half-grating

Updated: July 12, 2026

There were distant sounds the snort of a horse where it was picketed, a low humming as if some sentry were cheering his dreary watch by recollections of an old west-country ditty, and then from a little distance there was the half-hissing, half-grating cry of a white owl, as it flapped along upon its downy, silent pinions, while, through the trees at the edge of the wood, there was a dull red light, which showed where the embers of the great oaken beams of the Hall sent forth their dying glow.

George Manville Fenn - Crown and Sceptre: A West Country Story