"Scamper" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the snow. He always has liked the snow. It makes him feel frisky. He likes to run and jump in it and dig little holes in it after nuts, which he hid under the leaves before the snow fell. When his feet get cold, all he has to do is to scamper up a tree and warm them in his own fur coat. So the big snowstorm which made so much trouble for Unc' Billy Possum just suited Happy Jack Squirrel, and he had a whole lot of fun making his funny little tracks all through that part of the Green ...
— The Adventures of Unc' Billy Possum • Thornton W. Burgess
... not enjoy the scamper, however. Her home-sickness was gone, but her depression returned nevertheless, as the day declined, only in another form. She had still that curious sensation of being the only living thing in a world of figures moved by mechanism. ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... Effie's lessons were preceded by an early scamper in the park, and conjecturing that her governess might be with her he betook himself the next morning to the terrace, whence he wandered on to the gardens and the ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... to describe the scamper there is at this moment for the tubs of water, and the reason for it is this—that the tubs are limited, perhaps three allowed to each mess of twenty boys, and considering the washing has to be done in a short time, the reader will understand the cause of this dreadful war. And it happens ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling
... reach his own fortress by the hole down which the stream plunges at the Pas de Souci, and which the peasant believes existed from the beginning of the world. St. Enimie followed at his heels as closely as she could, and he led her a wild scamper over the rocks. She hoped that St. Ilere, her confessor, who lived in a cavern of the gorge, would stop the fiend in his flight, but the saint was so busy praying that he did not notice the arch-enemy as he sped on his frantic course. St. ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... thick with stars. Nothing moves, and yet a something changes! The darkness shivers as to a cold touch. A pallid haze breathes wanly on the surface of the impassive sky. The gold deepens swiftly and turns to a faint rose flush. The stars scamper ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa
... poultry-yards. They eat, drink, and break, giving themselves up to it heartily, not only in the town, but in the neighboring villages. One detachment goes to Brusque, and proceeds so vigorously that the mayor and syndic-attorney scamper off across the fields, and dare not return for a couple of days.[3218] At Versol, the dwelling of the sworn cure, and at Lapeyre, that of the sworn vicar, are both sacked; the money is stolen and the casks are emptied. In the house of the ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... the honour of concealing the heroine's form. In a Finnish tale from OEsterbotten, a dead father appears in dreams to his three sons, commanding them to watch singly by night the geese on the sea-strand. The two elder are so frightened by the darkness that they scamper home. But the youngest, despised and dirty, watches boldly, till at the first flush of dawn three geese fly thither, strip off their feathers, and plunge, as lovely maidens, into the water to bathe. Then the youth chooses the most beautiful of the three pairs of wings he finds on the shore, hides ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... loud, coarse laugh of derision. "You miserable little coward!" he cried; "I'd like to see one chasing you round the meadow! How you'd scamper! how you'd scream! rare fun it would ...
— False Friends, and The Sailor's Resolve • Unknown
... There was a scamper of heavy boots, and a roar of water plunging over the bulwarks, as though so many loads of wood had been dropped on the deck. Duncan jumped for the cabin. Weeks and the mate jumped the next second and the water sluiced down after them, put out the ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... his obvious effort to recall where he had slept, brought strangely home to Darcy the wonderful romance of which he was the still half-incredulous beholder. Sleep till close on dawn in a hammock, then the tramp—or probably scamper—underneath the windy and weeping heavens to the remote and lonely meadow by the weir! The picture of other such nights rose before him; Frank sleeping perhaps by the bathing-place under the filtered ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... they be, It nothing skills if He begin to plague. Look now, I melt a gourd-fruit into mash, Add honeycomb and pods, I have perceived, Which bite like finches when they bill and kiss,— Then, when froth rises bladdery, drink up all, Quick, quick, till maggots scamper through my brain; Last, throw me on my back i' the seeded thyme, And wanton, wishing I were born a bird. Put case, unable to be what I wish, I yet could make a live bird out of clay: Would not I take clay, pinch my Caliban Able to fly?—for, there, see, he hath wings, ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... was perfectly inoffensive, and would hurt nobody, some of them ventured so far as to examine the texture of my clothes; but many of them were still very suspicious; and when by accident I happened to move myself, or look at the young children, their mothers would scamper off with them with the greatest precipitation. In a few hours, however, they all became ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... will. The outburst was generally preceded by a dull murmur and rustle, which lasted for a few minutes after the clang of the bell had died away—then door after door opened and hordes of boys plunged out with wild shrieks of liberty, to scamper madly down the ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... much fun as I expected," she muttered. For a moment or two she was tempted to scamper back to the farmhouse. And then she thought how pleased her mother would be if she brought that fat fellow home in her mouth and laid him at her mother's ...
— The Tale of Master Meadow Mouse • Arthur Scott Bailey
... Gilbert and Thayer. It was the Blue's turn to cheer then and she performed valiantly. Claflin tried Edwards's end, but made nothing of it, poked Cox past Crewe for a couple of yards, made three around Holt and then punted. St. Clair misjudged the distance and the ball went over his head and there was a scamper to the goal line. Carmine finally fell on the ball for a touchback and the excitement in the stands subsided. Brimfield smashed Otis at the Blue's centre and reached the twenty-five-yard line. St. Clair made three on a skin-tackle play at the right and Rollins got the distance ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... idea of frightening my visitors appealed to my sense of humor. I tiptoed to the front stairway, ran lightly down, found the front door, and, from the inside, opened and slammed it. I heard instantly a hurried scamper above, and the heavy fall of one who had stumbled in the dark. I grinned with real pleasure at the sound of this mishap, hurried into the great library, which was as dark as a well, and, opening one of the ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... Rolled up lengthwise in this ball he spends the day; but when evening comes he is active enough. If kept for any length of time he makes a very docile pet and will beg permission to sleep in your pocket. But it is better to give him his freedom, and see him scamper up one tree and "fly" to another. As he springs he spreads out the whitish membranes along each side, holds his flat tail rigid, quivering. Thus he goes down, parachute fashion, on an inclined plane. Just before he gets ...
— Some Summer Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... him. It was quite a scene in a play to see how Fred would start at the least sound. A mouse nibbling behind a box of iron chains made him beside himself until he had scared the little gray thing from its hole, and saw it scamper away out of the shop. But after the first hour the watching FOR NOTHING became a little tedious. There was a "splendid" game of base ball to come off on the public green that afternoon; and after that the boys were going to ...
— The Errand Boy • Horatio Alger
... will play at hunt-the-fawn, In the neo-Dorian dawn. You will scamper through the brake, And I'll follow in ...
— A line-o'-verse or two • Bert Leston Taylor
... archway formed by the roots of a tree that had long ago been felled; and there, in a dry nest of hay and straw, he found his mate with her helpless little family of six blind, semi-transparent sucklings only three days old. He heard on every side the quick scamper of feet as, alarmed by his cries, the voles inhabiting the side passages of the burrow scurried hither and thither in wild efforts to remove their young to ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... coach-box, with the mail-bags under our feet and the driver's elbows in our ribs. The ordinary light dog-cart which daily runs between Maritzburg and D'Urban was exchanged for a sort of open break, strong indeed, but very heavy, one would fancy, for the poor horses, who had to scamper along up and down veldt and berg, over bog and spruit, with this lumbering conveyance at their heels. Not for long, though: every seven miles, or even less, we pulled up—sometimes at a tidy inn, where a long table would be set in the open ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... the husband coolly answered, "that you did not take it; I reckon it would have done considerable good. But, boys, if it should turn out as Ahiram thinks, that there are Indians near us, we may have to scamper up the rock, and lose our suppers after all; therefore we will make sure of the game, and talk over the performances of the Doctor when we have nothing ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... that door," cried John, flourishing a paint-brush in her face. "Scamper, or you'll get some paint ...
— Little Grandmother • Sophie May
... who were members of the Makado tribe, were howling lustily, and one of them waved his bark hat in the air. Kennedy took aim at him, fired, and his hat flew about him in pieces. Thereupon there was a general scamper. The natives plunged headlong into the river, and swam to the opposite bank. Immediately, there came a shower of balls from both banks, along with a perfect cloud of arrows, but without doing the balloon any damage, where it rested with its anchor snugly secured in the fissure ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... slung my stone with so good aim that it went bang against the hog's flank as if against the head of a drum; but it had no other effect than that of causing the animal to start to its feet, with a frightful yell of surprise, and scamper away. At the same instant Jack's bow twanged, and the arrow pinned the little pig to the ground by ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... very eager to get on shore; so was old Surley. He wagged his tail, and ran to the ship's side and barked, and looked up in our faces and looked at the land, as much as to say, "How I should like to have a scamper along the beach there!" ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... strained nerves gave way, and sheer panic seized us. Peter gave a little yelp of pure terror. We turned and fled across the clearing and into the woods. Down the long hill we tore, like mad, hunted creatures, firmly convinced that Peg Bowen was after us. Wild was that scamper, as nightmare-like as any recorded in our dream books. The Story Girl was in front of me, and I can recall the tremendous leaps she made over fallen logs and little spruce bushes, with her long brown curls streaming out behind her ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... dim recesses, mid tresses, green tresses. Slow dipping, caressing, I've heard A whisper, a chuckle of laughter, a scamper; and high, High up in the air the cry, the call of a bird. And when the night came with a flicker of wings I have heard the earth breathing quiet and slow Like a pulse in the tiny, wild ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... the two ships continued to race up and down. The NX-1 would plunge, pirouette around the other, and scamper away towards the ceiling as if enjoying it all hugely, abruptly to forsake her course and come zooming down once more. She would weave in romping circles and seem to go utterly crazy as her jumbled ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... swarm of bees near where the coffle had halted. The bees came out in immense numbers, and attacked men and beasts at the same time. Luckily most of the asses were loose, and gallopped up the valley; but the horses and people were very much stung, and obliged to scamper in all directions. The fire which had been kindled for cooking being deserted, spread, and set fire to the bamboos; and our baggage had like to have been burnt. In fact, for half an hour the bees seemed to have completely put an end to ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... moving about freely now. A paralo-ray gun and the rifle, both cocked and ready to fire, were held in his hands. He relaxed as completely as he could, idly watching the mother of a brood of the anthropoids scamper through the branches of the trees overhead, bringing her squalling young their breakfast. An hour later, refreshed, he started through the jungle again, eyes open for signs of recent activity, human activity, for the big cadet wanted to return ...
— The Revolt on Venus • Carey Rockwell
... white wines. But when did a heroine remain in a sanded parlour in an inn, when she could stroll over the country and lose her way, and get run at by wild cattle, and stared at by naughty gentlemen? Clary was not so mean-spirited, though she was physically lazier than Dulcie; she was eager to scamper across the stubble fields (where Cambridge expected chickens to roam in flocks), and to wander, book in hand, by yon brook ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... nodded together in the friendliest fashion. Yonder a solitary tree, well-grown and clean, was contented with its own bright company. A bush crouched tightly on the ground as though, at a word, it would scamper from its place and chase rabbits across the sward with shouts and laughter. Great spaces of sunshine were everywhere, and everywhere there were deep wells of shadow; and the one did not seem more beautiful than ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... cold winter mornings, after eating his nice breakfast, Rover would scamper off to school with Arthur. He was in too fine spirits to walk by his side, so he would bound off before him, plunging into the snow drifts up to his neck; then bound back again, with a short quick ...
— Arthur Hamilton, and His Dog • Anonymous
... across the pasture as fast as he could scamper. And in a short time he reached Farmer Green's garden. He was somewhat out of breath, because there had been plenty of good things to eat all summer long and he was round as a ...
— The Tale of Grandfather Mole • Arthur Scott Bailey
... Sam and Andy brought the horses up to the posts, apparently greatly refreshed and invigorated by the scamper of the morning. ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the fire and the things he left stewing,' countered Howard. 'They spelled hurry, didn't they? Didn't they shout into your ears that he was on the lively scamper for some otherwhere?' ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... doe bestowed a well directed kick on its foe's head, which tumbled him over on his back. The animal then sprang up, but aware there was no chance of escape by running, faced about and plied its bony head so furiously against Joe's breast and sides that he was forced to scamper ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... newly, created plate adhering thereto, into the drying-stove. This 'stove' was a room lined with shelves, and having a red-hot stove and stove-pipe in the middle. As no man of seven could reach the upper shelves, a pair of steps was provided for Darius, and up these he had to scamper. Each mould with its plate had to be leaned carefully against the wall and if the soft clay of a new-born plate was damaged, Darius was knocked down. The atmosphere outside the stove was chill, ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... are very inquisitive, and if they are not harmed they soon put out their heads again to see what is taking place. Hunters who have walked through a dog-village, hoping to get a shot at one of the little householders, have been amused to see them scamper indoors as they approached, and come out again as soon as they had passed. All around, within the range of a gun, there was not a marmot to be seen, but at a safe distance there were hundreds, or even ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... hearing this speech from his perch on the tree, became much frightened, for he knew the nature of jaguars and realized they could climb trees and leap from limb to limb with the agility of cats. So he at once began to scamper through the forest as fast as he could go, catching at a branch with his long monkey arms and swinging his green body through space to grasp another branch in a neighboring tree, and so on, while the Jaguar followed him from below, his eyes fixed steadfastly on his prey. But presently ...
— The Tin Woodman of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... called again; still no reply or scamper of feet. Probably cleaned up all the prawns around the camp and went hunting farther out into the woods, thought Jack. Unbuckling his gun and dropping it onto the table, he went out to the kitchen. Most of the Extee ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... Then there was another scamper. Lily-toes was snatched in-doors and borne along amid a tempest of astonishment and pity, until one visitor burst out laughing; and then all laughed except the mamma, who kept a straight face until baby stopped crying and smiled around on them like ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... to whom harsh fate has dealt A captive's birthright—thou wilt never scamper With winged feet across the windy veldt, Where are no crowds to stare nor bars to hamper; Thou wilt not ring upon the rhino's pelt In wanton sport. But there—why put a damper On thy young spirits by recounting what Africa is but Regent's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 10, 1917 • Various
... scamper up the pathway than climb the wooden steps, and the dog hurried to reach the top; but a slight noise made him pause and look at the thick brush near him. There was nothing to be seen, but Jan's ears listened sharply while his sensitive ...
— Prince Jan, St. Bernard • Forrestine C. Hooker
... give them time to poison the water, but they made it very difficult for us to get at it by shelling continually. They had the exact range, and it was only in the hour before dawn that one could get near the wells without meeting with certain death. It was amusing to see the scamper of the water-carriers out of the ruins as the first shell announced that the relief of Fritz's batteries had been completed and the "hate" had recommenced. They were severely handicapped running ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... spoke there was the noise of a familiar scamper, and a moment later Nobby had hurled himself across the terrace into my lap and was licking my face with an enthusiastic violence which could not have been more pronounced if he had not ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... great many private little paths under the grass all over the Green Meadows, and along these he can scamper ever so fast without once showing himself to those who may be looking for him. Of course he started to take Grandfather Frog along one of these little paths. But Grandfather Frog doesn't walk or run; he jumps. There wasn't room in Danny's little paths for jumping, as they soon found out. ...
— The Adventures of Grandfather Frog • Thornton W. Burgess
... dogs did not come where he lay crouching; for their masters were shooting birds, not rabbits. Bunny thought the best thing he could do now was to scamper back to his mother, his brothers and sisters ...
— The Nursery, No. 103, July, 1875. Vol. XVIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... gale while he, Curl'd and cushion'd cosily, Mixed in dreams its angry breathings With the tinkle of the tea-things In his mistress' cabin laid? —Nor dyspeptic, nor dismay'd, Drowning in a gentle snore All the menace of the shore Thunder'd from the surf a-lee. Near and nearer horribly,— Scamper of affrighted feet, Voices cursing sail and sheet, While the tall ship shook in irons— All the peril that environs Vessels 'twixt the wind and rock Clawing—driving? Did the shock, As the sunk reef split her back, First arouse him? Did the crack Widen swiftly and deposit ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... stop to explain," Sandy Chipmunk interrupted. "As I said, I'm very busy to-day." And he started to scamper along the ...
— The Tale of Sandy Chipmunk • Arthur Scott Bailey
... a ghost! a ghost! haste, scamper off, My friends; we've kill'd the body, and I know The ghost will have ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... fore-and-aft sails were taken in, as they were doing no good and the square canvas was drawing. This allowed the mizen-awning to be spread, making a pleasant place to sit in and a capital playground for the children, who scamper about all day long, and do not appear to feel the heat ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... your fur mittens cut off the next thing you know," went on Bob severely. "Scamper ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... Tom whithersoever he went, came skurrying out of the stables as the dog-cart drove off, and joined in the general scamper. ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... brain some nucleus of motion gave the signal. With a single movement, his knee crooked under him and he swung the heavy revolver forward. A howl answered the shot, and he saw the Italian blunder against a palm, drop his rifle, and scamper out of sight. Firing again, Scott dashed forward and picked up the Winchester, while from in front of him the Italian or his companion sent bullet after bullet about his ears. It was enough of a victory to carry on with, for Incarnacion would have heard the shots and might ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... among the trees. None was to be heard but the occasional scamper of a rabbit over the withered leaves. He threw the light of his lantern through a gap in the hedge, but could see nothing beyond an impenetrable thicket. It was clear that Manston was not many yards off, but the question was how to find ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... the figures. Their master left off the beating when he saw his father, and consequently young Rabbit, for the first and perhaps only time in his life, was very glad to see the old man. The class was dismissed; and if you had seen these four youngsters scamper off, shaking their white tails and jumping half a yard high as they ran to the Warren, you would have thought it was a good thing to have ...
— The Comical Creatures from Wurtemberg - Second Edition • Unknown
... journalist?" and he replied: "A nose for news." But with him the news had to be sifted, verified, and reduced to an essence, not inflated, distorted and garnished with all the verbal spoils of the reporter's last scamper through ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... this type will, like Tolstoy, be an anti-militarist. He will advocate a general gaol delivery for criminals. He will be a vegetarian. He will not allow an animal's life to be taken in his house, though the mice scamper over his floors. And he will, consistently with his conviction that it is immoral to resort to force, refuse to take any part ...
— The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage • Almroth E. Wright
... [Footnote: In Bishopsgate-street.] he strutted before us, dress'd just as he came from keeping Sheep, Hogs, &c.... his shoes fill'd full of stumps in the heels. He looking about him, slip'd up ... his nails were unus'd to a flat pavement. I remember viewing him as he scamper'd up ... how small he was. Little thought, that little fatherless Boy would be one day known and esteem'd by the most learned, the most respected, the wisest and the best ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield
... couple of days at Mr. Jameson's; and there will be company there in the evenings, so we must have our best things, nurse, and will you be so kind as to see after the doves, and tell Thomas to loosen Nero's chain every day, that he may have a good scamper over the fields, for papa says he ...
— Brotherly Love - Shewing That As Merely Human It May Not Always Be Depended Upon • Mrs. Sherwood
... so stupid that it never knows what you want it to do," said Dennis, as he gave up his efforts and let the kitten scamper back to ...
— Black, White and Gray - A Story of Three Homes • Amy Walton
... There's much about it that doth tend to please Their warm, strong minds, as they such monsters fell. I have oft stood as if bound by a spell, When some huge giant swayed awhile in air, And then with crash tremendous shook the dell, While cows from fright would scamper here and there, But soon return to browse its top ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... forest; the butter-trees, the flour-trees, the silk-trees, which grow on our ground like briers alongside your roads.... Finally, we are shepherds; we own ever-increasing flocks, whose numbers we don't even know. Our goats, our bearded sheep may be counted by the thousand; our horses scamper freely through paddocks as large as cities, and when our hunch-backed cattle come down to the Niger to drink at that hour of serene splendor the sunset, they cover a league of the river banks.... ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... if he doesn't want Something to get him. The essence of this decision is quite the same whether the mortal be eight years old or eighty. Now the Tree of Truth stands just over this line at which all but the gods' own turn to scamper back before supper. It is the first tree to the left—an apple-tree, twisted, blackened, scathed, eaten with age, yet full of blossoms as fresh and fertile as those first born of any young tree whatsoever. Those able rightly to read this tree of Truth ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... progress. The steamer continues her fire out there leisurely, and the officer on the pier, being satisfied at last that she will come no closer, gives her a volley of musketry. In a moment the decks are cleared with a scamper, and no man is anywhere visible; whilst, at the same time, the steamer hastily puts about, and never stops until ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... way home, he is still hovering about the school, and looking out that the boys do not get under the carriage-wheels, or hang about the streets to stand on their heads, or fill their bags with sand or stones; and the moment he makes his appearance at a corner, so tall and black, flocks of boys scamper off in all directions, abandoning their games of coppers and marbles, and he threatens them from afar with his forefinger, with his sad and loving air. No one has ever seen him smile, my mother says, since the death of his son, who was a volunteer ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... news!)— Pretty well done, boys, pretty well! Guess that'll be apt to tell 'Em all about where it came from, And where it's a-going to, What it took its name from, And all it's a-knowing to! See 'em scamper! ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... territory. At first the retirement had been orderly, but later in the day, as the news from the front became more serious, as the low, distant roar of rifle and machine gun rolled nearer, the movement increased in intensity, and, during the night, developed into a hurried scamper. Cannon were unlimbered and thrown into the river, and troops fought among themselves over the right of way along the narrow plank walk. In the midst of this confusion, while yet thousands of the invaders were still on the Serbian side of the ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... broad daylight, but she could not get up. Why? She did not know. Then she heard a little noise on the floor, a sort of scratching, a rustling, and suddenly a mouse, a little gray mouse, ran quickly across the sheet. Another followed it, then a third, who ran toward her chest with his little, quick scamper. Jeanne was not afraid, and she reached out her hand to catch the animal, but could not catch it. Then other mice, ten, twenty, hundreds, thousands, rose up on all sides of her. They climbed the bedposts, ran up the tapestries, covered the bed completely. And soon they got beneath the covers; ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... cheetah from its cage to the chase is by no means an easy matter. The keeper leads him along, as he would a large dog, with a chain; and for a time as they scamper over the country the leopard goes willingly enough; but if anything arrests his attention, some noise from the forest, some scented trail upon the ground, he moves more slowly, throws his head aloft and peers savagely round. A few more minutes perhaps and he would be unmanageable. The ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... him," Pinkey suggested, grinning. "Or if you ketch yourself pickin' at the bed-clothes you can saddle up and scamper over and see me. 'Tain't fur—forty miles across the mounting. Jest below that notch—you can't ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... the rising sun in three weeks, less one day," Ree answered. "But scamper along; let's get back to the store and find out first how Jim was hurt and how badly. It will be a sorry job for Pete Ellis, ...
— Far Past the Frontier • James A. Braden
... steed to listen for the sounds which his sensitive ear had detected. "They may be simply wild cattle, or riderless horses, taking a scamper," I observed, laughing. ...
— Adventures in Australia • W.H.G. Kingston
... ensign of Priapus) in her hand. More than that we could not get to see; for they no sooner perceived us, than they set up such a shout, that the roof of the temple shook agen, and withal endeavoured to lay hands on us; but we scamper'd and made what haste ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... had grief to wrench her soul. Bet ne'er the Furies or of Thebes or Troy With such fell cruelty were seen, their goads Infixing in the limbs of man or beast, As now two pale and naked ghost I saw That gnarling wildly scamper'd, like the swine Excluded from his stye. One reach'd Capocchio, And in the neck-joint sticking deep his fangs, Dragg'd him, that o'er the solid pavement rubb'd His belly stretch'd out prone. The other shape, He of Arezzo, there left trembling, spake; "That sprite of air is Schicchi; ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... he that had made a study of Shibli Bagarag. Thereupon that monkey stalked scornfully from them; and Abarak cried, 'O Master of the Event! it was better for me to keep the passage of the Seventh Pillar, than be an ape of this order. Wah! the flashing of the Sword scorcheth them, and they scamper.' ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... partook heartily of the dish, whenever it was on the table. At night they frequently stretched their hammocks from tree to tree for their cabin was uncomfortably hot. After a refreshing bath in the cool phosphorescent water and a scamper up and down the level sands in lieu of a towel, they would turn in and enjoy a sound sleep. They were generally awakened before daylight by the shrieking and chattering of the parrots and monkeys. Then with a spring from their hammock, they would dash merrily in to ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... for one had real leisure. One varied the turning over of books in the Great Parlour with a scamper on one's pony, with visits to the strawberry bed, and with stretching oneself full- length on a sofa, or the hearth-rug in the Hall, reading four or five books at a time. In such an atmosphere it was easy to forget one's proper lessons and the abhorred dexterity ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... hillside, the mother rises suddenly and goes back to the den; the little ones stop their play, and gather about her. You strain your ears for the slightest sound, but hear nothing; yet there she is, plainly talking to them; and they are listening. She turns her head, and the cubs scamper into the den's mouth. A moment she stands listening, looking; while just within the dark entrance you get glimpses of four pointed black noses, and a cluster of bright little eyes, wide open for a last look. ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... wild, and they usually grazed in parties of twelve to twenty, always having a sentinel so stationed as to command a prominent view of the surrounding territory. If any animal or person came near, he would give a peculiar hiss or whistle, repeating it two or three times, at which the whole herd would scamper away to places ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... in another way, for there came a rush and a scamper overhead, and a boy of five or six years old ran down the ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... squirrels kept whirling their wheel and tigers running round and round their cages. They want notice, and change, and work, or they cannot bear it. The stagnation kills them—or I wish it did kill them quicker than it does. Look at your Bruce, born to work sheep, to scamper over miles of country, free as air, to be mates with some man who would know the value of such a friend, and be worthy of him. ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... of Ireland can be said to have even attempted. This work, the final volume of which has not yet appeared, so completely covers the whole ground that it seems to afford an excuse for an even more hasty scamper over the same area than the exigencies of ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... out, M. Joyeuse keeping faithful watch over the studio and its new apparatus, heard two little strokes given on the ceiling of the apartment below, two separate, very distinct strokes, then a cautious pattering of fingers, like the scamper of mice. The friendliness of the photographer with his neighbours sufficiently authorized these communications like those of prisoners. But what did they mean? How reply to what seemed a call? Quite at hazard, he repeated the two strokes, the light tapping, and the conversation ended ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... village children on the edge of the surf. Now they chase the retreating wave far down over the wet sand; now it steals softly up to kiss their naked feet; now it comes onward with threatening front, and roars after the laughing crew as they scamper beyond its reach. Why should not an old man be merry too, when the great sea is at play with those little children? I delight, also, to follow in the wake of a pleasure-party of young men and girls strolling ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... a sharp pace for more than an hour, and about midnight drew near to his own quarter again. He had just turned up by the Middlesex Hospital, and was at no great distance from Clipstone Street, when a yell and scamper caught his attention; a group of loafing blackguards on the opposite side of the way had suddenly broken up, and as they rushed off he heard the word 'Fire!' This was too common an occurrence to disturb his equanimity; he wondered absently in which street the fire ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... before-mentioned festival of the jubilee, it happened that one day Anna Apenborg went to the brew-house, which lay inside the convent walls (it was one of Sidonia's praying days), and there she saw a strange apparition of a three-legged hare. She runs and calls the other sisters; whereupon they all scamper out of their cells, and down the steps, to see the miracle, and behold, there sits the three-legged hare; but when Agnes Kleist took off her slipper, and threw it at the devil's sprite, my hare is off, and never a trace of him could be found again in the whole brew-house ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... them: as though the silence of the place had gradually benumbed their busy inquisitive natures. And this strange passivity, this almost human lassitude, seemed to me sadder than the misery of starved and beaten animals. I should have liked to rouse them for a minute, to coax them into a game or a scamper; but the longer I looked into their fixed and weary eyes the more preposterous the idea became. With the windows of that house looking down on us, how could I have imagined such a thing? The dogs knew better: THEY knew what the house would tolerate ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... surface, or whether it was all of these things together, certain it is the bough broke, and down came the keeper thud on the sward. The bough fell down with him, and as it fell it struck the gun, and the gun exploded, and although the dogs scampered aside when they heard the crack, they did not scamper so quick but one of them was shot dead, and the ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... if you can," I said with mischievous defiance, springing off the veranda into the flower-garden. He accepted my challenge, and, being lithe as a cat, a tremendous scamper ensued. Round and round the flower-beds we ran. Uncle Jay-Jay's beard opened in a broad smile, which ended in a loud laugh. Everard Grey's coat-tails flew in the breeze he made, and his collar was too high for athletic purposes. I laughed too, and ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... "Good! I'll scamper home and tell Maryllia! I'll say I have met you, and that I've been as impudent as I possibly could be ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... and all he did was to rise heavily into the air, flap his wings like a barn-door fowl, and plump lazily down twenty yards farther off. Soon after, the district we traversed became more igneous, wrinkled, cracked, and ropy than anything we had yet seen, and another two hours' scamper over such a track as till then I would not have believed horses could have traversed, even at a foot's pace, brought us to the solitary farm-house of Bessestad. Fresh from the neat homesteads of England that we had left sparkling in the bright spring weather, and sheltered by immemorial ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... by straying a little from the road, we get a really imposing view of Bardale, into which the ground falls suddenly from our very feet. Sheep scamper nimbly down their convenient little tracks, but there are places where water that overflows from the pools among the bent and ling has made blue-grey seams and wrinkles in the steep places that give no foothold even ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... spoke of him but as the Sorcier, the Vieux Diable; when naughty little children refused to learn their letters or to go to bed, it was only necessary to threaten them with sending for the Pere Seguin and his red dog, and the whole of the rosy troop would scamper off to their nursery in ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... echoed mockingly. Then he stepped swiftly across the hall and flung the door suddenly open. I believe he thought that he really had surprised Jean's slow aged scamper ahead of him. ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope
... day. In its morning bright We frolic and scamper, free and light. 'Tis a happy path that we have to run, The way is pleasant when new-begun. The sky of our youth is clear and blue, With no clouds to impede our raptured view; There's a prize to win in its golden ...
— Lays from the West • M. A. Nicholl
... overflowing feelings, into a proper and useful subjection, centring all in the one absorbing and capacious receptacle of self. I do not claim for my father any peculiar quality in this respect, for I have often observed that many of those who (like giddy-headed horsemen that raise a great dust, and scamper as if the highway were too narrow for their eccentric courses, before they are fairly seated in the saddle, but who afterward drive as directly at their goals as the arrow parting from the bow), most indulge their sympathies at the commencement of their ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... left to Landsborough, was the remote one of accidentally coming upon them. Nobody could have reasonably supposed that such a costly and elaborately got up expedition would have degenerated into a scamper across to the Gulf, and a scramble back over ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... that brings the cold? The North-Wind, Freddy, and all the snow; And the sheep will scamper into the fold When the ...
— The Posy Ring - A Book of Verse for Children • Various
... Polly, whirling around, "are you there, Pet? Well, Mamsie's coming pretty soon. I think I see—No, 'tisn't," as David started to scamper over the stepping-stones—"it's a man turning the road. Anyway, she'll be here before we hardly know it, I guess. Now let's play something, and that'll make the time ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... neck). Infamous! most infamous Charles! Oh, had I not my forebodings, when, even as a boy, he would scamper after the girls, and ramble about over hill and common with ragamuffin boys and all the vilest rabble; when he shunned the very sight of a church as a malefactor shuns a gaol, and would throw the pence he had wrung from your bounty into ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... rights, and to say a word in support of his Majesty's honour, too; God bless him! Judy! you Jude!" he shouted, at the top of his voice, to a negro girl, who was gathering kindling-wood among the chips of a ship-yard, "scamper over to neighbour Homespun's, and rattle away at his bed-room windows: the man has overslept himself it is not common to hear seven o'clock strike, and the thirsty tailor ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... webs in the angles of the walls and ceilings; and sometimes, when Oliver walked softly into a room, the mice would scamper across the floor, and run back terrified to their holes. With these exceptions, there was neither sight nor sound of any living thing; and often, when it grew dark, and he was tired of wandering from room to room, he would crouch in the ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... deploring her father's pronounced aversion to him—perhaps even resenting it an undutiful bit—had found it impossible to resist the temptation to softly disengage that butterfly net from the loosely clasping fingers, and swiftly, stealthily, delightedly to scamper away with it against his waking. It was of this very exploit, never dreaming of the fateful consequences, she and Kate Sanders were so blissfully bubbling over, fairly shaking with maiden merriment when the despoiled victim, homeward bound, caught sight of them upon the mesa. Ten minutes ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... drew up his craft, and started to climb to us. The dog made the bank, shook himself and followed upward, but not with a scamper like a white man's dog, rather a silent keeping of distance. Just below us the Indian halted, turned, picked up with both hands a rock the size of a winter turnip and heaved it straight down at the beast's head. ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... lodge standing alone in the forest. Only men belong to the society; women and children are excluded from it and look upon it with fear and awe. If any one raises a cry, "Asa is coming," or the sound of the musical instruments of the society is heard in the distance, all the women and children scamper away. The natives are very unwilling to let any stranger enter one of the lodges of the society. The interior of such a building is usually somewhat bare, but it contains the wooden masks which are worn in the ceremonial dances of the society, and the horns and flutes on ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... pay no attention to his protest. Then, with a sudden burst of wrath, he breaks upon them, overturning their tables, scattering their gold upon the floor, and beating them with thongs. The animals kept for sacrifice are released. The sheep scamper backward to the rear of the stage, and escape through the open door. The white doves fly out over the heads of the spectators, and are lost against the green slopes of ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan
... water, the little visitor would whisk away again like a flash and, with a warning chatter to his mate, would seek safety among the leaves and branches of the forest only to reappear once more when all was quiet until, at last, made bold by many trials, he would leap from the fence and scamper across the yard to take possession of the tallest stump as though he himself were a schoolboy. Sometimes a crow, after carefully watching the place for a little while from a safe position on the fence across the road, would fly quietly down to ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright
... smack'd his whip, and fast The horses scamper'd through the rain; But hearing soon upon the blast The cry, ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... ropes across the paths where they would be less likely to be seen. These ropes were placed at such a height as to knock a man from his horse if he came riding up at a great speed. In this way the master or the overseer was stopped temporarily, thereby giving the slaves time to scamper to safety. In addition to the presents given at Christmas (candy and clothing) the master also gave each family half a gallon of whisky. This made the parties more lively. One of the songs that the slaves on the House plantation used to sing at ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... fast, not so fast!" laughed Miss Pomeroy. "John will open these boxes and carry them up to your rooms where you can unpack them all by yourselves. Take your mail and scamper!" She shooed the capering girls up the wide stairway, where they were followed very shortly by the smiling John, bearing their new ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... far North, we take you to LOCH ASSYNT, in Sutherlandshire, and to a little loch near it,—LOCH AWE by name. The journey to Assynt is long and weary: train to Lairg, and then between thirty and forty miles driving, is a good long scamper for fishing, but it is worth it. The inn at Inchnadamph is good, but when we were there in 1877 the boat accommodation was poor enough: perhaps they have improved upon that since. The first day after our arrival we had to go to Loch Awe, as the boats on the large loch (Assynt) were taken ...
— Scotch Loch-Fishing • AKA Black Palmer, William Senior
... puzzles are just as horrid as conundrums," said Joel Pepper, beginning already to feel the prickles run up and down his legs, from sitting still so long, and wishing for nothing so much as a good scamper; "they're both as ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... one of the party, and having already supped, said to her mother that she was going to find Skipping Rabbit and have a run with her. You see, Moonlight, although full seventeen years of age, was still so much of a child as to delight in a scamper with her little friend, the youngest ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... nice scamper, and had turned to come back not far from the Park, when who do you think came riding up?—Lord Valmond! The last person one expected to see down here! He never waited a second when he saw me, but jumped off his horse and beamed—just as if we had parted the ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... with watchful and fearful eyes. Eric remembered himself in the canning factory and pitied them more than he could ever have done had he not once been a caged little creature too. How he longed to open their doors and the window, and see them scamper ...
— The Little House in the Fairy Wood • Ethel Cook Eliot
... enthusiasm as he went on: "Just wait until the lightning begins to play around some of these birds. Then you'll see them scamper. I'm going to the city to-morrow to have a talk with the C.E. and I've just got a sneaking hunch that I'm going to ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... This it is that keeps the village children within the bounds familiar to them, where they know who is who, and what property belongs to which owner, and how far they may risk doing mischief, and round what corners they may scamper into safety. ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... mercy to the aid of commerce by her absurdly lugubrious visage—have the paper and the change all ready to thrust into their customer's hand. The scene at the crossing of the street baffles description. Talk of the day of miracles being past! One who can watch this scene of scare and scamper and hair-breadth escape and not believe in a particular Providence must be ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... the chivalrous undertaking. I procured a stick of the right size, and marched up to the hive to make the attack. While I was deliberating, with the stick already a little way in the hole, whether I had better thrust it in suddenly, and then scamper away as fast as my legs could carry me, or proceed so deliberately that the bees would not suspect what was the matter, Captain Perry happened to come into the garden; and I was so busy with my mischief, that I did not notice him until he advanced within a rod ...
— Wreaths of Friendship - A Gift for the Young • T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth
... after her elevation, as it was termed, she was called, might, since she held long a great sway over Charles's fancy, be suffered to scamper about Ham House—where her merry laugh perhaps scandalised the now Saintly Duchess of Lauderdale,—just to impose on the world; for Nell was regarded as the Protestant champion of the court, in opposition to her French rival, ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... the clear sweet air, the waving grass, the occasional clearings where settlers had driven in the tent-pegs of home, the forest now and then swallowing them, the mountains rising above them like a blank wall, and then suddenly opening out before them; and the rustle and scamper of squirrels and coyotes; and over their heads the whistle of birds, the slow beat of wings of great wild-fowl. The tender sap of youth was in this glowing and alert new world, and, by sudden contrast with the prison walls which he had just left behind, the earth seemed recreated, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... relief. Nor did Ikey disappoint them. He was a wayward son. When his parents were laboriously engaged in a boxing-match, or dancing to the "Merry Widow Waltz," or balancing on step-ladders, Ikey, on all fours, would scamper to the foot-lights and, leaning over, make a swift grab at the head of the first trombone. And when the Countess Zichy, apprised by the shouts of the audience of Ikey's misconduct, waved a toy whip, Ikey would gallop back ...
— The Nature Faker • Richard Harding Davis
... brown mouse That lives in somebody's house, And in that same house there is Rover: He has chased me the whole house over. And there, too, is fat Baby Tim; But oh, ho! what care I for him? When he sprawls on the carpet, And bumps his pink nose, I scamper around him, And tickle his toes. How he kicks and he crows! For he knows, oh, he knows, That I'm only a little brown mouse That ...
— The Nursery, January 1877, Volume XXI, No. 1 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... a nut; Hide it quick away, In a hole, under leaves, To eat some winter day. Acorns sweet are plenty, We will have them all: Skip and scamper lively Till the last ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... creatures" said Bridget; "yonder, on the further side of the prairie—I dare say the two parties will join each other, and have a famous scamper, ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... His little flying feet Scamper as softly fleet As ever the rabbits run. He is gone like a flash, and then In ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates
... before the thing is at a standstill, with letters and documents clutched in his hand, rushing in, resolute to "hustle," getting wonderfully in everybody's way. At the sight of him even the messenger boys who are waiting get up and scamper to and fro. Sprinkle your vision with collisions, curses, incoherencies. You imagine all the parts of this complex, lunatic machine working hysterically toward a crescendo of haste and excitement as the night wears on. At last, the only things that seem to travel slowly in those tearing, vibrating ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... vistas of silence far in the jungle lost their individuality in a sob. Grasshoppers clinked in the forest, the hum of bees and beetles, the fluty plaint of a painted pigeon far in the gloom, the furtive scamper of scrub fowl among leaves made tender by decay, the splash of startled fish in the shadows, commingled and blended to the accompaniment of that subdued aerial buzz by which Nature manifests the more secret of her functions and art—that ineffable ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... scattered in search of food, upon seeing a hawk, utters a note of warning which we have all heard, and the young scamper to her for protection beneath her wings. When she has laid an egg, Cut-cut-cut-cut-ot-cut! announces it from the nest in the barn. When the chicks are hatched, her cluck, cluck, cluck, calls them from the nest in the wide world, and her chick, chick, chick, ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [August, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... In the scamper that followed, the blood surged back to her face, and her spirits rose again; but in her secret heart there yet remained a nameless dread that she was as powerless to ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... Polly sobering down; "you can't have yours till Davie wakes up, too. Scamper off to bed, Joey, dear, and forget all about 'em—and it'll be ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney
... man's infirmity, and, softly approaching, commenced eating noiselessly, lapping up the soup daintily; and, when a rather loud licking of the tongue awakened the poor fellow's attention, it would prudently scamper away to avoid the blow of the spoon directed at it by the ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant |
