerp,—for I went to her door, screeching through the key-hole 'Vicksburg is ours!' just as that other 'pere de famille,' more potent, but I trust not more respectable than I, conveyed the news to his Infanta. (Fide, for the incident, an American work on the Netherlands, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... with some difficulty, and led him outdoors where he looked about in vain for one of the cheap autos that served the town as taxicabs. There were only three or four of them, and none of these were in sight. The flat-wheeled street car had made its last screeching trip for the night. There was nothing for it but to take the Don by the arm and ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... days later, found us paddling down the first lake worthy of mention since leaving the Nascaupee River. The azure sky overhead shaded to a pearly blue at the horizon, with a fleecy cloud or two floating lazily across its face. The atmosphere was perfect in its purity, and only the sound of screeching gulls and the dip of our paddles disturbed the quiet of the wilderness. Lake Bibiquasin, as we shall call it, was five miles in length and nestled between ridges of low, moss-covered hills. It lay in ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... servants were scampering and screeching about the hall. Cobb caught hold of one of them and all but twisted her arm out of its socket. At his fierce command, the woman supported Louise into the garden, and thence, after a minute or two of faintness on the sufferer's part, led her to the gate of the neighbouring house. The people who ...
— The Paying Guest • George Gissing
... could see the cars jamming the roads leaving Washington. He could almost hear the noise, the screeching of brakes, the fistfights, the shouts, the blatting of horns. He moved south over open country, hoping to avoid the places where the 'copter might be spotted and stopped for questioning. He knew that Hart would have an alarm out for him by now, and he didn't dare risk being stopped until ...
— Bear Trap • Alan Edward Nourse
... lay like a green, drunken corpse. Kuno Kohn, who had made a formal reconciliation with Schulz, came as himself. Lisel Liblichlein also came with him, wearing a rustic outfit. The others scuttled back and forth wildly among themselves, screeching like Chinese, chimpanzees, Gods, nightwatchmen, sophisticates. The whole crowd from the Cafe Kloesschen ...
— The Prose of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein
... starling screeching in the eaves, because he wants to frighten us away, and take a worm to his children, without our finding out whereabouts his hole is. How does he know that we might hurt him? and how again does he not know that we shall ...
— Madam How and Lady Why - or, First Lessons in Earth Lore for Children • Charles Kingsley
... her head." John Indian, on such occasions, used to confine his achievements to tumbling, and rolling his ugly body about the floor. The deepest commiseration was felt by all for the "afflicted," and men and women rushed to hold and soothe them. There was, no doubt, much loud screeching, and some miscellaneous faintings, through the whole crowd. At length, by bringing the sufferers into contact with Goody Cloyse, the diabolical fluid passed back into her, they were all relieved, and the examination was resumed. Elizabeth Procter ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... to overcome the provocation to merriment by screeching; and as Bridget caught the sound of this tendency towards laughter between the screams, she thought it was the commencement of a fit of hysterics, and it accounted all the better ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... doctor's house. He lived out of the town, but the Hotel de la Fleur was on the edge of it, and we were quickly in the country. The broad road was shaded by pepper-trees, and on each side were the plantations, cocoa-nut and vanilla. The pirate birds were screeching among the leaves of the palms. We came to a stone bridge over a shallow river, and we stopped for a few minutes to see the native boys bathing. They chased one another with shrill cries and laughter, and their bodies, brown and wet, gleamed in ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... around it at a proper distance; and every other necessary arrangement made; while we sat looking on, subject to the continual epithets of an old squaw, whose most consoling remarks were: "How will white man like to eat fire," and then she would break out into a screeching laugh, which sounded perfectly hideous. A cold chill pervaded my frame as I gazed upon these ominous signs of death; but how often is our misery but the prelude of joy. At the moment that these horrid preparations ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... our means for the transport of water to eighteen gallons, with which we had a fair prospect of getting in all the horses, even though no more should be found on the route. Our camp was enlivened this evening by the continued screeching of a number of large bats, which kept up a vigorous fight in the trees overhead the greater part of the night, notwithstanding our shooting ten or twelve of them. They were very fat, but emitted such an intolerable ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... moment I was surrounded by a screeching, gesticulating crowd. I told my story as best I could; there was no turning back now from the path of cowardice and of crime. I saw that brute Dompierre pick up the largest roast capon from the front of his shop, together with ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... Harry had got such influence over that animal that when one day he was coaxing him out to lead him under some trees, and the mahout tried to stop him, Nabob makes no more ado, but lifts his great soft trunk, and rolls Mr Chunder Chow over into the grass, where he lay screeching like a parrot, and chattering like a monkey, rolling his opal eyeballs, and shewing his white teeth with fear, for he expected that Nabob was going to put his foot on him, and crush him to death, as is the nature of those great beasts. But not he: he only lays his trunk gently on ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn |
