"Shrill" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of 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, ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... of voices just then, as I wrote, many voices, coming nearer, shrill women's voices, cutting through one's thoughts, and I went out to see what ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... hovers a kite, performing graceful circles in the keen clear air and breaking the oppressive silence of the place with his shrill screams, for his mate must have her nest hidden in some cleft of yon grey towering cliff. A pair of crested hoopoes with brown plumage and ruddy breasts keep fluttering a little way before us, uttering from time to time their curious notes of alarm. ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... been if a dog had shrunk from her advances; for Audrey was not accustomed to have her favours rejected. She was further irritated by the ostentatious affection of the child's mother as she helped it through the railings with shrill cries of "There then, blessums! Did she then, the naughty lydy!" And when baby echoed "Naughty lydy!" it was as if the two-year-old ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... that?" as a shrill cry, as from a child, followed by a confused outburst of cries, chattering, and, as it seemed to them, a barking ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... flickered dully behind their quaint, old-fashioned iron casings. The mountains indeed were beautiful, all snow-white under the stars that are so big in frost. Hardly any one was astir; a few good souls wending home from vespers, a tired post-boy who blew a shrill blast from his tasselled horn as he pulled up his sledge before a hostelry, and little August hugging his jug of beer to his ragged sheepskin coat, were all who were abroad, for the snow fell heavily and the good folks of Hall go early to their beds. He could ...
— The Nuernberg Stove • Louisa de la Rame (AKA Ouida)
... gives you a fresh one," he said, and he took a new and shining one from the box. Freddie blew it, making a shrill sound. ...
— Bobbsey Twins in Washington • Laura Lee Hope
... all reflection in the shallow Lagoon whose trampled margin still displays Upheaval where the centaurs used to wallow; And where my favourite unicorns would graze, A few wild ducks scream lamentable lays Of shrill derision desperate with fear, Bleak note on note, phrase on discordant phrase, In this, the ...
— The Five Books of Youth • Robert Hillyer
... the disputants, and brandished her arms dripping with soapsuds, and fired away from her window as from the embrazure of a fortress; while the swarms of children nestled and cradled in every procreant chamber of this hive, waking with the noise, set up their shrill pipes to ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... hand to his mouth, he gave a shrill imitation of the call to cease firing, and then lost his balance and fell over the chair with ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... Through his hot blood; the bristling yellow glare Spiking his eyes with fire, till he went reeling, Stifled and blinded, on—and did not care Though he were taken—wandering round and round, 'Jerusalem the Golden' quavering shrill, Changing his tune to 'Tommy Tiddler's Ground': Till, just a lost child on that dazzling hill, Bewildered in a glittering golden maze Of stinging scented fire, he dropped, quite done, A shrivelling wisp within a world ablaze ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... mine! The winter wind blows cold and shrill, Come, fill me one more glass of wine, And give ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 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 ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... would rush by without stopping, with a shower of hot cinders and the roar of escaping steam. Thereupon a tempest of shouts and stamping would arise in the station, and, soaring above all the rest, the shrill treble of M. Chebe, shrieking in his sea-gull's voice: "Break down the doors! break down the doors!"—a thing that the little man would have taken good care not to do himself, as he had an abject fear of gendarmes. In a moment the storm would abate. The ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... and took her babe in her arms, and when the women observed the lady holding her own little one, their looks were softened. At a hint of explanation from Edwards, the guttural gabble rattled up to the shrill vowels. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... thy nest, Robin-redbreast! Sing, birds, in every furrow; And from each hill, let music shrill Give my fair Love good-morrow! Blackbird and thrush in every bush, Stare, linnet, and cock-sparrow! You pretty elves, amongst yourselves Sing my fair Love good-morrow; To give my Love good-morrow Sing ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... when presently the shrill whistle of the factory announced that it was noon, and pretty soon crowds of men, women, boys and girls trooped down the road toward a group of small houses further along. It was a noisy, jostling crowd and the two ...
— Little Maid Marian • Amy E. Blanchard
... girl did not stop to listen to Dagmar's cry or to the shrill whistle the officer again sent out into the night. She was making tracks so successfully, the minion of the law knew very well his whistle would never summon help—the only other officer in town being "out of town" to his personal knowledge. So Tessie went, and with her Dagmar's ...
— The Girl Scout Pioneers - or Winning the First B. C. • Lillian C Garis
... read this, he seized the trumpet, and blew a shrill blast which made the gates fly open and the very castle itself tremble. The giant and the conjurer now knew that their wicked course was at an end, and they stood biting their thumbs and shaking with fear. Jack, with his sword of sharpness, soon killed the giant. The magician ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... what Mr Jolly said, or try to imagine what he felt, on receipt of this letter! About the time it was put into his hands the magnificent steamer at the embarcadero gave a shrill whistle, then it panted violently, the paddles revolved,—and our adventurers were soon steaming swiftly down the noble river on their way ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... storm's approach. In one half of the sky the stars were still peacefully alight; the other was hidden by a dense cloud, which came racing along like a giant bat with outspread wings, devouring the stars in its flight. The storm broke; there was a sudden shrill screeching, a grinding, piping, whistling, and the wind hurled itself against the house as if to level it with the ground; failing in this, it banged and battered, making windows and doors shake like loose teeth in their sockets. Then it swept ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... a great charm in conversation, as in the lecture-room. It was never loud, never shrill, but singularly penetrating. He was apt to hesitate in the course of a sentence, so as to be sure of the exact word he wanted; picking his way through his vocabulary, to get at the best expression of his thought, as a well-dressed woman crosses the muddy pavement to reach the opposite ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... sounding words, but he makes up by the details of knowledge, and by a scrupulous correctness of statement for what he wants in originality of thought, or impetuous declamation. The tones of Mr. Coleridge's voice are eloquence: those of Mr. Southey are meagre, shrill, and dry. Mr. Coleridge's forte is conversation, and he is conscious of this: Mr. Southey evidently considers writing as his strong-hold, and if gravelled in an argument, or at a loss for an explanation, ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... of a sudden, Bumpus was given an electric shock, when Giraffe let out a shrill whoop; for with his mind so filled by visions of armies of wildcats all ready to pounce upon them by and by, Bumpus was in ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... using of his trade; to set up an equipage of noise, when he has most need of quiet; instead of her being under covert-baron, to be under covert-femme myself; to have my body disabled, and my head fortified; and, lastly, to be crowded into a narrow box with a shrill treble, That with one blast through the whole house does bound, And first taught speaking-trumpets ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... turning for a last unpleasingly speculative look at the outlaw. Then Miss Spence closed the door into the cloakroom and that into the big hall, and came and sat at her desk, near Penrod. The tramping of feet outside, the shrill calls and shouting and the changing voices of the older boys ceased to be heard—and there was silence. Penrod, still affecting to be occupied with Lowell, was conscious that Miss Spence looked ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... and fight the redskins—a necessity which so exasperated his naturally fiery temper that, on such occasions, he became utterly regardless of his life, and rushing upon any odds with a terrific roar of his deep bass voice, so different from the shrill yell of the Indians—would cleave his way right through their ranks with his long double-edged sword; then, returning to the charge with increased fury, would so appal and horrify them that the usual result was a ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... Dionysus, as he leaps into the midst of these gracious appearances, drunk with the young wine of nature, surly with the old wisdom of Silenus, brings the real, excessive, disturbing truth of things suddenly into the illusion; and is gone again, with a shrill laugh, without forcing on us more of his ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... 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 ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... that I'm clear this end of the house. You see that they don't come up stairs. It's nice to be in your own place, though the folks where I staid were very good and pleasant, I s'pose they thought I might remember them in my will," and she gave a shrill sort of cackle. "Now I tell you there isn't much fun in living to be old, and I seem to have lost my spunk. It's just a kind of drowsing life away. Now tell me what you did! My, but this toast tastes good! ...
— A Modern Cinderella • Amanda M. Douglas
... Fauvette sneered: "I see your soft, sentimental Christmas card face. I'm not afraid of you. I laugh at you." And peals of shrill, almost satanic, ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... a startled murmur from the grandstand. Buster snorted and turned. Without moving, Judith gave a shrill whistle. Buster wheeled and came back to his first position, where he stood trembling. On came Sioux, his hoofs rocking the echoes, and with every apparent intention of goring his mistress. But ten feet from Judith he pulled up with a jerk and with stiffened fore legs slid ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... daughter, the latter carrying the chair, rushing from the front door, and Mrs. Wiggins, armed with a great wooden spoon, waddling after them, her objurgations mingling with Mrs. Mumpson's shrieks and Jane's shrill laughter. The widow caught a glimpse of him standing in the barn door, and, as if borne by the wind, she flew toward him, crying, "He ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... I cut,' the lank goblin replied, With voice that was hollow and shrill; 'I have cheated, and bullied, and swindled, and lied, Sedition and falsehood I've spread far and wide, And in mischief I never ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... the wide plateau before them sounded the shrill whistle of a train. It shot into sight, a long, slim, glittering thing, flying a pennant of fiery smoke. Kate laughed exultingly. She never heard these trains shrieking their way through the darkness without a shuddering memory of her night of vigil ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... dressed but frivolous-looking women stood in a group not far from the window where Priscilla sat forlorn. They talked about the cut of their mantles and the price they had given for their new winter bonnets. Their shrill laughter reached Prissie's ears, also their words. They complimented one another, but talked scandal of their neighbors. They called somebody— who Prissie could not imagine—" a certain lady," and spoke of how she was angling to get a footing in society, ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... got up, too, and with his hands on his stomach, went off into shrill laughter like the yap of ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... his fingers to his lips, and blew a shrill whistle that penetrated far in the forest. In a few instants, the answer, another whistle, came back from a point a few hundred yards ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... from England, spent all her year's income from her crops on powder and shot for the purpose of making a stand in the contemplated destruction of the new tobacco crops, and thereby plunged herself and her family in a danger which were hard to estimate were it discovered, I heard a shrill duet of girlish laughs and merry tongues before the house. Then, on looking forth, whom should I see but Mary Cavendish and Cicely Hyde, her great gossip, and a young coloured wench, all washing their faces in the ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... Florence, and Siena, I never could find a woman to go mad about, either among the ladies, chattering bad French, or among the lower classes, as 'cute and cold as money-lenders; so I steer clear of Italian womankind, its shrill voice and gaudy toilettes. I am wedded to history, to the Past, to women like Lucrezia Borgia, Vittoria Accoramboni, or that Medea da Carpi, for the present; some day I shall perhaps find a grand passion, a woman to play the ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... 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 ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday
... the box and Betty for the door; but both came tumbling down faster than they went up, when from the gloom of the interior came a shrill bark, and a low voice saying ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... was it? To be sure—dogs! There were no barking dogs to greet him. It was curious, he thought, for these isolated families always had plenty of dogs and no "breed" or "Injun" outfit ever kept fewer than six. There were no shrill voices of children at play, no sound of an axe or ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... a shrill little piping noise like the fiddle of a cricket. Ten seconds later it came again: peep. Thereafter, intermittently, it keened through the control room—a homely, comforting sound to let them know that there was a distant thread between ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst
... Bob in the saddle than the horse gave a shrill neigh, and dashed off like a crazy creature. Indeed, a less experienced rider than Bob would have been instantly thrown by the sudden and unexpected move, something that Domino had never been ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... roaring of the wind, or the rumbling of thunder. And she had heard the middle-sized voice of the Middle-Sized Bear, but it was only as if she had heard some one speaking in a dream. But when she heard the little, small, wee voice of the Little, Small, Wee Bear, it was so sharp and shrill that it woke her up at once. Up she started, and when she saw the three Bears, on one side of the bed, she tumbled out at the other, jumped out of the window and ran away through the wood to her own home. And the three Bears never saw anything more ...
— Favorite Fairy Tales • Logan Marshall
... spectacle so fantastic and awe-inspiring was ever dealt with, even in the pages of quasi-scientific fiction. It was impossible for me to observe in what order the rats were advancing, on account of the great stretch of country which they covered. Soon, however, their shrill squeals were distinctly heard, and a few minutes later the edge of that strange tide struck our tree and swept past us with a force impossible to realise. No living thing was spared. Snakes, lizards—ay, even the biggest kangaroos—succumbed after an ineffectual struggle. The ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... knavery better than any one: but that did not keep him from supporting them in order to retain their support. And if in private he never hesitated to speak of the people in terms of contempt, on the platform he was a different man. Then he would assume a high-pitched voice, shrill, nasal, labored, solemn tones, a tremolo, a bleat, wide, sweeping, fluttering gestures like the beating of wings: exactly ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... to Kangwe and ask Mme. Jacot, of the Mission Evangelique, if she will take me in. The air is stiff with mosquitoes, and saying a few suitable words to them, I dash under the mosquito bar and sleep, lulled by their shrill ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... their impress upon one's lifetime, changing instantaneously, as it were, our thoughts and feelings, and such an one had come to Maggie Lee, who was roused from a deep reverie by the shrill voice of her aunt, exclaiming, "Well, I've been on a Tom-fool's errand once in my life. Here I've waited in that hot depot over two trains, and heard at the last minute that Mrs. Thornton and her son came up last night, and I hain't seen them after ...
— Rosamond - or, The Youthful Error • Mary J. Holmes
... a shrill voice at his elbow, and he turned to find Jimmy Hunt, his round face all alight with anticipation of exciting episodes to ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... road, and then he began to walk along the moraines with rapid and uneasy steps. The day was declining, the snow was assuming a rosy tint, and a dry, frozen wind blew in rough gusts over its crystal surface. Ulrich uttered a long, shrill, vibrating call. His voice sped through the deathlike silence in which the mountains were sleeping; it reached the distance, across profound and motionless waves of glacial foam, like the cry of a bird across the waves of the sea. Then it died ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... I remember the time of our starting! How quick the large cars we did fill! How screamed the shrill whistle, the signal for parting! How we flew ...
— Our Gift • Teachers of the School Street Universalist Sunday School, Boston
... Indian is attacked by a wild beast, he thinks that his real foe is not the animal, but the sorcerer who has transformed himself into it. Curiously enough they look upon some small harmless birds in the same light. One little bird, in particular, which flits across the savannahs with a peculiar shrill whistle at morning and evening, is regarded by the Indians with especial fear as a transformed sorcerer. They think that for every one of these birds that they shoot they have an enemy the less, and they burn its little body, taking great care that not even a single feather escapes ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... all seemed to be well; then came a sudden shrill cry from Betty, followed by a hoarser one from Bob, which could mean nothing else ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... exclaimed the Marquis. The words had hardly left his lips when the woman rose and extended her arms. Her features contracted; her large eyes seemed to start from her head; she placed her hand upon her heart, uttered a shrill cry and fell back upon the bed. It was the work of an instant. Coursegol and the Marquis both sprang forward, lifted her, and endeavored to restore her, but in vain. The unfortunate Tiepoletta was dead. Her heart had broken like a fragile vase, shattered by ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet
... a tiger, wasn't it?" said Rob excitedly, as a shrill cry rang out somewhere in the forest and sent a thrill ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... could make no effective fight against so many foes, and indeed had a chance for but one or two rapid snaps before he was thrown down and completely covered by the bodies of his enemies. Yet with one of these snaps he did damage, as a shrill yell told, and in a second an over-rash track-hound came out of the struggle with a deep gash across his shoulders. The worrying, growling, and snarling were terrific, but in a minute the heaving mass grew motionless and the dogs drew off, save one or two that still continued to ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... snake shook its rattles. They made an extremely loud, shrill sound, and in a flash, from nowhere apparently, the old witch appeared on the dock with her ...
— The Enchanted Island • Fannie Louise Apjohn
... morning Febrer took a trip to town. Tio Ventolera could not go fishing with him, for he considered his presence at mass indispensable, that he might respond to the priest with his shrill voice. ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... and belles in the boxes of the crowded theatre had bowed and curtsied, for in those days beaux did bow and belles did curtsy; the impatient sticks in the pit, and shrill catcalls in the gallery, had begun to contend with the music in the orchestra; and thrice had we surveyed the house to recognize every body whom any body knew, when the door of the box next to ours, the ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... picks and clings to certain isolated facts. At the first explosion, she rushed, terrorized, into the street, gazing up to the heavens, and shaking her withered old fists above her head, she cried in her shrill, quavering voice: "Now look at that! They told us the Kaiser was dying. It's a lie. It's a lie, you see, for here he comes throwing his cursed ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... tone with which one speaks. For, in speaking, the voice of every man is sometimes more grave in the sound, and at other times more acute or shrill."—Beattie's Moral Science, p. 25. "Accent is the tone of the voice with which a syllable is pronounced."—Dr. Adam's Latin and ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... almost time far the biggest game to start, the contest with Ballard, the supreme test of the Gold and Green, the final struggle for The State Intercollegiate Football Championship! In a few minutes the referee's shrill whistle blast would sound, the vast crowd in the stands, on the side-lines, and in the parked automobiles, would suddenly still their clamor and breathlessly await the kick-off—then, seventy minutes of grim battling on the turf, and victory, or defeat, would perch ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... red corn-poppies laughed at the homely looking bird, and cried to one another and to the surrounding blades of corn in a shrill voice, "Now, indeed, you may see what comes of flying so high, and striving and straining after mere air; people only lose their time, and bring back nothing but weary wings and an empty stomach. That vulgar-looking ill-dressed little creature ...
— Peter Schlemihl etc. • Chamisso et. al.
... form spurt up out of the boat, and, as it arose, like the fountain that pops out of the sea after a shell strikes, there came a heavy blow and a deep-throated grunt, followed by a hiss that was merged with a shrill death-cry. ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... by a shrill little outburst from the sofa behind. "Hurrah! Hurrah!" cried little Geoff before Dick had ended. "Chatty, it was me that brought the first news! ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... were no sooner out of her mouth than, whisk! whirr! off they scampered out of the garden and away—fathers, mothers, children, babies, all crying in their shrill voices, "She sees us! she sees us!" For fairies are very timid folk, and dread nothing more than to have mortals see them ...
— Pepper & Salt - or, Seasoning for Young Folk • Howard Pyle
... their distance was so great that he could not distinguish them with his naked eye. The sportsman frequently receives the first notice of their presence, by hearing from a long distance their peculiar shrill neighing note of alarm. If he then looks attentively, he will probably see the herd standing in a line on the side of some distant hill. On approaching nearer, a few more squeals are given, and off they set at an apparently slow, but really quick ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... was going up the fore-ladder, and though he could not just then take his pipe from his mouth to utter a retort, he gave a fierce look with one of his ferrety eyes, which showed that he acknowledged himself deeply in his messmate's debt. His pipe sounded more shrill than usual, as he could not give any ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... told her that the train was coming. It crawled slowly—like a huge serpent—over the wilderness of space, growing always larger, steaming its way through the golden sunshine of the afternoon, and after a time, with a grinding of brakes and the shrill hiss of escaping air, it ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Bartimeus, hold thy peace! But still, above the noisy crowd, The beggar's cry is shrill and loud; Until they say, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... the depth of water, in obedience to the command of the pilot, expressed in a single clang of the heavy bell. Mechanically he had stopped, and with no interest in the matter he listened to the monotonous reply, "Quarter less three," &c. He was about to descend to the boiler deck, when a shrill shriek startled him from his revery. There was no mistaking the sound of that voice! Without an instant's hesitation, he called to the pilot to stop the boat, and, with a few bounds, was by the side of Jaspar, who was calling lustily ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... rose a shrill whistle. From immediately to the left came an answer. Then he understood. They were heading him off from the railroad and the ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs
... any more everyday style, we sat down with a stern resolution of endurance—lips firmly compressed, eyes fixed in a stony gaze on the orchestra, whence issued by turns groans, shrieks, and screams, from sundry foully-abused instruments of music; accompanied by equally appalling sounds from flat, shrill signorinas, quavering to distraction, backed by gigantic "basses," (double ones surely,) who, with voices like the "seven devils" of the old Grecian, bellowed out divers sentimentalisms about dying for love, when assuredly their most ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... in a shrill, angry voice.] Now Thomas, suppose you was to take that there bread a step further away and eat it in the garden, if eat it you must, instead of crumbling it ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... laid himself back, and attempted to whistle the Boyne Water, but having only one tusk in front, the sound produced resembled the wild whistle of the wind through the chink of a door—shrill and monotonous; after which he burst out into a chuckling laugh, tickled, probably, at the notion of that celebrated melody proving disloyal in spite of him, as refusing, as it were, to ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... the country a short distance, out on the Bloomfield pike. She found he was from Bloomfield and trilled away in a high, shrill cackle that she loved every stick and stone in that adorable country. And when she found that he was the nephew of Mrs. Mosby, or, rather, Loraine Fawcette, that was, her ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... To-ot! The shrill wail of the locomotive whistle broke rudely through her revery and brought her to a sudden realization that if she didn't bestir herself, Mrs. Wescott would be at the station with ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... those mild days of winter when the mere quality and temper of the sunshine suffice to move the landscape to joy, and you pause on the brown grass in the sunny stillness and, by listening long enough, almost fancy you hear the shrill of the midsummer cricket. It is detail and ornament that vary from month to month, from week to week even, and make your returns to the same places a constant feast of unexpectedness; but the great essential features of the prospect preserve throughout the year the ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... apologetic grunting chuckle he often used when found out in any mischief, and which meant, "I know I have done wrong, but don't punish me; in fact, I did not mean to do it—it was accidental." Whenever, however, he saw he was going to be punished, he would change his tone to a shrill, threatening note, showing his teeth, and trying to intimidate. He had quite an extensive vocabulary of sounds, varying from a gruff bark to a shrill whistle; and we could tell by them, without seeing him, when it was he was hungry, eating, frightened, or menacing; ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... South America on a great ship, and, through the carelessness of the watch, they would have been dashed upon a ledge of rock had it not been for a cricket which a soldier had brought on board. When the little insect scented the land, it broke its long silence by a shrill note, and thus ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... side, at the edge of the grove stand country folk, men in goatskin tunics and leathern hats like the boy's father. And the little goatherd, not knowing what he does, calls to them for help in his shrill voice. But no one heeds; and the priest himself calls no ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... arrived at a spot where the pigs had been rooting about, and away went the curs in chase. Before long their shrill yelping bark told us that the herd was found, and following the sound we discovered the chief and a companion tying the legs of a young boar, which had been caught by running it down with some of the dogs. The barking increased as ...
— The Cruise of the Dainty - Rovings in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... they rode leisurely out through the heat and dusty haze, away from bungalows and the watered Mall, through a village alive with shrill women, naked babies, and officious pariahs, who kept Terry furiously occupied: on past the city, over the bridge of boats that spans the Ravi, till they came to the green secluded garden where the Emperor Jehangir sleeps, heedless of infidels who, generation after generation, have picnicked ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... thus engaged he heard suddenly a shrill outcry and a most mysterious sound up in one of the gullies toward the summit of Wreckers' Head. Here thousands of tons of sand had run out of the cut in the steep bank and formed a dykelike way to the beach itself. More and more sand was slipping down this way all the time. A strong ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... pretended scruple of conscience, but really from a spirit of Popery and rebellion, they contrived a plot, to make the swearing to those Princes odious in the eyes of the people. To this end, they hired certain women of ill fame, but loud shrill voices, under pretence of selling fish, to go through the streets, with sieves on their heads, and cry, "Buy my soul, buy my soul;" plainly insinuating, that all those who swore to King William, were just ready to ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... shot cut sharp into the silence that followed Lawanne's last words. That was nothing uncommon in the valley, where the crack of a gun meant only that some one was hunting. But upon this report there followed, clear and shrill, a scream, the high-pitched cry that only a frightened woman can utter. This was broken into and cut short by a second whip-like report. And both shots and scream came from the ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... locomotive grew quick, then came the last shrill whistle, and the train began to move. We gave Clara a loud cheer, she waved her hands to us, and then disappeared in ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... for she knew that when William had not had one of his "good days" he was apt to be impatient. And so she meant to do quickly what he wished and draw the coverlet over her ears, though people were still stirring outside. From a distance the shrill cries of maidens could be heard, ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... work; I like good clothes, and you know it better than anybody. I ain't one of your stage heroines that go out as dependants and governesses and die of consumption, but I thought," she went on with a shrill, hysterical laugh, more painful than the weariness which inevitably followed it, "I thought I might train myself to do it, ON THE STAGE! and I joined Barker's Company. They said I had a face and figure for the stage; that face and figure wore out before I had ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... for with a cry of fear at my approach, he abandoned his hold of Yvonne, whose struggles were keeping both the men back; thus freed, he fled towards the boat, and jumping in, he shouted to the men in his shrill, quavering voice, to put off. Albeit they disobeyed him contemptuously and waited for the Marquis; still they did not leave the boat, fearing, no doubt, that if they did so the coward would ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... of wood, the grinding of one vessel against the other at the concrete pier, the shrill tooting of the whistles, and the confused shouts of the respective captains of the craft made a din out of which it seemed order ...
— The Moving Picture Boys at Panama - Stirring Adventures Along the Great Canal • Victor Appleton
... was both shrill and shaky. As it ceased Kirkwood was half blinded by a flash of light, striking him squarely in the eyes. Involuntarily he shrank back a pace, to the first step from the top. Instantaneously ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... began sputtering, and their shrill treble blended with the deep bass of the heavier field guns. A moment more, and from the rifles of the American infantry a withering blast of flame sprang out and the ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall
... from the bench, moving softly as if she were under an enchantment which she feared to break by a gesture. An ecstasy as inarticulate as grief kept him silent, and it was into this silence that the voice of Abby floated, high, shrill, and dominant. ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... interior of the hut rose a low sweet song, at which all the simple Indians bowed their heads in reverence; and the English were hushed in astonishment; for the voice was not shrill or guttural, like that of an Indian, but round, clear, and rich, like a European's; and as it swelled and rose louder and louder, showed a compass and power which would have been extraordinary anywhere (and many a man of the party, as was usual in musical old England, was a good ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... short while before it begins again at dawn, the air is full of the busy voices of the insect world. Until we came south to Morogoro, to the land of mangoes, coconut, palms, bamboos, we had known the shrill voice of cicadas and the harsh metallic noises of crickets in grass and trees. But here we made two new acquaintances, and charming little voices they had too. One lived in the grass and rose leaves of our garden, for the German blacksmith who lately occupied ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey
... rippling flood, and bright tears seemed quivering on the silken lashes, her cheeks wore a warmer scarlet, her pretty lips trembled with the fateful answer, and I was sure it wasn't no, and saw them pout, gracious heavens! to suit one of those shrill female screams which more than trump of war or voice of cannon strike panic into the bold heart of man, and unnerve him to the finger ends. 'My dog, my puppy!' she sobbed, 'he'll be drowned, he can't swim! He's coming down stream, tail first, poor ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... 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 in couples who ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... wakened quite, and heard the double knocks one after another in quick succession; and huddling on her clothes, and muttering to herself all the way, she got into the hall, and standing a couple of yards away from the door, answered in shrill and querulous tones, and questioning the messenger in ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... came from I had no idea. Perhaps I was too confused to judge accurately. It might have come from the house, or from the slopes beyond the house, But it was a sort of shrill, choking laugh, and it set the ultimate touch of horror upon a scene macabre which, even as I write of ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... come through, but the leaves would glimmer white in the wind at times. The tree was full of giant birds. Every now and then, one would sweep through, with a great noise. But, except an occasional chirp, sounding like a shrill pipe in a great organ, they made no noise. All at once an owl began to hoot. He thought he was singing. As soon as he began, other birds replied, making rare game of him. To their astonishment, the children found they could understand every word ...
— The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories • George MacDonald |
