The bird sang until the ceremony was ended and then it wound up with one mad little, glad little
trill. Never had the old gray-green house among its enfolding orchards known a blither, merrier afternoon.
As the sparrow had its
trill, sitting on the hickory before my door, so had I my chuckle or suppressed warble which he might hear out of my nest.
It was only the soft twitter of a bird, but it seemed to be a peculiarly gifted bird, for while she listened the soft twitter changed to a lively whistle, then a
trill, a coo, a chirp, and ended in a musical mixture of all the notes, as if the bird burst out laughing.
The robin flew from his swinging spray of ivy on to the top of the wall and he opened his beak and sang a loud, lovely
trill, merely to show off.
"Her father!" cried the tire-woman, with a little
trill of laughter.
There was quite a fresh
trill in his voice, when, arriving at the counting-house in St Mary Axe, and finding it for the moment empty, he trolled forth at the foot of the staircase: 'Now, Judah, what are you up to there?'
And of course he knows himself that he is doing himself no sort of good with his moans; he knows better than anyone that he is only lacerating and harassing himself and others for nothing; he knows that even the audience before whom he is making his efforts, and his whole family, listen to him with loathing, do not put a ha'porth of faith in him, and inwardly understand that he might moan differently, more simply, without
trills and flourishes, and that he is only amusing himself like that from ill-humour, from malignancy.
She
trilled along, and
trilled along, and presently a handsome young page, clothed like the rainbow, and as easy and undulatory of movement as a wave, came with something on a golden salver, and, kneeling to present it to her, overdid his graces and lost his balance, and so fell lightly against her knee.
Everything was in blossom, the nightingales
trilled, and their voices reverberated now near, now far away.
Larks
trilled unseen above the velvety green fields and the ice-covered stubble-land; peewits wailed over the low lands and marshes flooded by the pools; cranes and wild geese flew high across the sky uttering their spring calls.
There was a great deal more clapping when she finished, and when this was over, as an encore, she gave a piece which imitated the sea; there were little
trills to represent the lapping waves and thundering chords, with the loud pedal down, to suggest a storm.
A catbird, the Northern mocker, lit in a tree over Tom's head, and
trilled out her imitations of her neighbors in a rapture of enjoyment; then a shrill jay swept down, a flash of blue flame, and stopped on a twig almost within the boy's reach, cocked his head to one side and eyed the strangers with a consuming curiosity; a gray squirrel and a big fellow of the "fox" kind came skurrying along, sitting up at intervals to inspect and chatter at the boys, for the wild things had probably never seen a human being before and scarcely knew whether to be afraid or not.