"Helter-skelter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... defective child at the same time. They are beginning to test the possibilities of a "vertical" classification as well as a "horizontal" one. That is, each class must be divided into what are termed Gifted, Bright, Average, Dull, Normal, and Defective. In the past the helter-skelter crowding and over-crowding together of all classes of children of approximately the same age, produced only a dull ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger
... rattling musketry in the street, but some who were standing close saw one of their number crumple suddenly to the earth. When they leaned over him he was dead. They were panic-stricken, and it took all the brutal authority of the Arabs to keep the Manyuema from rushing helter-skelter into the jungle—anywhere to ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... is come! Fisherman, citizen, prentice, dame and maid, Fat justice, floury baker, bloated butcher, Fishwife, minister and apothecary, Yea, even the driver of the death-cart, leaving His ghastly load, using his dreary bell To merrier purpose, down the seething streets, Panting, tumbling, jostling, helter-skelter To the water-side, to the water-side they rushed, And some knee-deep beyond it, all one wild Welcome to Francis Drake! Wild kerchiefs fluttering, thunderous hurrahs Rolling from quay to quay, a thousand arms Outstretched to that grey ghostly little ship At whose masthead the British flag still flew; ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... Skink along the streets, To whom each bonnet vails, and all knees bend; And yet my noble humour is too light By the six shillings. Here are two crack'd groats To helter-skelter at some vaulting-house[496]. But who comes yonder? ha! old Fauconbridge? Hath a brave chain; were John and he good friends, That chain were mine, and should unto Blackheath. I'll venture; it's but trial: luck may fall. Good morrow, good ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... whom they knew personally, and were assured in case of accident of absolution given by one of their priests, who marched in the rear file of the first company, with his cassock tucked up and his Roman hat over his eyes. These country fellows walked briskly, a little helter-skelter, like their ancestors in the time of Stofflet and M. de la Rochejaquelin, but with a firm step and their muskets well placed upon their shoulders, by Ste. Anne! They looked ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... wild race for the crest, one headland charge down the slope beyond, and they are rolling over a band of yelling, scurrying, savage horsemen, whirling them away over the opposite ridge, driving them helter-skelter over the westward prairie, until all who escape the shock of the onset or the swift bullet in the raging chase finally vanish from their sight; and then, obedient to the ringing "recall" of the trumpet, slowly they return, gathering again in the little ravine; and there, wondering, rejoicing, jubilant, ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... matutinal meal—vulgarly called breakfast; when the whiskey, eggs, toast, and tea as strong as Hercules, with ham, fowl, beef-steaks, or mutton-chops, all pour in upon us in the full tide of hospitality. Helter-skelter, cut and thrust, right and left, we work away, till the appetite reposes itself upon the cushion of repletion: and off we go once more, full an' warm, to the delicate employment of adjudicating upon sin and transgression, until dinner comes, when, having despatched as many as possible—for ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... Charles Angell dashed forward in a frantic manner. He had flung his gun from him; his eyeballs were fixed and staring; there was foam upon his lips; his hair was streaming in the wind. He bore an aspect so strange and fearful that the French uttered yells of terror, and fled helter-skelter from the onslaught. ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... they descended on the foe. That foe did not await the onset. Panic-stricken they turned and went helter-skelter down the pass—all except two, who seemed made of sterner stuff than their ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... is somewhere here. You can't fool me," he yelled. "I saw the spot your eyes lit on when I first came into the room. Is it behind these books?" he growled, pulling them out and throwing them helter-skelter over the floor. "Women is smart in the hiding business. Is it behind these ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... and Dennis that unworldly fledgling know what Skippy suffered? The forty-eight hours of the Thanksgiving vacation had been like a narcotic dream. He had been under the same roof with her, sat by her side in the darkened theatre and thrilled at the low sobby music that sent his imagination helter-skelter into dangerous pastures; received her confidences, gravely discussed with her the character and eligibility of older men, confided in turn his life's project to launch mosquito-proof socks on a world scale; received the full force of her lovely radiant gentlest of smiles; danced with her alone ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... threatened the right flank—Captain Perry hastened men to strengthen it and then White Bird turned the left flank. The volunteers ran away, Chief Joseph grabbed the best position; now he had the soldiers under his thumb, and they retreated helter-skelter. ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin
... point of asking eager questions regarding this new mystery, but before she could begin to utter them a long and piteous howl—the howl of a lost dog—sent them helter-skelter from ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... tenure, and not on mere wealth. A Kunbi feels bitterly insulted if his bullocks are not awarded the proper place in the procession. A string across the arch is broken by the leading bullock, and the cattle are then all driven helter-skelter through the arch and back to the village. The rite would appear to be a relic of the communal sacrifice of a bullock, the torches tied to the proprietor's bullock signifying that he was formerly killed and roasted. It is now said that this bullock is full of magic, ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... with lavender-water, and grow plum-cakes in flower-pots, then will be a fine time for dandies; but until the millennium comes we shall all have a deal to put up with, and had better bear our present burdens than run helter-skelter where we shall find ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... are eminently historical, ranging over and attacking almost every topic, political, religious, and social. Among the most characteristic of his miscellaneous verses are Epigrams and Epistles, Clever Tom Pinch Going to be Hanged, Advice to Grub Street Writers, Helter-Skelter, The Puppet Show, and similar odd pieces, frequently scurrilous, bitter, and lewd in expression. The writer of English history consults these as he does the penny ballads, lampoons, and caricatures of the day,—to discern the animus of ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... a flock of sheep streaming helter-skelter before the onset of a wolf were the thoughts that a moment before had ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... difference that M. Anatole France has introduced into the Dumas theatre some preeminently un-Dumas-like stage-business: the characters, between assignations and combats, toy amorously with ideas. That is the difference which at a stroke dissevers them from any helter-skelter character in Dumas as utterly as from any of our clearest ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... scattered an extraordinary collection of rubbish—boilers, car wheels, fragments of locomotives, household furniture, dead animals, clothing, sewing machines, goods from stores, safes, passenger and street cars, some half buried in the sand, some all exposed, helter-skelter. ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... creeps For a while till it sleeps In its own little lake. And thence at departing, Awakening and starting, It runs through the reeds, And away it proceeds, Through meadow and glade, In sun and in shade, And through the wood-shelter, Among crags in its flurry, Helter-skelter, Hurry-skurry, Here it comes sparkling, And there it lies darkling; Now smoking and frothing Its tumult and wrath in, Till, in this rapid race On which it is bent, It reaches the place Of ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... now—we could have half a dozen married couples all separating, getting rid of their ribs and buckling again, helter-skelter, every man to somebody else's wife; and the parish parson refusing to do the work; just to show the immorality ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... bent, twisted, and overturned, all red with rust, mixed up with and in parts covered by stone and brickwork, beams and iron girders, the whole sprinkled over with gleaming fragments of window-glass The outside walls were almost completely knocked flat, tossed helter-skelter outwards or on top of the machinery. The tall chimney—another suspected 'observing post' probably—lay in a heap of broken brickwork with the last yard or two of the base standing up out of the heap, and even in its remaining stump were other ragged shell-holes. A couple ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... are in the world!" said the voice in emphatic accents of supreme contempt—"What braying asses!—What earth- snouting swine! Saw you not yon crowd of whimpering idiots flying helter-skelter like chaff before the wind, weeping, wailing, and bemoaning their miserable little sins, scattering dust on their addled pates, and howling on their gods for mercy,—all forsooth! because for once in their unobserving lives they behold the river red instead of green! Ay ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... thoughts, but his difficulty was their abundance. Apparently he was like the woodcutter entering the thick forest and saying, "Where shall I begin?" The same obstacle appeared in a minor degree to cling about his verbal exposition, and accounted perhaps for his rather helter-skelter choice of remarks bearing on the number of unaddressed letters sent to the post-office; on what logic really is, as tending to support the buoyancy of human mediums and mahogany tables; on the probability of all miracles under all religions when explained by hidden laws, and my unreasonableness ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... material it has read when some note or hint suggests all of it. This kind of mind depends upon the inestimably valuable art of note-taking, a method quite as worthy as the two just considered if its results justify its employment. Note-taking does not mean a helter-skelter series of exclamatory jottings. It means a well-planned, regularly organized series of entries so arranged that reference to any portion recalls vividly and exactly the full material of the original. Books and ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... aim of the study would be to learn whether the motion of the reported UFO's was random or ordered. Random motion is an unordered, helter-skelter motion very similar to a swarm of gnats or flies milling around. There is no apparent pattern or purpose to their flight paths. But take, for example, swallows flying around a chimney—they wheel, dart, and dip, but if you watch them closely, they have a definite pattern in their ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... to the "ell" kitchen, the two older Peckham boys set to work up-stairs, under Jean's direction. Kit had made for her father's room the first thing. When Jean opened the door she found her piling the contents of the desk and chiffonier drawers helter-skelter into blankets. ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester
... axioms she brings to her guidance she has picked up helter-skelter. They are the crumbs gathered from the table of the Uneasy Woman, or worse, of the pharisaical and satisfied woman, from good and bad books, from newspaper exploitations of divorce and scandal, from sly gossip with girls whose budget ...
— The Business of Being a Woman • Ida M. Tarbell
... runs and it creeps For a while, till it sleeps In its own little lake; And thence at departing, Awakening and starting, It runs through the reeds, And away it proceeds Through meadow and glade, In sun and in shade, And through the wood-shelter, Among crags in its flurry, Helter-skelter, Hurry-scurry. Here it comes sparkling, And there it lies darkling; Now smoking and frothing Its tumult and wrath in, Till in this rapid race On which it is bent, It reaches the ...
— The Nursery, Volume 17, No. 100, April, 1875 • Various
... was given the horses set off in a wild helter-skelter along the edge of the sea, with crowds cheering them on from the sandhills. As they got small in the distance it was not easy to see which horse was leading, but after a sort of check, as they turned the post, they ...
— In Wicklow and West Kerry • John M. Synge
... off wildly then, plunging helter-skelter into the silent, heartless wood. The trees miraculously opened up a way for them as they dived and stooped and wriggled forward. In which direction they were going neither of them had the least idea, but as neither one nor the other disappeared, it was clear they had not reached ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... out here, or smoke him out either. We've no call to do anything but rest ourselves for a week or two, anyhow; then we must settle on something and buckle to it more business-like. We've been too helter-skelter lately, Jim and I. We was beginning to run risks, got nearly dropped on more ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... Here everything was helter-skelter. Finery was piled on beds and chairs, and hats were flung on top of one another, while shoes and veils, gloves and hair-brushes were scattered ...
— Two Little Women on a Holiday • Carolyn Wells
... shameful lives. All day long I beat my breast, And chaunt with a most particular zest The Latin hymns, which I understand Quite as well, I think, as the rest. And at night such lodging in barns and sheds, Such a hurly-burly in country inns, Such a clatter of tongues in empty heads, Such a helter-skelter of prayers and sins! Of all the contrivances of the time For sowing broadcast the seeds of crime, There is none so pleasing to me and mine As a pilgrimage ...
— The Golden Legend • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... bear had been seen the previous night. The two large hounds, Ringwood and Jowler, kept at their master's heels, being trained to understand and perform all the duties required of them, while the curs and terriers were running helter-skelter far ahead, or striking out into the woods without aim, and always returning without effecting any thing. At length the two hounds paused, and scented the earth, giving certain information that they had arrived at the desired point. The ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... flank fire threw the enemy into confusion. Of this circumstance Michael availed himself once more to renew the attack, this time with the most happy results. The enemy retreated in disorder over the bridge, and by the furious onslaught of the allies his hosts were driven helter-skelter into the morass. On the one hand Michael is said to have performed prodigies of valour, whilst on the other Sinan Pasha, who fought with equal bravery, was unhorsed and thrown into the bog, from which he only escaped with his life through the fidelity of one of his followers, who was afterwards ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... you conveniently can; though there's no need for helter-skelter haste, since there wouldn't be time for an answer, anyhow. In twenty minutes we'll weigh anchor, and be off. I've hurried ashore to see you, hoping to find you at the ship-agent's office. How fortunate my stumbling on you here! For now I can better tell you what's wanted. In that ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... luminous ceiling, decorated with delicate arabesques, distributed a soft, clear daylight over all the wonders gathered in this museum. For a museum it truly was, in which clever hands had spared no expense to amass every natural and artistic treasure, displaying them with the helter-skelter picturesqueness ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... planks raised a foot or so, for every one would sit on the grass. Some of the Indian women had booths, and were already selling birch and sassafras beer, pipes and tobacco, and maple sugar. Little ones were running helter-skelter, tumbling down and getting up without a whimper. Here a knot of men were playing cards or dominoes. It was a pretty scene, and needed only cavaliers and the glittering, stately stepping dames to make it a picture of ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... drove the fog helter-skelter across to Green Bay, where the gray ranks curled themselves down and lay hidden until morning. 'I'll go with the wind,' thought Waring, 'it must take me somewhere in time.' So he changed his course and paddled on. The wind grew strong, then stronger. He could see a few stars now as the ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... her cheeks radiant with color, her eyes shining. "Oh, washing your dishes? Wait a minute, I'll help." She flung off her coat in a helter-skelter way, ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... remained at the ramparts had also heard the shots, and thinking that the insurgents had entered by means of some subterranean passage, they ran up helter-skelter, in groups of five or six, disturbing the silence of the streets with the tumult of their excited rush. Roudier was one of the first to arrive. However, Rougon sent them all back to their posts, after reprimanding ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... frying-pans, they charged down the sides of the table. The mob wavered, turned, and were lost! Helter-skelter they fled, tumbling over one another in their haste to escape. The lamp was smashed. The benches were upset. In the smoky hall a furious din arose,—as if Sir Galahad and Sir Percivale were once more hewing their way through the castle of Carteloise. Fear fell ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... the gate, Sampietro. What do you mean?" said Our Lord. "If Il Santissimo will but step this way, round by these bushes," said Sampietro, "He shall see." And there sure enough He saw; for there was Our Lady drawing us all up helter-skelter, pell-mell, willy-nilly into Heaven in a great bucket, to our great gain and undeserved good. O clemens, O pia, O ...
— England of My Heart—Spring • Edward Hutton
... to the door and then came back upstairs. Mrs. Snow was busy, arranging the pillows, setting the room in something like order, and caring for her patient's garments, that had been tossed helter-skelter on the floor in the hurry of undressing. She came to the door as they entered ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... curious to see the plain thus suddenly fill'd with rabble, all running from the south, and the silly startled sheep rushing helter-skelter, and huddling together on the tors above, that I forgot my own likely danger if any of this revengeful crew should come upon me lying there: and was satisfied to watch them as they straggled over the moors toward the road. Some pass'd close to the cottage; but none seem'd ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... more transparent than the phraseology of the Homeric Hymn, in which Hermes is described as acquiring the strength of a giant while yet a babe in the cradle, as sallying out and stealing the cattle (clouds) of Apollo, and driving them helter-skelter in various directions, then as crawling through the keyhole, and with a mocking laugh shrinking into his cradle. He is the Master Thief, who can steal the burgomaster's horse from under him and his wife's mantle from off her back, ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... excessive freight rates from the coast and on the branch line to Meadows. More than that, Jennings had disobeyed his explicit orders to box the smaller parts of each machine together. All had been thrown in the car helter-skelter. ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... and staggered to her feet to go with them, but she was fat and slow of motion, so that by the time she was fairly standing, they were far down the field and running helter-skelter by the side of the fence. As she stared dully after them she could see the twenty-two curly tails bobbing along, and she heard the soft patter of eighty-eight sharp little double ...
— Among the Farmyard People • Clara Dillingham Pierson
... with shouting. Their spent bullets pelted the old fort like harmless hail. They tried to rush upon the gate, but the fusilade from the block house and the fire-belching cannon of the British drove them back helter-skelter. ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney
... over a hill; the troops on both sides drew up in battle array and soon commenced. After a few rounds fired, the American colonel ordered his drum-major to beat a charge; the drum-major mistook the order, and beat a retreat; the Americans became disordered immediately, and ran helter-skelter; the moment the Indians saw them running, they poured down upon them from their hiding-places, so that no more than about forty survived ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... it will often blow for forty-eight hours, accompanied by torrents of pelting, pitiless rain, and is sometimes so violent, that there is hardly any possibility of making headway against it. Sheep race before it as hard as they can go helter-skelter, leaving their lambs behind them to shift for themselves. There is no shelter on the plains, and, unless stopped by the shepherds, they will drive from one river to the next. The shepherds, therefore, have a hard time of it, for they must be out till the wind goes down; and the worse ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... rapidly back to the shore, moored her boat, and rushed helter-skelter up to the house. Her mother met ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... than yesterday was this morning still, deserted, empty and dead. Those who had rushed hitherward seeking gold were gone; be the explanation where it might, shacks stood with doors flung wide; tents had been torn down, outworn articles discarded, dumped helter-skelter into the road. The atmosphere was like that of a circus grounds when the circus was moving on, only a few things left for the last ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety-two, Did the English fight the French,—woe to France! And the thirty-first of May, helter-skelter through the blue, Like a crowd of frightened porpoises a shoal of sharks pursue, Came crowding ship on ship to St. Malo on the Rance, 5 With the ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... and pleasure and are not disturbed, who look on the world and the universe they are born in with quite other eyes. To them it appears not as a bazaar to buy and to sell in; not as a ladder to scramble up (or down) helter-skelter without knowing whither or why; but as a fact—a great and mysterious fact—to be pondered over, studied, and perchance in some small measure understood. By the multitude these men were sneered at as ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... a greater favourite in the neighbourhood than Alick; and as he came rushing, helter-skelter, along the garden-path, cramming Mrs. Vesey's answer into one of his crowded pockets, one could not be surprised at his popularity, for a merrier-faced boy than Geoff did not exist. And his looks did not belie his laughter-loving ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... of view the poor General did not exaggerate. Anything more hopeless as a continuous narrative I have never read. But it supplied facts, hit off odds and ends of character, and—what the autobiography seldom does—it gave the ipsissima verba of conversations written in helter-skelter fashion with flowing pen, sometimes in excellent French, sometimes in English, which beginning in the elaborate style of his letter broke down into queer vernacular; it was charmingly devoid of self-consciousness, so that the man as he was, and not as he imagined himself to be or ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... came an invisible push from astern, while forward the boat seemed striking on a ledge; the sail collapsed and exploded; a .. gush of scalding vapor shot up near by; something rolled and tumbled like an earthquake beneath us. The whole crew were half suffocated as they were tossed helter-skelter into the white curdling cream of the squall. Squall, whale, and harpoon had all blended together; and the whale, merely grazed by the iron, escaped. Though completely swamped, the boat was nearly unharmed. Swimming round ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... once immensely "taken," had not only shown his eagerness to share in the helter-skelter motions of Undine's party, but had given her glimpses of another, still more brilliant existence, that life of the inaccessible "Faubourg" of which the first tantalizing hints had but lately reached her. Hitherto she ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... was an odd chap. When he was still he liked to hang by his feet, upside down. And when he was flying he sailed about in a zigzag, helter-skelter fashion. He went in so many different directions, turning this way and that, one could never tell where he was going. One might say that his life was just one continual dodge—when he wasn't resting with his heels where his ...
— The Tale of Solomon Owl • Arthur Scott Bailey
... took her eldest daughter's hand, and rushed out of the tent. Sophy and Alice stayed behind to have one parting spoonful each of their delicious ices. Then the whole family went helter-skelter down the five sacred steps and on to the lawn. They saw the objects of their desire vanishing through a gap in the hedge into a distant field. They must pursue, they must go hotly to work. Mrs. Bell panted and puffed, and Matty stopped once to ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... Noreen's entreaties and angry demands from the Englishmen who bade him order the mahouts to take the visitors away from the horrible spectacle. As they left they saw the Rajah's golden chariot and the carriages of the officials being driven helter-skelter across the grass with their blood-stained and terrified occupants. And the madly fanatical crowds surged wildly around the altar, while their cries to ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... three hours, worked with a kind of frenzied delight in action and pricked on by a ravenous hunger. In and out of the combers they dashed, playing a desperate game of chance with Death. Helter-skelter, hit-or-miss, in a blind orgy of rescue, at first they pulled out everything they could reach. Repeatedly, Frank Merrill stopped to lecture them on the foolish risks they were taking, on the stupidity of such a waste of energy. "Save ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... richness, fair with orchard lawns and corn lands, if you should slay me? This you shall hardly do. I have discomfited you once already. Have you forgotten how when you were alone I chased you from your herds helter-skelter down the slopes of Ida? You did not turn round to look behind you; you took refuge in Lyrnessus, but I attacked the city, and with the help of Minerva and father Jove I sacked it and carried its women into captivity, though Jove and the other gods rescued you. ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety-two, Did the English fight the French,—woe to France! And, the thirty-first of May, helter-skelter thro' the blue, Like a crowd of frightened porpoises a shoal of sharks pursue, Came crowding ship on ship to St. Malo on the Rance, With the English fleet ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... the rebels fell upon us and forced the entrance of the citadel. The drum ceased, the garrison threw down its arms. I had been thrown down, but I got up and passed helter-skelter with the crowd into the fort. I saw the Commandant wounded in the head, and hard pressed by a little band of robbers clamouring for the keys. I was running to help him, when several strong Cossacks seized me, and bound me with ...
— The Daughter of the Commandant • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... might see the offscourings of the recently finished war,—old soldiers, rusty, wooden-legged: there, sailors, ripe for any kind of mischief; there, the drunken population of a neighboring grogshop, staggering helter-skelter to the scene, and tumbling over one another at the Doctor's feet. There came the father of the punished urchin, who had never shown heretofore any care for his street-bred progeny, but who now came pale with rage, armed with a pair of tongs; and with him the mother, flying like ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... For a while, till it sleeps In its own little lake. And thence at departing, Awakening and starting, It runs through the reeds, And away it proceeds, Through meadow and glade, In sun and in shade, And through the wood-shelter, Among crags in its flurry, Helter-skelter, Hurry-skurry. Here it comes sparkling, And there it lies darkling; Now smoking and frothing Its tumult and wrath in, Till, in this rapid race On which it is bent, It reaches the ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... with yells and shouts. Frantic now, the animals wheeled back. But few of them ran up out of the winding shallow ground along which the fence had been cunningly built. He drove them back, up over the slow ascent, toward the great dusty swarm of horses that ran helter-skelter under the dust haze. ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... the armoured cruisers, which are about half way between the light and battle cruisers. Sir Robert Arbuthnot's First Armoured Cruiser Squadron, speeding ahead of Jellicoe, swooped down on the German light cruisers in grand style, sank one, lamed two, and was driving the rest before it, helter-skelter, when, without a moment's warning, the huge hulls of the German battle line loomed out of the mist at almost point-blank range! In his eagerness to make short work of all the German light craft in the way Sir Robert had lost his bearings in the baffling mist and run right in between the ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... proprietor of Ye Quainte Olde Elecktronicks Shoppe, Harry did carry equipment of every vintage and every make. If you wanted something that hadn't been manufactured in decades, and perhaps never made in quantity, Harry's was the place to go. The walls were lined with bins, all unlabeled, filled helter-skelter with every imaginable kind of gadget, most of which would have been hard to recognize unless you were both an ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... old man looked at it, the heap of blankets and rugs on the stove moved, first in one place and then in another. Then there was a little laugh. Then another. And suddenly there was a great stir in the blankets, and they were all thrown back helter-skelter, and there were dozens and dozens of little queer children, laughing and laughing and laughing, and looking at the old man. And every child had a little turnip, and showed it to ...
— Old Peter's Russian Tales • Arthur Ransome
... street were so slippery that I could hardly keep on my legs. Frightened by one of their number dragging its empty wooden carrying frame along the ground behind it, a drove of unruly-pack-ponies lashed and bucked and tossed themselves out of order, and an instant afterwards came helter-skelter towards my ten-inch pathway by the side of the road. All of my men caught the panic, and in their mad rush several were knocked down and trampled upon by the torrent of frightened creatures. I thought I was being charged by cavalry, but beyond a good deal ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... cloud shadow drifting over—a transformation would sweep over the speckled Ahabs lying deep under the lily pads. Some blind, unknown warning would run through the pool before ever a trout had changed his position. Looking over the side of your canoe you would see the little fish darting helter-skelter away among the pads, seeking safety in shallow water, leaving the pool to its tyrant masters. Now is the time to begin casting; your trout are ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... Hsi Ch'un interposed with an ironic laugh, "what's the use of the hurry-scurry you're in the whole day long! Even when you're having your meals, or your tea, you're in this sort of fussy helter-skelter!" ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... Indians and his painted and be-feathered Acadians. Nevertheless the English landed, and, with some loss, drove out the defenders. Le Loutre himself seems not to have been among them; but they kept up for a time a helter-skelter fight, encouraged by two other missionaries, Germain and Lalerne, who were near being caught by the English.[111] Lawrence quickly routed them, took possession of the cemetery, and prepared to fortify himself. The village of Beaubassin, consisting, ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... and attendants that tumbled helter-skelter down the passages divided into two groups. Most of the Fishermen followed the proprietor to the front room to demand news of any exit. Colonel Pound, with the chairman, the vice-president, and one or two others darted down the corridor leading to the servants' ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... arrangement by always visiting his friend, whom he usually found in bed. It was William Clerk who sat for the picture of Darsie Latimer, the hero of Redgauntlet,—whence we should suppose him to have been a lively, generous, susceptible, contentious, and rather helter-skelter young man, much alive to the ludicrous in all situations, very eager to see life in all its phases, and somewhat vain of his power of adapting himself equally to all these phases. Scott tells a story of Clerk's being once baffled—almost for the first time—by a stranger in a stage ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... style, amid loud cheering, and resulted in the complete rout of the Fenians. Capt. Hall's Battery of the Montreal Garrison Artillery, directed by Lieut. Fitzgeorge, cleared the wood on the left in a very thorough manner, and soon the whole Fenian army were in a helter-skelter race out of Canada and back to American territory. When the Canadian troops reached the boundary Col. Bagot had great difficulty in restraining them from crossing into the United States after the fugitives, so eager were they to effect the capture of the marauders. The Fenians were ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... and never see them in a concert-room without heartily wishing they and their tatooer might tumble, helter-skelter, from their topmost perch into the very lowest depth, if there be one lower than another, of the orchestra; and thereby sustain such a compound fracture, attended by loss of substance, as should put it out of their power, for that night at least, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... moment had I witnessed the action itself. Somehow it made an impression on me. The man raced round the saloon still shouting, and raced away again up-stairs and out of sight. Everyone followed him pell-mell, helter-skelter, and almost in a second I found myself alone. I put on my overcoat, and my mackintosh over that, and seizing Rosa's ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... fell apart into remote bays and slips and rivers, hours of weary travel apart and each without any connection with any other that I could see. Railroad tracks wound in and out with no apparent purpose, dirty freight boats crawled helter-skelter this way and that. All seemed a meaningless ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... It was a helter-skelter exodus from Amherstburg and Detroit. All property that could not be moved was burned or destroyed, and Procter set out for Moraviantown, on the Thames River, seventy miles along the road to Lake Ontario. Harrison, amazed at this behavior, reported: "Nothing but infatuation could have governed ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... rate of "not more than two, or two and a half, miles an hour," and not "helter-skelter," as some ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... this true chronicle to do more than recall with utmost brevity the chief incident of that memorable encounter, the Polish Lancers galloping back with the report that the narrow pass was held against them in strong force: the Old Guard climbing helter-skelter out of carts and wagons, examining their arms, making ready: Napoleon stepping quickly out of his coach and mounting ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... truth, that "orderly" retreat which is described in second-hand accounts. There were times when it was a wild stampede from the tightening loop of a German advance, with lorries and motor-cycles and transport wagons going helter-skelter among civilian refugees and mixed battalions and stragglers from every unit walking, footsore, in small groups. Even General Headquarters was flurried at times, far in advance of this procession backward. One night Sir Neville Macready, ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... ahead of me, and I knew I was in for a long wait. I will never forget it. For three days, with the exception of two brief sleep-spells, I had been in a fierce helter-skelter of excitement, and I had eaten no very satisfying food. As I stood in that sullen crowd I swayed with weariness, and my legs were doubling under me. Invisible hands were dragging me down, throwing ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... "Lame Lena" brought to her sordid task a certain degree of organizing faculty; she did the various processes rhythmically and systematically, always with the idea in view of making one stroke of the arm or the hand do, if possible, a double or a triple duty. The other girls worked helter-skelter; running hither and thither; taking many needless journeys back and forth across the floor; hurrying when they were fresh to the task, dawdling when they were weary, but at all times working without method and without organization ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... another minute the furious savages would be among them. The rajah and his guards, who gathered round him as they could throw themselves on their horses, dashed on; while the remainder followed, galloping helter-skelter, the officers and men mingled together, each eager to get ahead. Some of the horses getting loose, they were left to the mercy of the enemy; as were also the troopers who were unable to mount before the enemy were upon them. Reginald, his cheek burning with ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... Helter-skelter the kittens appear; "Oh mother dear, we very much fear That we have lost our mittens!" they cry. "You have? Then you shall have no pie! Lost ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates
... go far, and I'll come back as quick as I can. You are safe up there. Hold on, and we'll soon get you down," answered Tommy, rushing away helter-skelter, never minding where he went, and too much excited to ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... was caused by a severe thunderstorm which literally broke right over the camp. I heard the order ring out "To the horse-lines!" and watched (through a convenient hole in the canvas) several "troopers" flying helter-skelter down the field. ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... moment the crowd, with a pack of barking dogs, came rushing on helter-skelter in hot pursuit of a brindled cow—so it seemed—whose heels its canine tormentors were ever and anon attacking, making it start forward with the pain they inflicted. At the same time a youth with his coat off and a stick in his ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... poor jackal howled and shrieked to the tiger to stop,—the noise behind him only frightened the coward more; and away he went, helter-skelter, hurry-scurry, over hill and dale, till he was nearly dead with fatigue, and the jackal was quite ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... missing. This called for punishment, of course; and the police proceeded to administer it by leaping from the truck and cracking at every head they saw. There were yells of rage and pain, and the terrified people fled into houses and stores, or scattered helter-skelter down the street. Jurgis and his gang joined in the sport, every man singling out his victim, and striving to bring him to bay and punch him. If he fled into a house his pursuer would smash in the flimsy door and follow him up the stairs, hitting every one who came within ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... excessive smoke caused by so many pieces of artillery, arrive we did. On the platforms, too, our work was not quite so difficult as might be imagined—killing these fellows was sheer butchery. As soon as we appeared, they all turned and fled helter-skelter, and the reader may judge of their courage by the fact that out of about seven hundred men killed by us, only forty had wounds in front, the rest being ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... as dangerous. He put me off and put me off, until I was glad to snatch at a position in a next-of-kin agency. But in a fortnight or two I was even more glad to leave it. Then I went back to Lord Boxspur, who this time sent me helter-skelter back to Paris, to bribe a blackmailing newspaper woman from giving the details of his wife's misfortunes to the Continental correspondent of a London weekly. But even when that was done, and I had been duly paid for my work, ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... digging up the soft earth at the marshal's feet, and flinging it in a blinding cloud into Hampton's eyes. Mason's answer was a sudden fusilade, which sent the crowd flying helter-skelter into the underbrush. One among them staggered and half fell, yet succeeded in dragging himself out ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... with the elfin echoes, felt a strange soothing in the sound, found tears in her eyes, not all of pain but of sad pleasure, and assumed thenceforth something of the port of a connoisseur. She said she "couldn't abide a fiddle jes sawed helter-skelter by them ez hedn't larned, but ter play saaft an' slow an' solemn, and no dancin' chune, no frolic song—she warn't set agin that at all." And she desired of Leander a repetition of this sunset motive that evening when he had come home late, ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... Wild confusion followed. The only field-pieces with Keane were two light 3-pounders, not able to cope with the Carolina's artillery; the rocket guns were brought up, but were speedily silenced; musketry proved quite as ineffectual; and in a very few minutes the troops were driven helter-skelter off the levee, and were forced to shelter themselves behind it, not without having suffered severe loss. [Footnote: General Keane, in his letter, writes that the British suffered but a single casualty; Gleig, who was present, says (p. 288): "The deadly ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... Cricket fresher than ever. Hum, hum, hum—m—m! Kettle slow and steady. Chirp, chirp, chirp! Cricket going in to finish him. Hum, hum, hum—m—m! Kettle not to be finished. Until at last they got so jumbled together, in the hurry-skurry, helter-skelter, of the match, that whether the kettle chirped and the Cricket hummed, or the Cricket chirped and the kettle hummed, or they both chirped and both hummed, it would have taken a clearer head than yours or mine to have decided with anything ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... baby that we used to know Has somehow slipped away, And when or where he chanced to go Not one of us can say. But here's a helter-skelter lad That to me nightly scoots And boldly wishes that he had A ...
— Just Folks • Edgar A. Guest
... hack, Nell was unreliable. You could n't reckon with certainty on getting her to start. All depended on the humour she was in and the direction you wished to take—mostly the direction. If towards the grass-paddock or the dam, she was off helter-skelter. If it was n't, she'd go on strike—put her head down and chew the bit. Then, when you'd get to work on her with a waddy—which we always did—she'd walk backwards into the house and frighten Mother, or into the waterhole and dirty the water. Dad said it was the fault of the cove ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... stories; but this was an unlucky experiment, for his witticisms fell with a ghastly hollowness. No one laughed save the grandmother and the Guatemalan cousin, who could not understand, and at this Kirk fled helter-skelter from the realms ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... on my looking round, whom should I see before me but the identical individual I had so coolly been criticising, and who, to my utter horror and dismay, was no other than Lord Wellington himself. I did not wait for a second peep. Helter-skelter, through water, thickets, and brambles, away I went, clattering down the causeway like a madman. If a French squadron had been behind me, I should have had a stouter heart, although I did not fear pursuit. I felt his eye was upon me,—his sharp ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... the whole team should get away with the sledge and its load and leave one behind to follow on foot at leisure. I never did get left the whole of this depot journey, but I was often very near it and several times had only time to seize a strap or a part of the sledge and be dragged along helter-skelter over everything that came in the way till the team got sick of galloping and one could struggle to one's feet again. One gets very wary and wide awake when one has to manage a team of eleven dogs and a sledge load by oneself, but it was ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... windows, and in at the door, And through the walls, helter-skelter they pour, And down from the ceiling, and up through the floor, From the right and the left, from behind and before, From within and without, from above and below, And all at once to the ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... Queen Anne's Chapel,[9] in honor of the sovereign "at home," the last of the direct Stuart line, whose royal person, it is said, having grown too unwieldy to permit horseback exercise, she was in the habit of following the hunt, of which she was passionately fond, driving herself, helter-skelter, in a one-horse chaise. She has the credit of having bestowed some endowment upon the Chapel, and the Bishop of London presented it with a bell; which, if all accounts be true, still hangs in the steeple of a congregational meeting-house within the precinct of ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous
... cowed by the fall of two of their number, were still pushing backward instead of forward, there rose behind them strange sounds—yells, and the clatter of hoofs, mingled with screams of alarm. A second, and into the loose skirts of the crowd came charging helter-skelter, pell-mell, a score of galloping, shrieking, cursing horsemen, attended by twice as many footmen, who clung to their stirrups or to the tails of the horses, and yelled and whooped, and struck in unison with the ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... of swine. Heretofore I have held that where something was to be proved by the Scriptures, the Scriptures quoted must really refer to the point at issue. I learn now that it is enough to throw many passages together helter-skelter, whether they are fit or not. If this is to be the way, then I can easily prove from the Scriptures that beer is better ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... it is to think knows that he must for part of the day create about himself a pool of silence. But in that helter-skelter which we flatter by the name of civilization, the citizen performs the perilous business of government under the worst possible conditions. A faint recognition of this truth inspires the movement for a shorter work day, for longer vacations, ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... happened; but it was so all-fired cold, and the wind was yelling so, and she walked off so fast, as if she knew her own business. So I just minded mine, or rather I didn't, for I never even seen the box, or trunk, which was pitched out helter-skelter, and which I found this morning, all covered up with snow. It was hers, of course, and I shall send it right over there, as it may tell who the poor ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... from our throats; yet the fellow deserved to die. Nor, as I say, had we time to waste two thoughts upon any one incident. This last had begun and ended in the same minute; in another we were at the starboard gangway, tumbling helter-skelter aboard the lowered long-boat. ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... fiendish noise broke out below. The negroes had charged, and the Lugarenos, struck with terror at the unforeseen catastrophe, were rushing helter-skelter through the gate. The screaming of the maids was frightful. They ran up and down the galleries with their hair streaming. O'Brien passed me by swiftly, muttering ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... Lambach this morning, I am about wheeling past a horse and drag that, careless and Austrian-like, has been left untied and unwatched in the middle of the street, when the horse suddenly scares, swerves around just in front of me, and dashes, helter-skelter, down the street. The horse circles around the market square and finally stops of his own accord without doing any damage. Runaways, other misfortunes, it seems, never come singly, and ere I have left Lambach an hour I am the innocent cause ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... colonel was ordered out to a reconnaissance. He was troubled at the time with a big boil where it made horseback riding decidedly uncomfortable. He finally dismounted and ordered the troops forward without him. Soon he was startled by the rapid reports of pistols and the helter-skelter approach of his troops in full retreat before a yelling rebel force. He forgot everything but the yells, sprang into his saddle, and made capital time over the fences and ditches till safe within the lines. The ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... palace was alive with people. Guardsmen, officers, courtiers, servants, and slaves ran helter-skelter through the corridors and apartments carrying messages and orders, and searching for signs ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... outer edge of a crowd, looking over one another's shoulders and pushing in a disordered mass toward the center of interest. Some seemed to have straggled away as if they had given up trying to see or hear. So to one nearing it the town had a helter-skelter look. ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... us a'!—callants, come to my arms too! Here's an hour o' joy! This, in my solemn opinion, is what I ca' livin' a lifetime in the twinklin' o' an ee. And what think ye, Sir Alexander! The English camp is a' in a bleeze, and there they are fleeing awa helter-skelter, leaving ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... was supposed to be a dead bullock, but the beast on being disturbed rose upon his fore flippers, and, displaying a formidable array of teeth, roared loudly* at the disturbers of his rest, who, being unarmed, rushed helter-skelter to the boat and went off to the ship. They returned immediately with an assortment of pikes, muskets, and pistols sufficient to ensure the destruction of a host of sealions; but after cautiously investing the place, it was discovered that the beast had ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... other only a few short miles away. The herd of cattle we had passed came into view, and caught sight of the water in the dam. It was curious to see the whole herd, some five or six hundred beasts, break into a clumsy canter, and, with a bellowing noise, dash helter-skelter to the water—big oxen with huge branching horns, meek-eyed cows, young bullocks, and tiny calves, all joining in the rush for a welcome drink after a long ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... bored with everything else, there was always plenty to look at, especially with a good pair of glasses. This morning, coming out on to the little flat top behind his position, he discovered all the shipping in a turmoil. The whole fleet of twenty or more transports was going helter-skelter for Imbros harbour, the winches of a few laggards still rattled as they laboured with their anchors, cruisers patrolled uneasily up and down, fleet-sweepers moved about nowhere in particular, while destroyers dashed round in wide circles, leaving behind them ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... a plan of the campaign, which was equivalent to a stampede: helter-skelter they were to run away, or get into hiding somehow; but fortune proved a better general. For as soon as it was day they recommenced the journey, keeping the sun on their right, and calculating that with the westering rays they would have reached villages in ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... determined to put an end to themselves and their troubles by jumping from a lofty precipice into a deep lake below. As they scampered off in large numbers to carry out their resolve, the Frogs lying on the banks of the lake heard the noise of their feet and rushed helter-skelter to the deep water for safety. On seeing the rapid disappearance of the Frogs, one of the Hares cried out to his companions: "Stay, my friends, do not do as you intended; for you now see that there are creatures who are still more timid ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... was the impression that his listener retained above all else. This flood of wild, unorthodox, speculative ideas had been poured upon him helter-skelter with a purpose. And the abruptness of the climax was cleverly planned ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... on the platform as before; the twenty girls grasped its handles, raising it until they were all upon their feet; then, at a signal, we left the ground. The trip back seemed shorter than coming up. The girls all left the valley together, flying up helter-skelter, and circling about us as we flew ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings
... of a girl like Aileen Butler were far more important to him than the good-will of fifty million people, if he could evade the necessity of having their good-will. Previous to the Chicago fire and the panic, his star had been so rapidly ascending that in the helter-skelter of great and favorable events he had scarcely taken thought of the social significance of the thing he was doing. Youth and the joy of life were in his blood. He felt so young, so vigorous, so like new grass looks and feels. The freshness of spring evenings ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... began to run for life, helter-skelter, pell-mell, trampling each other under foot, the soldiers actually shooting any one ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 27, May 13, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... 'basic form'? In truth it is hard to define. Only, this world, that seems such a heterogeneous helter-skelter of mournful promiscuities, is in fact the pattern that flows from the loom of an Eternal Weaver: a beautiful pattern, with its rhythms and recurrences; there is no haphazard in it; it is not mechanical,—yet still flawless as the configuarations of a crystal ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... helter-skelter of those thousands of trees over the roaring, rushing waterfalls, or along the rapidly flowing cataracts and flooded rivers. To prevent these wooden horses getting caught-up on the banks along their watery course, men with long poles "personally conduct" huge batches to the coast, or, where ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... the scene before him with the utmost freshness and enthusiasm. "I'm just a plain Scotchman, an' no such a fule at climbin' either! Why, man, I've been up Goatfell in Arran, an' Ben Lomond an' Ben Nevis—there's a mountain for ye, if ye like! But a brae like this, wi' a' the stanes lyin' helter-skelter, an' crags that ye can barely hold on to—and a mad chap guidin' ye on at the speed o' a leapin' goat—I tell ye, I havena been used to't." Here he drew out his flask and took another extensive pull at it. Then he added suddenly, "Just look at Errington! ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... said Father Waite. "But, that granted, a flood of deductions pours in that sends human beliefs and reasoning helter-skelter. For an infinite mind would eventually disintegrate if it were not ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... separately, they shared the same huge, lovable nature in the bulk, which murmured and swayed and quivered all the time the dancing and juggling and love-making went on in front of it, slowly laughed and reluctantly left off laughing, and applauded with a helter-skelter generosity which sometimes became unanimous and overwhelming. Once William saw Katharine leaning forward and clapping her hands with an abandonment that startled him. Her laugh rang out with the ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... with humanistic pedantry and obscenity, with euphuistic conceits and casuistic quibble, with art, politics, metaphysics—civilization embedded in all manner of rubbish and abomination, soiled with all manner of ominous stains. All this did they carry home and throw helter-skelter into the new-kindled fire of English intellectual life, mingling with it many a humble-seeming Northern alloy; cleaning and compounding, casting into shapes, mediaeval and English, this strange Corinthian brass made of all these ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... helter-skelter haste I found time to remember that the gorge as we had last seen it had been well besprinkled with armed Cherokees lying in wait for us. If they were still there we should be like to have a hot welcome; and some reminder of this I gasped out to ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... those of Victor Emmanuel. Riding over the vast plains of Capitanata, we would discern against the sky outline the figure of a solitary horseman. This we knew to be a picket. Then there was no time to be lost, and away we would go for him helter-skelter across the plain; he would instantly gallop in on the main body, probably occupying a masseria. If they thought they were strong enough they would show fight. If not they would take to their heels in the direction of the mountains, with us in full cry after them. If they were hardly ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... changed to terror, for shriek after shriek could be heard forward, and in a few seconds' time the cook rushed helter-skelter up on deck, almost pale with fright, followed by the men of ...
— Crusoes of the Frozen North • Gordon Stables
... the county of Limerick, which were pastured in a field, broke bounds like a band of unruly schoolboys, and scrambling through a gap which they had made in a fence, found themselves in a narrow lane. Along the quiet by-road they galloped helter-skelter, at full speed, snorting and tossing their manes in the full enjoyment of their freedom, but greatly to the terror of a party of children who were playing in the lane. As the horses were seen tearing ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... four children ran helter-skelter into the lane, shouting "Mammy! mammy!" in an anguish of fright. Their clamour was caught by the fierce north wind, which had begun to sweep the hill, and was borne along till it reached the ears of a woman who was sitting sewing in a cottage some fifty yards further ...
— Bessie Costrell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... expected to see there. In fact, there was an air of prosperity about the town built on the slope facing the harbor, although there were no large and attractive buildings, and the houses seemed scattered about in a helter-skelter manner. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish
... driving long timbers into the mud at the water's edge, below a steep piece of bank. Along the inner side of these are laid horizontally a certain number of logs, to form a water front; and into the space behind are tumbled helter-skelter from the tops of the bank the logs of the winter's chopping. It is a very simple and expeditious way of storing the logs. But when the ice has run out, and it is time to start the lumber down-stream, then comes trouble. The piles sustaining the whole vast ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... foreman. "You remember how nicely you could pile your blocks into the box, when you put them all in evenly and nicely. But if you threw them in quickly, without stopping to make them straight, they would pile up helter-skelter, and maybe only half of them would fit. It is that way ...
— Daddy Takes Us Skating • Howard R. Garis
... encamped above it, hoping to pass the straits next day. There Castruccio fell upon them about midnight, putting all to confusion. Horse and foot fell foul upon one another, and both upon the baggage. There was no way left for them but to run, which they did helter-skelter in the plain of Pistoja, where each man shifted for himself. But Castruccio followed them even to Peretola at the gates of Florence, carrying Pistoja and Prato on the way; there he coined money under their walls,[145] while his ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... proceeded into the Secretary's office in search of it. The Secretary's habit was to take the papers from his table, and after marking on them with his pencil the disposition he wished made of them, he threw them helter-skelter into a large arm-chair. This chair now contained half a bushel; and the President and I set to work in quest of the letter. We removed them one by one; and as we progressed, he said with an impatient smile, "it is always sure to be the last one." And so it was. Having found it, he departed ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... her diplomacy, and so losing the flag. She knew Mr. Simpson well, and a pleasanter man was seldom to be met. She recalled an afternoon when he came home and surprised the whole school playing the Revolutionary War in his helter-skelter dooryard, and the way in which he had joined the British forces and impersonated General Burgoyne had greatly endeared him to her. The only difficulty was to find proper words for her delicate mission, for, of course, if Mr. Simpson's ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... A fine occupation For one in his station! A hole where a rabbit Would scorn to inhabit, Dug out in an hour; He calls it a bower. But, O! how we laugh, To see a wild calf Come, driven by heat, And foul the green seat; Or run helter-skelter, To his arbour for shelter, Where all goes to ruin The Dean has been doing: The girls of the village Come flocking for pillage, Pull down the fine briers And thorns to make fires; But yet are so kind To leave something behind: No more need be said on't, I smell when I tread on't. Dear friend, Doctor ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... packing-boxes served others for shelter, but were all so disposed within the cuts and among the ridges of the railroad grade as to be safe from Indian forays. And along the completed railroad, all the way from the Missouri River, material and supply trains were moving to supply this noisy, helter-skelter camp, which seemed to Bucks all confusion, yet was in ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman |
