"Screeching" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Spotted Dog in turn. The anchor sank into the boat to the screeching of tackles and the groaning of boat-timbers, and ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... hundreds of them in every family, and so many families that it resembled nothing so much as a puffin ghetto. I judged from the turmoil that they were screeching for "a place in the sun." The noise they made did not in the least accord with their respectable Quaker appearance. Shall I bring you one as a pet? Its austere presence would help you to remember your ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... 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
... made ample amends; and Dr. Richards saw no fault in that witching face, flashing its blue eyes for an instant upon him, and then modestly turning to the service just commencing. So absorbed was Dr. Richards as not to notice that the strain of music filling the old church did not come from the screeching melodeon he had so anathematized, but from an organ as mellow and sweet in its tone as any he had heard across the sea. He did not notice anything; and when his sister, surprised at his sitting posture, whispered to him of her surprise, ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... stop that horrid screeching! You make my head fairly snap." The music suddenly ceased. The sharp voice came from the pantry, and belonged to Margaret's mother, Mrs. Murray. She stood before her moulding board weighing out chopped raisins, ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
... much of it," remarked the surgeon, looking anxiously at the howling boy as he held him fast. "I brought only one dose of the drug, but we shall see in a few minutes.—Do stop the noise of that screeching imp of blackness," he added, turning a look of anger on Zubby, whose grief was, like ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... when a shell came screeching over their heads just at that moment, for the two guards, who might otherwise have seen him, both dodged behind rocks. When they looked again in the direction of their prisoners they did not know that one of them was apprising the British leader of the ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... 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
... "You're screeching in the wrong jungle, Parrot, old top," said Mallow, who, as he did not believe in ghosts, was physically nor morally afraid of anything. "Though, you have my word for it that I'd like to see you lose every cent of your damned ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... least then and there, was as complete a surprise for her as for me. She could not tell how I might take it; but she quickly rallied, burst into a loud screeching laugh, and, with her old Walpurgis gaiety, danced some fantastic steps in her bare wet feet, tracking the floor with water, and holding out with finger and thumb, in dainty caricature, her slammakin old skirt, while she sang some of her nasal patois ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... round 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 ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... of 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 to him to ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... Huge Arabs, naked beneath their long woolen garments, little Moors dressed in rags, Negroes, Tunisians, hotel waiters in white aprons, pushing and shouting, plucking at his clothes, fighting over his luggage; one grabbing his preserves another his medicine chest and, in a screeching babel of noise, throwing at his head the improbable names of hotels.... Deafened by this tumult, Tartarin ran hither and thither,struggling, fuming, and cursing after his baggage, and not knowing how to communicate ...
— Tartarin de Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... signs and omens was broached he waxed voluble in denying that he believed in any such "foolishment." However, he agreed that many believed that a rooster crowing in front of the door meant that a stranger was coming and that an owl screeching was a sign of death. He suggested that a successful means of combatting the latter omen is to tie knots in the bed sheets or to heat a poker in the fire. In case of death, Uncle Robert says, to be on the safe side and prevent another death in the family, ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... words, and acting altogether like the monster, mental and physical, that he was. 'He could play the fiddle, though in a silly sort, having his notes on the left side, while closing the right pair of eyes. He also sang, but in a rough, screeching voice not to ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... give way before the railroad demon, for I understand that it is soon to be connected by the Oxford, Worcester, and Wolverhampton line with all parts of the kingdom. Just think of that black little screeching imp rushing through these fields which have inspired so many fancies; how every thing poetical will fly before it! Think of such sweet snatches as these set to the tune ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... circle of backers screech, whistle, stamp, and yell in reply, that they will give three more cows. The father-in-law (an old deluder, overpaid at the beginning) accepts four, and rises to bind the bargain. The whole party, the young lady included, then falling into epileptic convulsions, and screeching, whistling, stamping, and yelling together - and nobody taking any notice of the young lady (whose charms are not to be thought of without a shudder) - the noble savage is considered married, and his friends make demoniacal leaps at him by way ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... 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
... crackle began. Then it was thrilling to watch them, veering, circling, sweeping to right or left, ever at furious gallop, throwing their lithe, painted bodies behind their chargers' necks, clinging with one leg and arm, barely showing so much as an eyelid, yet yelping and screeching like so many coyotes, not one of their number coming within four hundred yards of the slender fighting line in the stream bed; some of them, indeed, disdaining to stoop, riding defiantly along the front, firing wildly as they rode, ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... she leaped from the bed, seized the chair, sending the lamp to the floor, and, dragging the chair after her to make as much noise and confusion as she could, she rushed for the door, screeching at the top of ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... darkness. All nature lay clothed in solemn thought, when the defendant ruffians came rushing like a mighty torrent from the mountains down upon the abodes of peace, broke open the plaintiff's house, separated the weeping mother from the screeching infant, and carried off—my client's rifle, gentlemen of the jury, for which ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... hills the screeching blue-jays fly In countless flocks, and as they hasten by The children look up from their merry play To watch them slowly, slowly fade away; And night steals up the corners of ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... make landing well nigh impossible. These small lakes, subject to the ebb and flow of the tides, are the resort of innumerable sea birds and water fowls of all sizes and descriptions; from the snipe to the crane, and brightly colored flamingos, from the screeching sea gulls to the serious looking pelican. They are attracted to these lakes by the solitude of the forests of mangroves that afford them excellent shelter, where to build their nests, and find protection from the storms that, at certain season of the year, sweep ...
— Vestiges of the Mayas • Augustus Le Plongeon
... like the wakes. There were two sets of horses, one going by steam, one pulled round by a pony; three organs were grinding, and there came odd cracks of pistol-shots, fearful screeching of the cocoanut man's rattle, shouts of the Aunt Sally man, screeches from the peep-show lady. The mother perceived her son gazing enraptured outside the Lion Wallace booth, at the pictures of this famous lion that had killed a negro and maimed for life two ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... her rounds. At noon the next day she met Vincent Ferrara with her sister ship, and the two boats made one load for the Blackbird. She headed south. With high noon, too, came the summer westerly, screeching and whistling and lashing the Gulf to a ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... and yelling after the boats. I thought I should never be happy again if Cambridge didn't win. It was such a disgustingly sleety, blowy, snowy, windy, raspy, muddy day, as you never saw. And such crowds of fellows cheering and screeching out to the crews. ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... to heel he shook—shook from the marrow of his bones outwards—then leaped to his feet with raised arms, and slid the chair screeching across the tiled floor where it struck the drawers behind and fell with a jar. Mechanically, I ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... disturbed after-hours of midnight or early hours of morning you may see a dozen or so drunken sailors pulling cabs and cabhorses on to the pavement, two sailors on each horse, cuffing its flanks with their hats, shouting and screeching, and evidently dreaming of the Wild West whence they come, the Turkish cab-drivers absolutely placid and passive, however, and the Turkish gendarmes unalarmed, whilst strapping fellows of the American Naval Police with white bonnets on their heads, and neat blue ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... a great owl hooting from every hollow tree, and a little one screeching from every knothole. The bellowing of big bullfrogs was not sufficiently deafening to shut out the wailing of whip-poor-wills that seemed to come from every bush. Nighthawks swept past him with their shivering cry, and bats struck his face. A prowling wildcat missed its catch and screamed ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... the sight of the bearded strangers, the flash and report of the fire-arms, the fall of their foremost chief, shot through the brain with the bullet of Arlac, filled them with consternation, and they fled headlong within their defences. The men of Thimagoa ran screeching in pursuit. Pell-mell, all entered the town together. Slaughter; pillage; flame. The work was done, and the band ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... with guns, Making a nuisance of the blessed air, Child-crying bellmen, children in despair, Screeching for buns. ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... rushed along, screeching around curves and banging over switches, Eleanor said, "I've come out here four times a week for four years, to ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... again and again, he gave it all sorts of wonderful twists and turns, and couldn't get back into the ordinary track until something else took hold of his fancy. Sometimes his voice was rough and harsh and screeching, and sometimes it was low and drawling and singing; but at no time did it harmonize with what he was about. Music was the subject of conversation; the praises of a new composer were being sung, ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... 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 ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... 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 he had gone, many were heard to say that an ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... made more weird by the gleam of the lantern. The swish of the water as it rippled beneath the boat and the screeching of sea-fowls that had now gathered around the floating carcass set me to thinking of the ship, and I wondered if they would see the light and come to my rescue. I did not know what time it was, but judged it must he near midnight. I tried to call, but my own voice ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... condition? Providentially for you I was driving home yesterday evening by the lower road (which is the road by the river bank), and, drawing near to the inn here (they call it a hotel; it's nothing but an inn), I heard the screeching of the landlady half a mile off. A good woman enough, you will understand, as times go; but a poor creature in any emergency. Keep still, I'm coming to it now. Well, I went in to see if the screeching related to anything wanted in the medical way; and there ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... two feet long and three inches thick at the broadest end; peel or shave off the bark smoothly and sharpen the smaller end neatly. Then stick the sharpened end in the ground near the fire, leaning the broad end toward a bed of live coals, where it will get screeching hot. While it is heating, mix rather more than a half pint of best Minnesota flour with enough warm water to make a dough. Add a half teaspoon full of salt and a teaspoon full of sugar and mould and pull the dough until it becomes lively. Now, work it into a ribbon two inches wide and half ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... flank. The thick growth of hazel and alders along the brook concealed their movements. They advanced till they were not more than three hundred feet from the Fifty-third and Fifty-seventh Ohio before they began their fire. They yelled like demons, screeching and howling to frighten the handful of men supporting Waterhouse. Taylor saw that they intended an attack upon Waterhouse. He rode to the spot. "Give them grape and canister!" he shouted. It was done. The iron hail swept through the bushes. The ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... nation choose a creature more fit for a national emblem? I believe not. For would any wise man compare a useless, screeching eagle, or a useless, roaring lion—each a creature of prey—to a silent, hard-working, and useful beaver who remains true to his wife all his life, who builds a comfortable home for his children, provides them well with food and teaches them . . . not how to kill ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... child of the empyrean, clad in bright auroral hues in the memory of all that knew him,—what is he doing here in inquisitorial sanbenito, with nothing but ghastly spectralities prowling round him, and inarticulately screeching and gibbering what they call ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... the landlord yelling and screeching and snarling from the kitchen at the back, for all the world like a mad dog. But the Swiss Saturday evening customers at the other tables smoked on and talked in their ugly dialect, without trouble. Then the landlady ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... visited the kadi, (judge,) who was holding his court in the open air, with a canvas screen to shelter his head from the sun, in the midst of orchards and a flower garden. A cause, in which some women were vociferating and screeching in Arabic, (to which that language lends peculiar facility,) was suspended in order to receive my visit, and the litigants had to remain in silence at some distance till I left, ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... exosted again, down she fell on the sofy, at her old trix—more screeching—more convulshuns: and she wouldn't stop, this time, till Shum had got her half a pint of her old remedy, from the "Blue Lion" over the way. She grew more easy as she finished the gin; but Mary was sent out of the room, and told not to ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Otto, with a grin so broad that his white teeth glistened even in the dark, "and my cockatoo is the unsubdued screeching of the block-sheaves! They must be trying to get the ship off ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne
... on that point, of course require it. But let no man, and, above all, no woman, assume that the excursion will be in any way pleasurable. I have promised that I will not describe such a visit, but I must enter a loud, a screeching protest against the Arab brutes—the schieks being the very worst of the brutes—who have these monuments in their hands. Their numbers, the filthiness of their dress—or one might almost say no dress—their ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... dodging shells had by this time begun to be studied by the least nervous, for no place was safe from these screeching messengers of death. Hard roadways were rent in twain and deep gulfs dug in their midst. Gardens, from being trim and neat, became a scene of upheaval and dilapidation; the open veldt was strewed with dust and ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... came flying screeching at its very worst, and almost settling on the ship. Now the bonde threw down his oars, regarded them no more, and ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... 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 could ...
— Friendly Fairies • Johnny Gruelle
... noisily up from his evening dissipation at the end-of-steel village, found him. Even at a distance the absence of life about the shack struck the contractor, and the last half mile he covered with everything open. With the brakes still screeching, he tumbled off and ran to the door, calling to Tressa. The Indian slipped through ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... as a gust of wind puts out a scarcely lighted candle. He got up, his teeth set, his hands clenched in his pockets, and followed his mother through the Yards—vast, hideous wastes, scorching in the September heats, full of endless rows of pig, piles of scrap, acres, it seemed to Blair, of slag. The screeching clamor of the place reeked with the smell of rust and rubbish and sour earth, and the air was vibrant with the clatter of the "buggies" on the narrow-gauge tracks that ran in a tangled network from one furnace to another. Blair, trudging ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... there was 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 ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... 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 on ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... they followed me to the door in a stream, and I stooped down to stroke the one nearest to me. Bah! The brute hissed and spat, and struck at me with her paws. The claw caught my hand and drew blood in a thin line. The others danced sideways into the darkness, screeching, as though I had done them an injury. I believe these cats really hate me. Perhaps they are only waiting to be reinforced. Then they will attack me. Ha, ha! In spite of the momentary annoyance, this fancy sent me laughing upstairs to ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... had but just time to splutter out these comforting words and redescend the carriage, when the train put itself into movement, and the lifelike iron miracle, fuming, hissing, and screeching, bore off to London its motley convoy of human beings, each passenger's heart a mystery to the other, all bound the same road, all wedged close within the same whirling mechanism; what a separate and distinct world in each! Such is Civilization! How like we are one to ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... brown spots on it like the face of the devil—and all the time the people there—they were packed in like sardines—they kept making remarks about us, and Zilla went right on talking about the little chap, and screeching that 'folks like him oughtn't to be admitted in a place that's SUPPOSED to be for ladies and gentlemen,' and 'Paul, will you kindly call the manager, so I can report this dirty rat?' and—Oof! Maybe I wasn't glad when I could sneak inside and hide ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... where everything was in order, and a screeching canary made us welcome. The uncle had added sausages and piles of buttered toast to the kippers. The coffee, cleared with a piece of fish-skin, was ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... the night screeching over our heads, and the whining of the pines was almost like human voices. Forsythe sucked a cigar ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... no tricks were attempted now upon unconscious friends, and even the almost invariable little groups of admirers listening to the marvellously strange tales of those who had crossed the seas were not to be found. All was silent save the screeching of the owls every now and again, and the subdued hum of conversation which rose up from the awestruck assembly as they patiently awaited the test which was to bring home the ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... bleeding about the head, and would, of course, if she had been left to fight it out, have been worsted in a very short time. But the enemy had felt the weight of her blows upon his ribs, and had learned his lesson. For just a fraction of a second he turned, and defied the ram with a screeching snarl. But when that horned, black, battering head pitched forward at him he bounded aside like a furry gray ball and clambered to the top of the rock. Here he crouched for some moments, snarling viciously, his tufted ears ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... cool, and blustering night, such as the New Englanders are very apt to have on the second of April. The wind blew violently down the open country, shaking the scattered trees as if it meant to wake them instantly out of their winter's slumber, and screeching in the murky distances like a tomcat of the housetops, or rather like a continent of tomcats. The Doctor lost his hat, chased it a few rods, and then gave it up, lest he should miss his burglars. Once I halted and watched, thinking that I saw two or three dark shapes dogging us not far behind, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... 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, ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... ridge of that hill ran the proposed line of battle, and there was the position for which we were making. There was quite a lively picket fire going on, in different directions, and right over the hill, behind which we were, an occasional shell could be heard screeching about, here and there. Several passed over us, high above our heads, and away to the rear. Federal Artillery lazily feeling about to provoke a reply, and find out where somebody was. They felt lonesome, perhaps! It was a calm, sweet sunlit ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame
... the frightful herd was now circling rapidly and with bewildering speed about the little knot of victims. Their prodigious bounds and the shrill, screeching purr of their uncanny mouths were well calculated to confuse and terrorize their prey, so that as two of them leaped simultaneously from either side, the mighty sweep of those awful tails met with no resistance and two more green Martians went down ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... by 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 ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... long enough for two fair drives to Springhaven and back, and when even the youngest were growing weary of glare, and dust, and clank, and din, and blare, and roar, and screeching music, Lord Dashville rode up through a cloud of roving chalk, and after a little talk with the ladies, ordered the coachman to follow him. Then stopping the carriage at a proper distance, he led the three ladies ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... hiding. Of course the stupid Monster missed her and passed on, and all would have been well, but it turned back, or another just like it came suddenly spitting behind her. Pussy leaped to the long track and made for the home shore. She might have got there had not a third of the Red-eyed Terrors come screeching at her from that side. She was running her hardest, but was caught between two foes. There was nothing for it but a desperate leap from the timbers into-she didn't know what. Down, down, down-plop, splash, plunge ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... o' Monday night, A vire both great and high; But I wool not tell you where, my boys, Nor wool not tell you why. The varmer he comes screeching out, To zave 'uns new brood mare; Zays I, "You and your stock may roast, Vor aught ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... of regular cavalry of the Provost Guard was riding through the fugitives, turning, checking, cutting out, driving, separating the disorganised mob; but it was hard work, and many got away, and teamsters began to cut traces, and skulking cavalrymen clapped spurs and rode over screeching deserters who blocked their path. It was a squalid sight; ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... French trenches which sapped their way forward to those pits. When the guns ceased firing the French soldiers often heard the sound of singing. But above the voices of the Germans there came sometimes a series of piercing cries like the screeching of an owl in a terrible plaint, followed by strange and bloodcurdling laughter. It was the voice of a mad woman who was one of those captured from neighbouring villages and brought into the trenches by the Germans. ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... 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 by ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... stiffing a yawn when the coaches bumped sharply together and, with wheels screeching protest as the brakes clutched them, the train, grinding protest in every joint, came, with a final heavy jar, to a dead stop. Thurston thought it was a wreck, until out ahead came the sharp crackling of rifles. A passenger behind him leaned out of the window and ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower
... most likely they 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
... 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 ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... rogue yet, black or white, or the colour of poor Madame's frothed chocolate, who did not love gold better than blood, unless indeed 'twas for the sweet morsel of revenge; and these, for all their rolling eyes and screeching tongues, have not the ghost of a ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... First time I ever struck him, and didn't intend to then. So blame mad and disappointed my foot just shot out before I knew it. There he lies half dead to make up, but I'm blest if I forgive him in a hurry. And there is that insane little owl screeching for a mate. If I'd start out making sounds like that, all the girls would line up and compete for ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... later, Channeljumper came bounding excitedly over a sand dune. "They're here," he cried, screeching to a halt and emitting yellow ...
— I Like Martian Music • Charles E. Fritch
... gasping mutterings. When I ran up to him to shake him, fearing he might die of joy, he flashed off two or three hundred yards, his feet in a mist of motion; then, turning suddenly, came back in a wild rush and launched himself at my face, almost knocking me down, all the time screeching and screaming and shouting as if saying, "Saved! saved! saved!" Then away again, dropping suddenly at times with his feet in the air, trembling and fairly sobbing. Such passionate emotion was enough to kill him. Moses' stately song of triumph after escaping the Egyptians ...
— Stickeen • John Muir
... boat in a twinkling, and shouting and screeching like so many demons, clambered over the gunwales until there was danger of swamping ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... how often it is repeated, they hasten panic-stricken to shelter. Wilson speaks of him as the trumpeter of the feathered chorus, but his range of notes is very great, passing from harsh, grating sounds, like the screeching of an unlubricated axle, to a warbling as soft and modulated as that of a bluebird, and again, prompted by his mercurial nature, screaming like a derisive fish-wife. Fledglings will develop contentedly in a cage, and ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... There was a screeching noise outside, followed by an incredible crash. It seemed to cleave a bottomless abyss between one second and the next, so that one seemed to be conscious for the first time in an astonished ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... Rook shall perch on the topmost bough, There shall be clamor and screeching, I trow; But of right to, and rule of the ancient nest, The Rook that with Rook ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... was coming along the towpath from the village (he brought us the mail every morning), came down and asked, "What's up, young feller? I heerd the wimminfolk screeching. What ye been ...
— W. A. G.'s Tale • Margaret Turnbull
... A great ta-yar-r-r and screeching followed the reports; under cover of which and the smoke we legged it for the boat, and, tumbling in, were shoved hastily off by Weymouth. Before we had got twenty yards, however, the savages were on the bank, yelling, and ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... yet," said my uncle. "I'm like you, Nat, a little bit puzzled. If it were not so small I should say it was a nest from the way that great hornbill keeps flapping about and screeching." ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... to witness the great yearly, festival of the re-election of the Sheik. Early in the morning a crowd of Takruries came pouring in from all directions, armed with sticks or spears, a few mounted, the majority on foot, all howling and screeching (I believe they call it singing), so that before even the dust raised by a new party could be seen, the ear was deafened by their clamour. Every Takrurie warrior—that is, every one who can howl and carry ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... it round half a dozen times more, I suddenly brought it down on his head with all my force, and did exactly what I had been counselled to do by the wise shepherd—knocked him clean off his horse. But he was not stunned, and starting up in a screeching fury, he pulled out his knife to kill me. And I, for strategic reasons, retreated, rather hastily. But his wild cries quickly brought several persons on the scene, and, recovering courage, I went back and said triumphantly, "Now we are quits!" Then my father ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... through, auto after auto wheeled along, horns tooting, whistles screeching, boys shouting, girls cheering, until one hour of this strenuous frolic seemed enough to satisfy motor girls and motor boys; and the party went to the Beacon for luncheon precisely at noon, leaving Tom to finish the honors by stripping the cars of their trappings and making ...
— The Motor Girls on a Tour • Margaret Penrose
... bravely died Was last of all her honoured name, The only hope that fate supplied To keep alive her house's fame. And then the screeching bird of night Would mope upon the crumbling walls, And chirking whutthroats claim the right To gambol in the ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... terror in his big white face. Flynn! I did my damdest, but I had no hope of stopping them, not in that little lane. When I came out on the high-road I found what was left of the politician half-way up a telegraph post, like a treed cat, screeching and scrambling and calling on the Saints, with old Actress swinging by her teeth to the tails of his shirt, Cruiskeen ripping the trousers off him a leg at a time, and the rest of the pack leaping under him like the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 4, 1920 • Various
... it to us cheap, if we were inclined to buy. But we satisfied ourselves and him by looking at it then, hoping that we might see each other on our return. We were directed to a place to sleep, but the screeching of the wild geese and other wild fowl in the creek before the door, prevented us from having a good sleep, though ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... and I pluckt forth the Diskos from my hip. And the Yellow Beast-Man grunted upon the ground; and it rose up again to come at me; and it stood and did grunt, and did seem as that it was gone mazed; for it did make other sounds, and an horrid screeching, so that truly, by the way of it, I conceived that it cried out unknown and half-shapen words at me. And in a moment, it came again at me; but I cut the head from the Beast-Man, that was in verity an horrid monster, and the Man died, and ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... him mild and gentle, unwearied in giving and in doing good. His wrath slumbered for a season, and around the spot where the heads of those who had suffered capital punishment were exhibited as a warning to their fellow-men, the hungry, screeching crows now wheeled, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... had landed on, were rugged rocks sloping gradually down to the sea. A thick fringe of kelp, a slippery sort of sea-weed, added somewhat to the difficulties of our landing. As we advanced, we were assailed by the most frightful gabbling, and screeching, and quacking I ever heard, from thousands and thousands of wild-fowls, chiefly penguins of various species. The whole hillside was literally covered with them and their eggs in dense masses. Nothing daunted at our appearance, when they found that the hubbub ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... of devotion and excitement of these dervishes is like that I had witnessed at Constantinople, without being quite so wild in its character. Not one of them sank exhausted, and the screeching and howling were not so loud. Towards the end of their performance many of the dervishes seized a small tambourine, on which they beat and produced a ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... impregnable moral intrenchments between Worry and You. Find a door banging in this house, if you can! Catch a servant in this house rattling the tea-things when he takes away the tray! Discover barking dogs, crowing cocks, hammering workmen, screeching children here—and I engage to close My Sanitarium to-morrow! Are these nuisances laughing matters to nervous people? Ask them! Can they escape these nuisances at home? Ask them! Will ten minutes' irritation from a barking dog or a screeching child undo ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... "Always running 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. ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... door of some place where I can lock this screeching Hell-babe,' cried Sikes fiercely; running to and fro, and dragging the boy, now, as easily as if he were an empty sack. 'That door. Quick!' He flung him in, bolted it, and turned the key. ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... he said, "is miles and miles in width. It sweeps across the prairie screeching and screaming, but doing not so very much damage as it might do, just getting on the nerves of the people and helping to drive them insane. That ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris
... a Peiraeus merchant against the screeching blasts, "save from this peril and I vow thee and thy temple two mixing bowls ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... half bad business, those two kids—for Noel is little more than one, owing to his poetry and his bronchitis—standing in the abode of dynamite and not screeching, or running off to tell Miss Blake, or the servants, or any one—but just doing the right thing without ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit
... to you," he continued; "you don't fly off, screeching, when you see a party, and your hair doesn't stand on end. You've no idea," he said, "how sick I am of seeing people's hair ...
— Told After Supper • Jerome K. Jerome
... was night, and he was shivering. His stomach was screeching, and his nerves dancing with high voltages. He sat up and groped for his watch, then remembered he had pawned it after the poker game. Remembering the game and the results of the game made him wince and bite his lip and grope ...
— The Hoofer • Walter M. Miller
... occasionally she unconsciously revealed them. Thus the warnings of death or misfortunes were revealed to her by certain ominous sounds in the woods, the appearance of strange birds or animals, or the meanings of others. The screeching of the owl, the bleating of the doe, or barking of the fox, were evil auguries, while the flight of the eagle and the croaking of the raven were omens of good. She put faith in dreams, and would foretel good or evil fortune from them; she could read the morning and evening clouds, ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... I'se not superstitious and I'se believe in no signs. I jes' carry a rabbits' foot for luck. But I do believe the screeching of an owl is a sign of death. I found et to be true. I had an Uncle named Haywood. He stayed at my house and was sick for a month but wasn't so bad off. One night uncle had a relapse and dat same night a screech ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... were chapped and cracked, even though his grandmother had knit him a pair of enormous red mittens. He appreciated the warmth of the mittens, but he hated the color. Why in the name of all that was inartistic did she choose red; not a deep, rich crimson, but a screeching vermilion, ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... had seen him from the hill and, watching, had understood. It was too late to run, useless to evade, so he stood waiting while shrieking, screeching at every ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... she thrust him ignominiously away and behind her. Because of the low-roofed entrance the lynx could not leap in, and when she made a crawling rush of it the she-wolf sprang upon her and pinned her down. The cub saw little of the battle. There was a tremendous snarling and spitting and screeching. The two animals threshed about, the lynx ripping and tearing with her claws and using her teeth as well, while the she-wolf ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... erect in her night robes, screeching at the top of her voice, for she believed a madman had entered her room, and went straight into a fit of hysterics, while the watchman and numerous of the female bystanders gathered around the major, and would have ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... course heard that the creatures were eaten, although he had never tasted monkey. He accordingly fired, and brought down two who were sitting together grinning at him. The rest on this came chattering and screeching to the boughs close above his head, and began to throw down sticks and nuts, some of the latter of which they had been eating, and to spit at him in the ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... recurs to my mind which I must recount as an example when psychology failed. A Whitechapel "lady," suffering with a very violent form of delirium tremens, was lying screeching in a strait-jacket on the cushioned floor of the padded room. With the usual huge queue of students following, he had gone in to see her, as I had been unable to get the results desired with a reasonable quantity of sedatives and soporifics. ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... drawing-room. The window was a tiny bit open, and she made me stand just on the ledge between it and the balcony, so that I could see the parrot without his seeing me, for she said if he saw me he'd set up screeching and not talk sense any more. He knows when people are strangers. The cage was close to the old lady's end of the balcony, so that I could almost have touched it, and then I heard him say all those queer ...
— Peterkin • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... And so, screeching like an angry cat, she was carried on board, and set sail with her husband and one of her former lovers. She found Haiti and Santo Domingo more agreeable than she had supposed. She was there a sort of queen who could ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... Near by was a potato patch which he entered hoping to get some of 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 ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... him, sir! The fattest gentleman as ever I see, and the heaviest customer as ever I drove. Yes, yes—I call him to mind, sir! We DID go to the station, and it WAS from Forest Road. There was a parrot, or summat like it, screeching in the window. The gentleman was in a mortal hurry about the lady's luggage, and he gave me a handsome present for looking sharp ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... you are to come back, whether or no," said Mr Winterbones, screeching out of the window, and putting all his ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... he was going deaf. The shrill roar of screeching metal and throbbing dynamos that pounded at his eardrums began to fuddle his mind, until General Webb handed him a small cardboard box—also stamped, like every door and wall in the place, "Top Secret"—in which his trembling fingers located two ordinary rubber earplugs, ...
— Minor Detail • John Michael Sharkey
... frightful manner that it was enough to bring horror upon the stoutest heart in the world. Overcome by fright, she first fainted, then recovered, then ran all over the house, up the stairs and down the stairs, like one distracted. Thus she 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 dead from that moment; for the gangrene ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... i' the girl's head I can tell thee; I'd rather see her earning her bread by the sweat of brow, as the Bible tells her she should do, ay, though she never got butter to her bread, than be like a do-nothing lady, worrying shopmen all morning, and screeching at her pianny all afternoon, and going to bed without having done a good turn to any one ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... plenty of blue bag. Then she ironed it, with a morsel of starch to make it stand out and show itself off, and stitched it on again as proud as could be. It was to be a surprise for Bridgie, and, me dears, it was a surprise! Mother and Bridgie screeching at the top of their voices, and looking as if the plague was upon us. Would ye believe it, it was just what they liked, to have the lace that colour, and it was the bad turn Esmeralda had done them, starching it up like new! Off it all came, and mother found an old lace scarf, ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Grampus, pretending not to hear, "send your dog and fetch that hare. I can't bear its screeching." ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... anything but beautiful models, gilded and painted in all the most flaming colours, piled on top of each other on every house from street level to attic, each tradesman vieing with the other in screeching to the public to "Buy! buy!! buy!!!" by means of the curiosities and monstrosities of the ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... by a bird that flew screeching from the tree under which they sat. At the same instant a crackling sound caused them to spring to their feet in terror. The woods around them were on fire. The breeze had grown stronger, and had carried the sparks upward ...
— A Little Florida Lady • Dorothy C. Paine
... no attention to the machine. Let us not call it a flying-machine. Let us call it simply an automobile. There it is on the road, jolting, screeching, rattling, perfuming. And there he is, saying: 'This road ought to be as smooth as velvet. That hill in front is ridiculous, and the descent on the other side positively dangerous. And it's all turns—I can't see a hundred yards in ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett |
