"Shrill" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dance-hall. It was crowded, mostly with men. But here and there, like so many faces peering forth from living graves, he saw the Little Sisters of Tete Jaune Cache. Outnumbered ten to one, their voices rang out in shrill banter and delirious laughter above the rumble of men. At the far end, a fiddle, a piano, and a clarinet were squealing forth music. The place smelled strongly of whisky. It always smelled of that, for most of the men who sought amusement here got their whisky in spite of the law. There were rock-hogs ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... Leyden University appointed Conrad Vorstius to be professor of theology in place of Arminius. The selection filled to the brim the cup of bitterness, for no man was more audaciously latitudinarian than he. He was even suspected of Socinianism. There came a shriek from King James, fierce and shrill enough to rouse Arminius from his grave. James foamed to the mouth at the insolence of the overseers in appointing such a monster of infidelity to the professorship. He ordered his books to be publicly burned in St. Paul's Churchyard and at both Universities, and would have ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... meaning of Czar's behavior. "O," she said, "are you his master?" Her manner was as natural and unrestrained as a child's—her voice, musically sweet and low, as one unaccustomed to the speech of noisy, crowded cities or shrill chattering crowds. ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... and while she pauses it may be observed—not that she was marvellously loquacious and marvellously deferential to Madame Mantalini, since these are facts which require no comment; but that every now and then, she was accustomed, in the torrent of her discourse, to introduce a loud, shrill, clear 'hem!' the import and meaning of which, was variously interpreted by her acquaintance; some holding that Miss Knag dealt in exaggeration, and introduced the monosyllable when any fresh invention was in course of coinage in her brain; others, that when she wanted a word, she threw it in ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... I did not speak through my nose, and talk too much, and too vivaciously, in a shrill voice," Betty said afterwards, in talking the interview over with Rosy. "I like to convince myself that is not one's sole national characteristic. Also it was not exactly Mrs. Brent's place to kindly encourage me with the information ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... male bird, is the excubitor to house- martins, and other little birds, announcing the approach of birds of prey. For as soon as an hawk appears, with a shrill alarming note he calls all the swallows and martins about him; who pursue in a body, and buffet and strike their enemy till they have driven him from the village, darting down from above on his back, and rising in a perpendicular line in perfect security. This bird also will sound the ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... angular, mannish sort of woman, raw-boned, shrill, got up in about the center of the audience, and said, "You've been honest I take it, in what you said this far. But you don't dast to be honest, I'll bet, if I ask you a plain out and out ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... the chimney-piece struck twelve in its shrill steel tones. Josephine started at the sound, and passed one hand over her eyes as though to rouse herself, and at the same time a deep blush spread over her delicate cheek. For with the voice of midnight there was also the voice of a man ringing in her ears, and she heard ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... by Steve Edwards's shrill voice in wild appeal. Steve was wellnigh beside himself now. Peters was growling like a bear in a cage. Then again the plunge, hard and quick, the whole Claflin backfield behind it! Don felt an intolerable pain as he pushed and struggled. Despair seized him for an instant, ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... The shrill neighing of the ferocious and spirited black stallion is heard as he approaches and realizes that he is coming into camp; he is a glorious specimen of a horse, neither hunger nor thirst can curb his spirit. He is carrying far the heaviest ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... disturbed by feeling a man's hand upon her shoulder. She jumped from her chair and faced him,—not screaming, for it was especially within her power to control herself, and to make no utterance except with forethought. Perhaps it might have been better for her had she screamed, and sent a shrill shriek down the shore of that inland sea. She was silent, however, and with awe- struck face and outstretched hands gazed into the face of him who still held her by the shoulder. The night was dark; but her eyes were now accustomed to the darkness, and she could see indistinctly something of ...
— Aaron Trow • Anthony Trollope
... was a slight noise, as if some one was moving quietly toward the door behind me, by which I had just entered. Then came another voice, which I had not before heard—a thin, shrill, strident, imperious voice—a voice that it seemed to me I should recognize again among a million. It ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... moment the Emperor and the Archduke, having returned from their battue, entered the room, whereupon the Archduchess, her voice shrill with indignation, poured out to her husband the story of von Tirpitz's proposal. The Archduke, always noted for the violence of his temper, promptly sided with his wife, angrily accusing the Kaiser of intriguing behind his back against the independence of Austria. Ensued a violent ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... forward in search of the place likely to be chosen for their midday halt, and making frequent use of their water-bottles, there were the preliminary taps on the big bass, a few vigorous rolls on the kettledrums, and the fifes began to shrill out their sharp notes in a merry air, which brightened every face at once. Some of the lads began to whistle the tune as they stepped out more briskly, and Judkins, of Captain Roberts's rear company, ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... jingling, as she calls "Hi Strawberry and Blossom, hither Cows;" While slung against the upland with his team The ploughman dimly like a phantom glides: What time that noisy spot of life, the lark, Climbs, shrill with ecstasy, the trembling air; And "Cuckoo, Cuckoo," baffling whence it comes, Shouts the blithe egotist who cries himself; And every hedge and coppice sings: What time The lover, restless, through his waking ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... had reached the castle, a shrill blast rang at the outer gate. The portcullis was raised; the young Duke of Clarence, with a bridegroom's impatience, spurred alone through the gloomy arch, and Isabel, catching sight of his countenance lifted towards the ramparts, uttered a cry, and waved her hand. Clarence ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... mine ashes dar'st to press thy feet, And, uncontented with a fall so dread, Draw'st bloodstained weapons on my darkened head, Beware! for nature, pitying, guards the tomb, And ghosts avenge th' invaders of their gloom, Hear, Envy, hear the gods proclaim a truth, Which my shrill ghost repeats to move thy ruth, WRETCHES ARE SACRED THINGS,—thy hands refrain: E'en sacrilegious hands ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... down beside Tiny Armstrong on the end of a log. As she seated herself Jo Severance rose and came forward demurely. Jo was an accomplished elocutionist, and a born mimic. Assuming a timid, shrinking demeanor, and speaking in a high, shrill voice, she piped, ...
— The Campfire Girls at Camp Keewaydin • Hildegard G. Frey
... aided by a gentle shake from Rose's hand. Harry was on his feet in a moment. A passing instant was necessary to clear his faculties, and to recover the tenor of his thoughts. During that instant, the mate heard Jack Tier's shrill cry of "Hard a-lee—get in that foresail—bear a-hand—in ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... the Union Jack at the stern. And so it was with every ship in port. A great silence lay upon the harbour; even the hydraulic cranes were still, and the winches of the trawlers had ceased their screaming. Not a sound was to be heard save the shrill poignant cry of the gulls and the hissing of an exhaust pipe. As the colonel looked across the still waters of the harbour basin he saw a bier, covered with a Union Jack, being slowly carried across the gangway of the leave-boat; a little group of officers followed it. In a few moments the leave-boat, ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... Till I myself shall raise!' Yet said it not— The same oracular word—'who lifts the veil Shall see the truth?' Behind, be what there may, I dare the hazard—I will lift the veil—" Loud rang his shouting voice—"and I will see!" "SEE!" A lengthen'd echo, mocking, shrill'd again! He spoke and rais'd the veil! And ask'st thou what Unto the sacrilegious gaze lay bare? I know not—pale and senseless, stretch'd before The statue of the great Egyptian queen, The priests beheld ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... Close on his track, With hair unbraided and down her back, Loud-voiced and shrill, She followed, until No one said "Jack" without ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates
... bare but tranquil; and Flint was possessed by its dreary charm. The dim quiet of the twilight suited him; and it struck him jarringly, like a false note in an orchestra, when there fell on his ear a high, shrill voice, exclaiming,— ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... coin of the realm into beer and whisky as speedily as possibly. The night was calm and comparatively cool with the spreading darkness, and the majority of the inhabitants were seated outside their doors gossiping and taking the air. Children were playing in the street, their shrill voices at times interrupting the continuous chatter of the women; and The Derby Winner, flaring with gas, was stuffed as full as it could hold with artizans, workmen, Irish harvesters and stablemen, all more or less exhilarated with alcohol. It was by no means ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... the cliffs; but the mother bird flew towards me with such piteous cries that even in my danger I could not be so cruel, so I removed the little ones to a crevice close at hand and seated myself upon their nest, thankful of the refuge it afforded. And now I heard a shrill whistle from Robbie Rosson, by which I understood that, seeing my comparative safety, he was going to find some place where he could get down to the beach, there to wait until I should bring the ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... cage on his finger. It hopped up his arm till it reached his cheek, where it began to peck at his whiskers, crying all the while in its shrill, lonely tones,—"Blind, blind, blind!" ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... epitome of humanity. Grandmamma, bald under her cap, was seated by the stove dandling grandchild, bald under its cap. Each was highly entertained with the other. Grandpapa was sandy with grandboy's gingerbread-crumbs. The intervening ages were well represented by wiry men and shrill women. The house, also, without being tavern or shop, was an amateur bazaar of vivers and goods. Anything one was likely to want could be had there,—even a melodeon and those inevitable Patent-Office Reports. Here we descended, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... (For o'er Liguria's large and populous towns He reign'd) had then relinquish'd. With his plaints, The Po's wide stream was fill'd; and fill'd the banks With his lamentings; ev'n the woods, whose shade The sister poplars thicken'd. Soon he feels His utterance shrill and weak: his streaming locks Soft snowy plumes displace: high from his chest, His lengthen'd neck extends: a filmy web Unites his ruddy toes: his sides are cloth'd With quills and feathers: where his mouth was seen Expanded, now a blunted beak ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... to time the shrill wail of the shriek-owl, and the flapping of its wings against the diamond-paned windows of the church, added to the awful ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... had risen. I saw two figures standing in the porch of Graves's house. I was about to call to them and warn Graves that Bo was loose and dangerous—when a scream—shrill and frightful—rang in my ears. I saw Graves turn to his bride and ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... joined, one end of the boat answering the other. They sang through their noses, and high up in the falsetto. By shutting one's eyes one could imagine a great ox waggon drawn uphill by four bullocks and one of the wheels ungreased. Yet it was not unpleasing, this queer shrill, recurrent rhythm, the monotonous creak and splash of the oars, the mystery of feeling one's way in the blue gloom, through reed and water-lily beds, up this cliff-bound river, and far away the faint twitter—also ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... attention is arrested—her fears aroused—her peace disturbed, and her independence endangered—when in the dread and momentous hour, the tap of the drum, the roll of the reveille, the shrill sound of the bugler's trumpet, or the thunders of the cannon's roar, summons the warrior on to the pending conflict—upon whom then do the citizens place their dependence, and in whom the country her trust? Upon him who braves the consequences, and fights his country's battles ...
— The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States • Martin R. Delany
... this dampest, darkest, and most Arctic of all terminals about the time the morning codfish begins to warm his bosom on the gridirons of the sacred city. Another, a terrible nocturnal prowler, slips darkly away from Albany about 1 A. M., and rambles disconsolately and with shrill wailings along the West Shore line. Below the grim Palisades of the Hudson it wakes painful echoes. Its first six units, as far as one can see in the dark, are blind express cars, containing milk cans and coffins. We once boarded it at Kingston, ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... Fatty Hicks, the shrill and puffy son of Nat, flapped his hand at the beautiful stranger and jeered, "How's the kid? All dolled up like a ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... body in its torment rose clear of the red and gray waves till we saw a pair of quivering shoulders streaked with weed and rough with shells, but as white in the clear spaces as the hairless, maneless, blind, toothless head. Afterwards, came a dot on the horizon and the sound of a shrill scream, and it was as though a shuttle shot all across the sea in one breath, and a second head and neck tore through the levels, driving a whispering wall of water to right and left. The two Things met—the one untouched and the other in its death-throe—male and female, we said, the female ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... was mild, and the streets shrill with the careless cries of children playing games controlled by mysterious rhythms and phrases. Their elders held the doorways and steps with leisurely pipe and gossip. Paradoxically, the fire-escapes supported lovers ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... and she took fresh heart. Pausing, she clapped her hand to her mouth repeatedly, uttering a shrill, long call. It was the Indian whoop, which her father had taught her in their ...
— The Green Satin Gown • Laura E. Richards
... spears are all agleam, And I can see their eyes with blood-lust shine; Their snarling voices shrill into a scream, And, mad to slay, they quiver for the sign. Deny my God! yes, I could do it well; Yet if I did, what of my race, my name? How they would spit on me, these dogs of hell! Spurn me, and put on me the brand of shame. ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... human life is concerned. There are dogs basking on doorsteps, larger dogs rambling with idleness in the slow sway of their tails, and overhead black swifts (whose nests are in the roofs of the higher houses) dash to and fro, uttering their shrill screech. ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... siren broke out again in its long, shrill greeting of the land which lay above the rim of the sea, and Frank, catapulting Jimmie against the wall at the back of the bunk, hastened to the open port and ...
— Boy Scouts in the Philippines - Or, The Key to the Treaty Box • G. Harvey Ralphson
... but most of my outings are on the electric cars. I might as well be on them, since I have to hear their buzz and clang both day and night from our rooms here in the hotel. The other morning, as I was returning from a ride across the river to Council Bluffs, I heard the shrill notes of a calliope that reminded me that Forepaugh's circus was to be in town that day, and that I had promised to go to the afternoon performance with a party of friends. But soon there were other sounds and other thoughts. Above the noise of the ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... fellow about twenty, with a white turban cleaner than the rest—who contrived to cast wonderful glances from the masthead over the barrier at Rosette, who actually smiled in return at ce pauvre garcon, and smiled the more for Mademoiselle Julienne's indignation. Suddenly, however, a shrill shout made him descend hastily, and the old Turk's voice might be heard in its highest key, no doubt shrieking out maledictions on all the ancestry of the son of a dog who durst defile his eyes with gazing at the shameless daughters ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... lay upon the polished table I saw the Hindu put a short double-reed pipe to his mouth, and next instant the room was filled with weird, shrill music, while at the same moment he unfastened the side of the little box and let down ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux
... stone of it, but paying regular rent, as if here to-day and gone to-morrow, like the tenants of a city flat. The grandfather of the present occupants brought his bride here and here raised a numerous family. Of that family no representatives now live save two grand-daughters, the shrill and strident spinsters who made us so often forego our more impressive title to call ourselves after the flourishing institution made immortal by the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... beat and the shrill scream of the fife startled all hearts into a fiercer life. The notes, with no tremor of fear, rang out sonorous, triumphant. For centuries such notes had led Britons to victory, and to-day British soldiers will do or die. Four thousand grenadiers, under Lord Howe, march down ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... the Bow-legs just the spur to concerted action that they were needing. They rightly judged there were more of those desirable beings in the crowd behind that tall, contemptuous chief. Those on the ground scrambled eagerly to their feet, and with shrill, bestial yells the whole horde charged up ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... streets. Mounted orderlies galloped to and fro, bearing returns, requisitions, and despatches. The old flag was hoisted in every direction at sunrise, and lowered when the evening gun was fired, while the music of bands and the shrill notes of drums and fifes rang forth the "music of ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... the time announced for the ceremony, I elbowed my way through the expectant throng of men, women, and children that already besieged the smith's door. Shrill demands of "Toss, toss!" rent the air every time Jess' head showed on the window-blind, and Andra hoped, as I pushed open the door, "that I hadna forgotten my bawbees." Weddings were celebrated among the Auld Lichts by showers of ha'pence, and the guests on their way to the bride's ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... sexual longing in music is identical with that of religious longing. It is quite true, again, that a soft and gentle voice seems to every normal man as to Lear "an excellent thing in woman," and that a harsh or shrill voice may seem to deaden or even destroy altogether the attraction of a beautiful face. But the voice is not usually in itself an adequate or powerful method of evoking sexual emotion in a man. Even in its supreme vocal manifestations the sexual fascination exerted by a great singer, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... in the house, he would arrange it with great apparent care. In the meantime, Nancy's wrath generally evaporated with the smoke of the pipe—a circumstance which Ned well knew; for after she had sucked it until it emitted a shrill, bubbling sound, like that from a reed, her brows, which wore at other times an habitual frown, would gradually relax into a more benevolent expression—the parenthetical curves on each side of her mouth, formed by the irascible pursing of her lips, would become less marked—the dog ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... his voice sort of shrill and quivery. "I have one of the logs loose. Now pry here with your picks, everybody. Together, now! It's coming! Once more! There! Now the next one above. Oh, put your weight on it, Mr. Ellins. Get a fresh hold. Try her now. ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... the clouds, and for a long time the heavens seemed to be "a sheet of flame." He also spake by his servant, and the response from the people was in tears and sobs, groans and shouts; and at the conclusion of nearly every sweep of the preacher's wonderful flights could be heard above the whole a shrill shout from the hostess, followed by a tornado of amens! When the sermon closed the storm ceased, and the "slain of the Lord were many." Memorable night! The people found neither slumber nor weariness, and when the morning dawned very few had not ...
— Elizabeth: The Disinherited Daugheter • E. Ben Ez-er
... to the eye, as tones of sound to the ear. Must not light also sing? The lowest tone we can hear is made by 16.5 vibrations of air per second; the highest, so shrill and "fine that nothing lives 'twixt it and silence," is made by 38,000 vibrations per second. Between these extremes lie eleven octaves; C of the G clef having 258-7/8 vibrations to the second, and its octave above 517-1/2. Not that sound vibrations ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren
... circumstances so touchingly described by him can scarcely be imagined. The thoughts of a veteran who had served his country during many long years of war and strife, must have wandered back to past scenes and by-gone days, while he stood in that solitary wilderness; and when the wild shrill cry of savage grief came floating upon his ears, he must have felt most deeply those strange sensations which ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... and at the same moment a huge blackbird flew out of the shrubberies behind them, and flashed across the open space toward the orchard on the other side. It whistled a long, shrill scream of warning. It was bigger by far ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... uproar was terrific. Howls, shrill yelps, thumps and crashes. Then came a crash louder than any preceding it, a splash of water across the sill, and from the doorway leaped, or flew, an object steaming and dripping, fluttering with fly paper, ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... employs more polished and elegant language?" In his youth, he seems to have chosen Strabo Caesar for his model; from whose oration in behalf of the Sardinians he has transcribed some passages literally into his Divination. In his delivery he is said to have had a shrill voice, and his action was animated, but not ungraceful. He has left behind him some speeches, among which are ranked a few that are not genuine, such as that on behalf of Quintus Metellus. These Augustus supposes, with reason, to be rather the production of blundering short-hand ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... unbarr'd, We rode within the busy yard, Well scatter'd o'er with many a pack; For on that wild, romantic track, The long and heavy-laden trains Toil seaward from the valley's plains. And often on its silence swells The distant tinkle of the bells, While muleteers' shrill, angry cries From the dim road before you rise; And such were group'd in circles round Playing at monte on the ground; Each swarthy face that met my eye To thought of honesty gave lie. In each fierce orb there was a spark That few would care to see by dark— And many a sash I saw ...
— A Wreath of Virginia Bay Leaves • James Barron Hope
... a comfortably furnished apartment, there sat two people, a husband and wife, middle-aged people, who were engaged in a miserable dispute about some very trivial matter. The wife was shrill and provocative, the husband curt and contemptuous. They were obviously not really concerned about the subject they were discussing—it only formed a ground for disagreeable personalities. Presently the man went out, saying harshly that it was very pleasant to ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... sociable affair. Mrs. Gladman spoke occasionally in a shrill whisper to Mr. Gladman, who replied with grunts. Both employed the remainder of their time in scowling at Clodd. Mr. Pincer, a stout, heavy gentleman connected with the House of Commons, maintained a ministerial reserve. The undertaker's foreman expressed himself as thankful when it was over. ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... ever know people lost on these hills?" asked the girl, looking into the blackness ahead of them. Her shrill, slight voice rang out in sharp contrast to the broad gutturals ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... which the blood drops trickled slowly, and fell on the dewy sward. "'Tis the blood of my dearest, oldest friend—of my brother; and shed by my hand!" he muttered at length, flinging away the guilty blade. His only answer was the groans of his victim, and the shrill whistle of the weapon as it ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... in their direction, one whom the shrill winds of life have lashed and bled; here and there ragged graces still cling to her, and unruly passion smoulders, but she, once a dear, fierce rebel, with eyes of storm, is now first of all a whimperer. She and they ...
— Dear Brutus • J. M. Barrie
... impressive, very beautiful, and still, except for the drone of insects or soft note of the songbird. Perhaps the silence may be broken by a herd of wild elephants crashing heavily through the canes, or the shrill cry of the squirrel startles the forest and warns its fellows of ...
— Burma - Peeps at Many Lands • R.Talbot Kelly
... last, putting down the piece of toast. There was a return to something of her usual tone in the words. She spoke gently and softly; no longer in the shrill, hoarse voice she had used at first. Mr Benson sat ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... in fact, none of us were able to think or imagine what it could be. It came through the woods as swift as lightning and its shrill and piercing voice was more startling than thunder. It echoed and re-echoed across our clearing, from woods to woods and died swiftly away in the distance. What on earth could it be? Could it be the ...
— The Bark Covered House • William Nowlin
... distrust—has chosen to go alone; so, too, they are all helmeted but him. As they approach, the spectators stand upon the benches, and there is a sensible deepening of the clamor, in which a sharp listener may detect the shrill piping of women and children; at the same time, the things roseate flying from the balcony thicken into a storm, and, striking the men, drop into the chariot-beds, which are threatened with filling to the tops. Even the horses have a share in the ovation; ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... sharply forward, his lithe frame tense. A long drawn, quivering shriek came down-wind to him. It was repeated. Then short and sharp, piercing note on piercing note, sounded the shrill, clamant voice. ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... see. I asked him what it was, upon which he pulled me by the sleeve, and said, with a low voice, "I will tell you, but we must not frighten the ladies," who, by this time, screamed most fearfully. Voiture began his Oremus, and prayed heartily. You, I suppose, knew Madame de Choisy's shrill tone; Mademoiselle de Vendome was counting her beads; Madame de Vendome would fain have confessed her sins to the Bishop of Lisieux, who said to her, "Daughter, be of good cheer; you are in the hands of God." At the same instant, the Comte do Brion and all the lackeys were upon their knees ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... low bottom of long grass, sedge and tangled dry plants, more than six feet high; and when a rushing wind urges on the fiery ruin, flashing like the lightning and roaring like the thunder; the appearance is not beautiful, but terrible. I have heard the shrill war-whoop, and the clash of contending tomahawks in the fight, when no quarter has been given. I have witnessed the wild burst where Niagara, a river of waters, flings itself headlong down the Horseshoe Fall; and I have been exposed to the fury of the hurricane. ...
— History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians • George Mogridge
... from Egypt was 'in haste' (Deut. xvi. 3); but this shall be a triumphal exodus, without conflict or alarms. All nature shall participate in the joy. Mountains and hills shall raise the shrill note of rejoicing, and the trees wave their branches, as if clapping hands in delight. This is more than mere poetic rhetoric. A redeemed humanity implies a glorified world. Nature has been involved in the consequences of sin, and will share in the results of redemption, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... wounded heart Hope, alas, to heal; Seeking, to allay its smart, Things that cannot feel. Better should my pain Bitterly complain, Crying shrill, To thee who dost constrain My spirit to ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... look rather brown and plain by contrast. Totty never cared to spend much on clothes, a singular feature of her character. When the three were passing at a distance of twenty yards, Nelly cried out with shrill voice: ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... morning when a weary man, sprinkled white with powdery snow, came limping into Thurston's camp, which was then pitched in the canyon. A pitiless wind swept down from the range side across the thrashing pines, and filled the deep rift with its shrill moaning which sounded above the diapason of the shrunken river. A haze of frost-dried snow infinitesimally fine, which stung the unprotected skin like the prick of hot needles, whirled before the wind and then thinned, leaving bare the ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... when the Disciples were preaching the new religion, which is as old as the hills to us now—and went dreaming among the trees that grow over acres and acres of its still buried streets and squares, till a shrill whistle and the cry of "All aboard—last train for Naples!" woke me up and reminded me that I belonged in the nineteenth century, and was not a dusty mummy, caked with ashes and cinders, eighteen hundred years old. The transition ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... child, the sirens whoop Shrill invitations to the Fair, The yellow swing-boats soar and swoop, The Gavioli organs blare; Bull-throated show-men, bracken-brown, Compete to shout each ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, August 11, 1920 • Various
... Two or three eggs of a brown or greenish-brown colour with darker spots or blotches are laid about the end of October, and, from this time till the chicks are reared, the parent exhibits much annoyance at the presence of any person in the vicinity. They utter shrill cries and swoop down continuously in an attempt to strike the invader with their wings. Several of our party received black eyes as a ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... Shrill and terrible though the Indian war-cry is proverbially known to be, it was excelled in appalling wildness by the shriek which arose from the Esquimaux, as they hurried tumultuously into their canoes and put off to sea. These poor creatures were naturally ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... Midnight was garlanding her head With many a shining star in shining skies, And, of her grace, a slumber on mine eyes, And, after sorrow, quietness was shed. Far in dim fields cicalas jargoned A thin shrill clamour of complaints and cries; And all the woods were pallid, in strange wise, With pallor of the ...
— Grass of Parnassus • Andrew Lang
... scythe blades, or followed the teams of red and brindled oxen that bowed their heads to the heavy yoke. Through all this, past all this, the Pequot train flew on towards Pattaquasset; sending whole lines of white smoke to scour the country, despatching the shrill echoes of its ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... virgin nymph; for she Seems with the flowers a flower to be. And think so still! though not compare With breath so sweet, or cheek so fair! Well shot, ye firemen! Oh, how sweet And round your equal fires do meet, Whose shrill report no ear can tell, But echoes to the eye and smell! See how the flowers, as at parade, Under their colours stand displayed; Each regiment in order grows, That of the tulip, pink and rose. But when the vigilant patrol Of stars walk round about the pole, Their leaves, ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... see it yet?" He has been starting up from his bed, in his eagerness. Kurwenal has struggled with him to keep him down. While he hesitates as before between obedience and fear to leave his patient, the servant realises that the shepherd's pipe has changed its tune,—has changed it for a shrill, lively, tripping air. He listens with all his soul for a second, then with a shout of triumph dashes to the battlements and sends his eyes sweeping the sea. "Ha! The ship!... I see it nearing from the north!"—"Did ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... him now. Two revolvers exploded into the air, accompanied by the long shrill yell of the plainsmen. But just when it seemed that the lad must go down under the rush of beating hoofs, Tad all but lifted his pony from the ground, turned the little animal and headed him in the direction in which ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Texas - Or, The Veiled Riddle of the Plains • Frank Gee Patchin
... the tireless fireflies danced in the blackness of the wood. The river gurgled faintly in the wind-stirred reeds. From out the gloom of the thicket came the weird coco-coco of the horned owl. From the starlit sky above fell the shrill cry of the mosquito hawk, "peepeegeeceese, peepeegeeceese!" From an isolated bark tepee came the subdued incantation of the Indian medicine-man, while above the singing of the tree-tops and over all, clear and with clock-like regularity, ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... to the group with shrill cries showing a little live crab in her small palm. A faint breeze is blowing off the sea, the west grows golden, and Aunt Hetty rises from her ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... purple of hawthorn hedges and grey-brown filigree of leafless trees.—This did her good, she asking to be strengthened and stimulated rather than merely soothed. To feel the harsh, untainted wind break against her, hear it shrill through the dry, shivering grasses of the roadside and sturdy spires of heath, to see it toss the dark crests and tufted branches of the outstanding firs at the edge of the plantation, brought up her morale. Brought ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... There was a shrill squeal as the remaining infant reptile fled from the pouch where it had hidden. Sssuri hurled his knife, and the blade caught the small devil above the shoulder line, half cutting, half snapping its tender neck, so that ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... little longer with Gilbert, helping him to find Carl's clothes, when suddenly a shrill voice was heard ...
— Driven From Home - Carl Crawford's Experience • Horatio Alger
... terra-cotta-coloured track was fenced in with a human wall near the judges' stand. The famous Suburban was to be run, and people flocked from every direction to see one of the greatest horse-races of the year. While the band played gaily, and the shrill cries of programme venders punctuated the hum of the voices of the multitude, and while the stable boys walked their aristocratic charges, shrouded in blankets, exercising them sedately—in the midst of all this movement, ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday
... there was such plashing of the waters that those people dancing upon the fair green holm became 'ware of Harold's presence, and were afeared, so that, ceasing from their sport, they made haste down to the shore and did on the skins and dived into the waters with shrill cries. But there was one of them that could not do so, because Harold bore off that skin wherewith she was wont to begird herself, and when she found it not she wailed and wept and besought Harold to give her that skin again,—and, ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... melancholy strain of music,—melancholy enough to make one shiver,—and shrill, shrill as the song of the grasshoppers, began to make itself heard, very softly at first, then growing louder and rising in the silence of the noonday like the diminutive wail of some poor Japanese soul in pain and anguish; it was Chrysantheme ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... a little way up the creek," he answered, "or at least he should be." Putting his fingers to his lips he blew a shrill whistle, which echoed and re-echoed from shore to shore along the river, and was answered by a loud neigh from somewhere in the ravine through which Fall Creek reaches the larger stream. Again the boy whistled, and a black pony came trotting out of the brush, the bridle hanging from ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... the moor under the cold blue of the darkening sky—the long, mysterious-looking Stretches of darkness with here and there a big rock standing up grim and gaunt in the silence, the vastness in which they seemed but specks, the shrill, sweet voices of the birds calling to each other, and the busy, persistent voice of the river, added to the weirdness and loneliness of the experience. The only lifelike sounds were their own footsteps, and it was only here and there, when they got on to ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... the scene. Meanwhile the birds on this wooded slope are asking us to use our ears as well as our eyes. Such a mingling of bird voices! The "spring o' th' year" of the meadow larks and the mingled squeaks and music of the robins are brought up by the wind from the river bottom, and the shrill clear "phe-be" of the chickadee is one of the prettiest sounds now, just as it was in February. Pretty soon a bevy of them come flitting and talking along, like a girl botany class on the search. Before they have passed out of sight the loud ...
— Some Spring Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... the shrill blast of bugles. This undoubtedly told the French soldiers that victory had fallen to their portion, and that the winning of the Marne ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... I hear the clarion shrill Winding up the icy hill, And aloud the bugle horn Proclaims another year is born. Merry voices in the train, Loudly sound it o'er the plain, And the joyful notes I hear, Are wishes for a ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... The sight had a most cruel fascination; and while one of the horror-seekers stood helplessly conjuring to his vision that scene of unknown dread,—the shrinking, shrieking woman dragged to the block, the wild, shrill, horrible screech following the blow that drove in the spike, the merciful swoon after the mutilation,—his companion, with a sudden pallor, demanded to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... A shrill neigh from a mare would have betrayed them; even the louder rattle of the waggon wheels might have had that result, and brought upon them the marauding party, with a result that the Doctor shuddered to contemplate. ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... revealed? Would he be regarded as a fit incumbent of the office he holds? Wouldn't he be dismissed, kicked out as incompetent—as unscrupulous, I mean," Henry amended quickly. His voice had risen in a shrill and ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... easily to be distinguished. His companion was Laura Tinley. The Greek moved at rapid strides, and coming near upon Emilia, raised his hands as in exclamation. At once he disencumbered his shoulders of the enormous wrapper, held it aloft imperiously, and by main force extinguished Emilia. Laura's shrill laugh resounded. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... sealed. We were in a narrow path surrounded by the enemy, without the possibility of escape. How shall I describe what followed. The women wrung their hands and sobbed piteously in their despair. The children, terrified, uttered shrill and piercing cries, while the men, goaded to madness, vented their rage in hurried exclamations, and were determined to sell their lives as ...
— Acadian Reminiscences - The True Story of Evangeline • Felix Voorhies
... anew, by turns shrill, stifled, bleating, stammering, yelling, fearsome. It uttered ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... A shrill whistle sounded over the field where almost two dozen sturdily built boys in their middle 'teens, clad in an astonishing array of old and new football togs, ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... the shrill voice of Miss Husted up the stairway at the back of the hall. That lady was more than ever set against her niece's "taking up with a musician," as she called the love match between Poons and Jenny. Whenever Miss Husted ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... great mixed with small, and followed gambolling along the watery paths. And as when in the track of the shepherd, their master, countless sheep follow to the fold that have fed to the full of grass, and he goes before gaily piping a shepherd's strain on Iris shrill reed; so these fishes followed; and a chasing breeze ever bore the ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... noted great anxiety and incessant movement in the one, and complete passiveness in the other. She who sat in the outer seat was watchful, busy, and ready to press the other's arm at the least provocation, but if either spoke it was always the other. It was not till the quick rush and shrill whistle of a passing train made one start and not the other, that he got the idea that one of them was deaf. As this was the one by the window, he felt that their peculiar actions were now accounted for, and indeed thus far it all tallied with what we might expect from Georgian ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... shrill of a riding beam, so tearing he had to move his earphones. They must be almost on top of the control tower to get it like that! Rip was planning on a set down where the Queen would block things neatly. He brought his own fingers down on the E-E-Red button to give the last and ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... was on the rampart. La Vigne, the officer of the guard, had just gone to his quarters, but a trumpeter, who chanced to remain, saw, through sheets of rain, the black swarm of assailants sweeping down the hill. He blew the alarm, and at his shrill summons a few half-naked soldiers ran wildly out of the barracks. It was too late. Through the breaches, over the ramparts, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... A shrill piercing scream, like the cry of a tortured soul, rang out of the forest, rising clear and trembling above the tolling of the bell and the noises of ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... the nautical blue flannel of his shirt, got up from where he had been sitting, on one side of the stove, and stood infirmly on his feet, in token of receiving the visitor. The woman who sat on the other side did not rise, but began a shrill, defiant apology. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... well endure!" he cried. "All day the thought of what I've lost was like a constant sword-thrust in my heart. Instead of deference and respect that once was mine from high and low, 'twas laugh and jibe and pointing finger. And, too," (his voice grew shrill and querulous) "I saw young lovers straying in the lanes together. How can I endure that sight day after day when my arms must remain for ever empty? And little children prattled by their father's side no matter where I turned. ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... laughter,—that of running about the rooms, and trying to catch each other. The dogs, too, ran about and barked; and the canaries which hung up in cages before the windows, straining their throats in rivalry, heightened the general uproar by the piercing accents of their shrill singing. Just as this deafening amusement had reached its climax, a tarantass, all splashed with mud, drew up at the front gate, and a man about forty-five years old, wearing a travelling dress, got out of it and remained ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... menaces did the fury of Wild burst forth and terrify the whole gate. Long time did rage render his voice inarticulate to the hearer; as when, at a visiting day, fifteen or sixteen or perhaps twice as many females, of delicate but shrill pipes, ejaculate all at once on different subjects, all is sound only, the harmony entirely melodious indeed, but conveys no idea to our ears; but at length, when reason began to get the better of his passion, which latter, being deserted by his breath, began a little to retreat, ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... group of calves crowding under the shady side of hedges regarded Joan with youthful interest; sometimes, in a distant coomb-bottom, where blackberries grew, little sunbonnets bobbed above the fern and a child's shrill voice came clear to her upon the wind. But the loneliness grew, and, anon, turning from her way a while, the traveler sat on the gray crown of Trengwainton Carn to rest and look at the ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... instant such a ringing cheer burst out as wells spontaneously from the throats and hearts of men, in the first ecstatic moments of victory—a cheer to which our saddened hearts and enfeebled lungs had long been strangers. It was the genuine, honest, manly Northern cheer, as different from the shrill Rebel yell as the honest mastiff's deep-voiced welcome is from the howl of the ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... soapsuds, and fired away from her window as from the embrasure of a fortress; while the screams of children nestled and cradled in every procreant chamber of this hive, waking with the noise, set up their shrill pipes to swell the general concert." [Footnote: Tales of ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... up and down. This continued for a moment, in which we all were very still and bitter cold—the air cut like steel—and then my heart gave a great leap, for suddenly there stepped into the yard Doltaire. Action seemed suspended in me, but I know I listened with singular curiosity to the shrill creaking of his boots on the frosty earth, and I noticed that the fur collar of the coat he wore was all white with the frozen moisture of his breath, also that tiny icicles hung from his eyelashes. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... mock'ry she receives The toss'd-up heaps from the brown gaping youth, Who flaring at her, takes his aim awry, Whilst half the load comes tumbling on himself. Loud is her laugh, her voice is heard afar; Each mower, busied in the distant field, The carter, trudging on his distant way, The shrill found know, cad up their hats in air, And roar across the fields to catch her notice: She waves her arm, and shakes her head at them, And then renews her work with double spirit. Thus do they jest, and laugh away their toil, ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie
... monotony. Sometimes it injects laughter, sometimes horror, into tragedy. It will bring Romeo face to face with the apothecary, Macbeth with the witches, Hamlet with the grave-diggers. Sometimes it may, without discord, as in the scene between King Lear and his jester, mingle its shrill voice with the most sublime, the most dismal, the ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... which they were passing. Behind them the six little negroes walked primly in single file, Mary Jo in the lead and a chocolate-coloured atom of two toddling at the tail of the procession. From time to time shrill squeaks went up from the rear when a startled partridge whirred over the pasture or a bare brown foot came down on a ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... rushed on with a short-sword in his hand. Axe and sword clashed together for a moment of time, and then both the men rolled over on the grass together, and Face-of-god as he fell deemed that he heard the shrill cry of a woman. Now Face-of-god found that he was the nethermost, for if he was strong, yet was his foe stronger; the axe had flown out of his hand also, while the strange man still kept a hold of his short-sword; and presently, ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... often the unlucky Van was forced to blush and falter that he would have to look it up; and when he did so he frequently learned something himself. For Tim never forgot. No sooner would Van be inside the gate than the shrill little voice would pipe: "And did you find out how far away ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... good old wife of the legend-teller has made her poor home as warm and pleasant as may be, in expectation of their guests. She is proud of her husband's honorable position as the village teacher, and makes all the children welcome, as they arrive, with her shrill-voiced, cheerful greeting: ...
— Wigwam Evenings - Sioux Folk Tales Retold • Charles Alexander Eastman and Elaine Goodale Eastman
... dark figures boiled across the open. Arrows whistled and bow- thongs sang. The shrill-tongued rifles answered back. A spear, and a mighty cast, transfixed the Teslin woman as she hovered above the child. A spent arrow, diving between the logs, lodged ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... cry of joy—a cry as shrill as that of the mother bird that sees a hawk in the air, or suspects its presence. We looked where he was looking, and saw, as it were, a sapphire, floating high up in the abysses of light. The glowing star fell with the swiftness of a sunbeam when ...
— The Exiles • Honore de Balzac
... just beyond that last steep rise, was the sea. She could hear its roar now, like a deep voice drowning the clearer pipe of the winging birds and the shrill of the little grass creatures. Often she went down to its edge, but at this hour she liked best to lie in the grass and dream her dreams to ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... of sounds at the pavilion entrance, where a litter was set down on marble pavement and a eunuch's shrill voice criticized the slow ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy
... rattling noise like the sound of clattering timber was heard, and with it a sharp, shrill cry of ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... peasants celebrate their holidays. A dozen or so of small peasant girls, pupils of the count's daughter, who had invited themselves to swing on the Giant Steps on the lawn opposite the count's study windows, abandoned their amusement and accompanied us down the avenue, fairly howling an endless song in shrill voices ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... not long before Zack returned. A violent bang of the street-door announced his entry into the passage—a confused clattering and stumbling marked his progress up stairs—a shrill crash, a heavy thump, and a shout of laughter indicated his arrival on the landing. Mat ran out directly, and found him prostrate on the floor, with the yellow pie-dish in halves at the bottom of the stairs, and dozens of oyster.-shells scattered ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... had been warmly asleep some Hours, (more by Token I had read the ninety-first Psalm before getting into Bed), when Anne, clinging to me, woke me up with a shrill Cry. I whispered fearfullie, "What is't?—a Thief under ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... shrill cry from outside sent both Sally and her mother flying to help rescue three-year-old Ross, whose father was hauling him ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... heard the cry. It rose, piercing and shrill, above the storm, above the riving and rending of the bridge, above the downward crashing of the logs and loosened stones. I hear it as I listen now. It is cleaving its way upward from the depths below. It is wailing through the room as ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... and flash of the fusee, and Smith's gesture to lay it close to the eye-piece, they turned and fled yelling once more into the houses on either side, from which now came an addition to the noise, in the shrill howls and shrieks of women, who were evidently resenting the invasion of all ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn |
