"Scramble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of gunpowder was too small to do serious damage—though he may well be excused for misdoubting this. But when Myra struck a match and challenged him for the last time, he called to her not to play the fool, and began to scramble down for dear life. In truth, for two or three minutes he had been feeling strangely giddy, and to make matters worse, was suddenly conscious of a horrible burning ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... are," laughed Fat, "but I won't tell," and he hastened to scramble into a pillow slip, which he twisted around his head until he got the slits for the eyes in ...
— Hallowe'en at Merryvale • Alice Hale Burnett
... mind to that," replied Tom modestly. "Jimmy and I don't imagine that half the merchants in New York will be waiting at the ferry for us, and will scramble over each other to see who shall have ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... them. Then, whether it be their train or not, there is a din of yelling voices, a frenzied rush up and down the platform, and, even before those who want to get out have had time to alight, a headlong scramble for places—as often as not in the wrong carriages and always apparently in those that are already crammed full, as the Indian is essentially gregarious—and out again with fearful shouts and shrill cries if a bundle has gone ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... professions, however, have become false and hypocritical. In the name of the People it seeks its own gain. It has ceased to be a means to good democratic government, and has grown to be an end in itself. In its rivalry to other parties, in its struggle for power, in its scramble for the spoils of office, in its eagerness to secure votes, it has debased political ideals, it has corrupted citizenship, it has abandoned truth, it has proclaimed smooth lies, it has betrayed the State, it has almost destroyed the nation. Happy indeed will it be if this war, which is revealing ...
— Freedom In Service - Six Essays on Matters Concerning Britain's Safety and Good Government • Fossey John Cobb Hearnshaw
... low cry, Godfrey snatched at it, but his hand clutched only the empty air. The next instant, the figure poised itself on the coping of the wall and then plunged forward out of sight. I heard the crash of breaking branches, a scramble, a patter of feet, and all ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... Dickson was left to his own unpleasant reflections. His body, prone on the moist earth, was fairly comfortable, but his mind was ill at ease. The scramble up the hillside had convinced him that he was growing old, and there was no rebound in his soul to counter the conviction. He felt listless, spiritless—an apathy with fright trembling somewhere at the back of it. He regarded the verandah wall with foreboding. How on earth could he climb that? ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... from the table with a laugh. "It will be a scramble; but I'll manage it, if you'll go up at once and pitch the ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... over the edge of the cliff, where he can command a sight of the river, but there is nothing save one eddy on the shore where no one could drown. And yet there are voices, a sound of distress, it seems to him, so he begins to scramble down. A craggy point jutting out shuts off the view of a little cove, and he turns his steps thitherward. Just as he gains the point he catches sight of a figure threading its ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... the unfortunately common type of American boy who pushes women and older people aside to scramble into public conveyances and secure a ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... aces. He was tempted to rush at once upon the player, and catch the card on his person. But he feared. Grendall was a big man; and where would he be if there should be no card there? And then, in the scramble, there would certainly be at any rate a doubt. And he knew that the men around him would be most unwilling to believe such an accusation. Grasslough was Grendall's friend, and Nidderdale and Dolly Longestaffe would infinitely rather be ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... drinking-place for them for a good distance below the falls. They might almost have imagined themselves back in the bush near the Hermit's camp, Harry said, as they pushed their way through scrub and undergrowth, many raspberry vines adding variety, if not charm, to the scramble. The last part of the walk was up bill, and at length they came out upon a ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... oil could be sold at the wells at from $4.00 to $10.00 a barrel, the cost of transportation was an item hardly worthy of consideration, and railroad companies multiplied and waged a bitter war with each other in their scramble after the traffic. But as the production increased with rapid strides, the market price of oil fell with a corresponding rapidity, until the quotations for 1884 show figures as low as 50 to 60 cents per barrel for the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... slowly round the ox, beating it severely at each step with rods of various hues. It is filled with five kinds of grain, which pour forth when the effigy is broken by the blows of the rods. The paper fragments are then set on fire, and a scramble takes place for the burning fragments, because the people believe that whoever gets one of them is sure to be fortunate throughout the year. A live buffalo is next killed, and its flesh is divided among the mandarins. According to one ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... a game we used to play when I was a kid. We called it Going to Jerusalem, I think. Anyway, I know each child sat in a chair except the one who was It. At a signal everybody had to get up and change chairs. There was a wild scramble, in which the one who was It took part. When the burly-burly was over some child was always chairless, of course. He had to be It. That's the skirt business to- day. There aren't enough chairs to go round, and in the scramble somebody's ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... which Germany succeeded in obtaining an enormously valuable strategic point in the rich province of Shangtung aroused the cupidity of rival nations, and they threw off all pretense to decency in their scramble for further territories. Russian statesmen had long ago seen that the Pacific Ocean was to be the arena of world events of colossal significance to the race. We have noted in a former chapter how she had already extended her territory till she touched the Pacific Ocean on the far ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... and jested—as boors and soldiers are wont to do—over their wares. It so happened that in the course of the bargaining one of the bags became untied, and its contents, much to the dissatisfaction of the proprietor, were emptied on the ground. There was a scramble for the walnuts, and much shouting, kicking, and squabbling ensued, growing almost into a quarrel between the burgher-soldiers and the peasants. As the altercation was at its height a heavy wagon, laden with long planks, came towards the gate for the use of carpenters ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... as he can get. But if he is a big bear, he will tumble down on you before you know what has happened. No slow climbing for him; he just lets go and comes down by gravitation. As Uncle Remus says—who has some keen knowledge of animal ways under his story-telling humor—"Brer B'ar, he scramble 'bout half-way down de bee tree, en den he turn eve'ything loose en hit de groun' kerbiff! Look like 't wuz nuff ter jolt de life ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... delude the unwary stranger. The little stream that seemed to require but an occasional stepping-stone to enable us to pass over dry-shod, proved in the first place to be much farther off than we had supposed, and when, after a hot scramble, we found ourselves on the bank, the stepping-stones were no more, but only here and there we saw the shoulders of huge rocks which doggedly threw aside the flying foam of a fair-sized river. It was obviously impossible to cross except by deep wading, but, being unwilling to ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... be afraid, darling; I won't hurt you, my pet!" but no sooner did she get it to the edge of the rock, where it stood looking pensively down at the sea, than she gave it a sudden and violent push, sending it headlong down the slope into the water, where its mother left it to scramble ashore as it best could. We observed many of them employed in doing this, and we came to the conclusion that this is the way in which old penguins ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... husband and the Pottowattamies. There was no alternative but to make the effort, selecting the pass that the inhabitants pointed out as the most practicable. Petaille went first, and I followed on my favorite Jerry. It was such a scramble as is not often taken,—almost perpendicularly, through what seemed the dry bed of a torrent, now filled with loose stones, and scarcely affording one secure foothold from the bottom to the summit! I clang fast to the mane, literally at times clasping Jerry around his ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... other boats waited, just rowing around close to shore, while Uncle Jeb and Westy and I climbed up to the cave. It was higher above the lake than it was before, on account of the water escaping and we had to scramble up ...
— Roy Blakeley's Adventures in Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... companion had no plan save to ramble through Switzerland and Germany as fancy guided him. He had money, now, that would outlast the summer; when it was spent he would come back to Rome and make another statue. At a little mountain village by the way, Roderick declared that he would stop; he would scramble about a little in the high places and doze in the shade of the pine forests. The coach was changing horses; the two young men walked along the village street, picking their way between dunghills, breathing the light, cool air, and listening to the plash of the fountain and the tinkle of cattle-bells. ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... is easy, you need only let yourself glide down; but it is more difficult to get up again. You have to scramble up by catching hold of the hanging branches of the trees, and sometimes on all fours, by sheer strength. A whole mortal hour passed, and still the captain did not come, nothing moved in the brushwood. The captain's wife began to grow impatient; ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... again, and continued their little game; interrupted, however, by jokes from all sides. It was very funny! The smoking shell, in front, and those fellows shooting through that hole at the back, and alighting all in a heap, and then the scramble for that tree. As the shell went out, it was a roaring farce. If it hadn't, it would have been a tragedy. The Captain said that these three men were his whole company, and when that lighted shell struck, he thought that ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame
... up like some leafy giant among its humbler neighbors; and, standing boldly out on the very point where the heights turned southward, was a vertical ledge of solid rock. Pike stopped instantly. "Now that's a watch-tower as is a watch-tower!" he exclaimed. "I'll scramble up and have a look from there before I do another thing." So saying he left the road and pushing his way among the stunted trees and over rocks and bowlders he soon began a moderately steep climb. Long accustomed to mountain scouting, the craft of the old Indian fighter was ...
— Sunset Pass - or Running the Gauntlet Through Apache Land • Charles King
... heavy snow, which had been such a source of difficulty to Hamilton at setting out. He had profited by his former experience, however, and by the exercise of an excessive degree of caution managed to scramble through the woods tolerably well, emerging at last, along with his companions, on the bleak margin of what appeared to be ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... the sort of life that is lived here: the absence of all form, ceremony, or inconvenient conventionality whatever. We laugh, and we talk, sing, play, dance, and discuss; we ride, drive, walk, run, scramble, and saunter, and amuse ourselves extremely with little materials (as the generality of people would suppose) ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... suspense. His remorse that he had not hurried Mrs. Archdale into one of the first boats became almost intolerable. Why had he not placed her in the care even of the Jew, Victor Munich, who was actually seated in the last boat before the scramble ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... rush of heavy police boots on the stairs, the lights were suddenly turned out, and in the dark a wild scramble for liberty. Someone smashed a window that was not barred, and a swarm of men fought round the opening, dropping one by one on to the roof of some stables. The first man through shouted something and tried to push back, but a ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... blindfolded, turned round three times, given a stick, and told he may have one, two, or three shots at the bag, whichever it may be. If he misses it, another one tries, and so on; but if he hits it the bag breaks, the candy covers the floor, and the party scramble ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... the humour for confession. I think you can understand. We got on well enough while I was—free. But he did the chivalrous thing—asked me to marry him; and I was glad enough to scramble back to the ...
— The Black Cat - A Play in Three Acts • John Todhunter
... has a monumental significance: it started the scramble in China: and all the history of the past 22 years is piled like a pyramid on top of it. Now that the Romanoff's have been hurled from the throne, Russia must prove eager to reverse the policy which brought Japan to her Siberian ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... sapphire and sulphur and amber, Scarlet, and flame, and green, While five-foot apes did scramble and ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume II. • Walter de la Mare
... Pixie! Nowadays we take thermos bottles, and luncheon baskets, and hot-water dishes, and dine just as— uninterestingly as we do at home! English people wouldn't thank you for a scramble. You must wait until you go back to Knock to Jack and Sylvia, and even there the infection is creeping. Jack is developing quite a ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... among them, that instead of going soberly round by the gate, as he was accustomed to do, he took Jem's fashion and swung himself first over the side of the bridge, and then over the fence into the garden. They might well look surprised, and all the more so that it was high water, and he had to scramble along the unsteady fence and through the willows before he could get to the ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson
... of that visit especially, because this was the last time I saw the Nelson bungalow. On arriving at the Straits I found cable messages which made it necessary for me to throw up my employment at a moment's notice and go home at once. I had a desperate scramble to catch the mailboat which was due to leave next day, but I found time to write two short notes, one to Freya, the other to Jasper. Later on I wrote at length, this time to Allen alone. I got no answer. I hunted up then his brother, or, rather, half-brother, a solicitor ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... and looked over the stone wall of the park. Surely Vicky Van had not had time to scramble over that wall before we reached the corner. It had been not more than a few seconds after we saw her flying form turn down the Avenue, and she couldn't have crossed the street and scaled ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... the spring!" panted Betty; and off they went again, one to scramble up a pile of stones and look over the wall into the avenue, the other to scamper to the spot they had just left. Still, nothing appeared but the dandelions' innocent faces looking up at Bab, and a brown bird scared from his bath in the ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... straw. "You shall see—you shall know! But our balloon—we had no means of obtaining a further supply of gas. It was barely sufficient to take us across the gulf, with a few pieces of treasure. We struck against the side of the bluff—we were falling back into the abyss! Barely were we able to scramble out of the car and cling to the rocks. Then we saw the balloon rise a little, like a bird freed of burden; but it suddenly collapsed, fluttered downward, and the mists leaped up and clutched it like a thousand exulting demons, dragging it down from our sight. We crawled ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... iron shuts amain); He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake: "How well could I have spared for thee, young swain, Enow of such, as for their bellies' sake Creep and intrude and climb into the fold! Of other care they little reckoning make Than how to scramble at the shearers' feast, And shove away the worthy bidden guest; Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold A sheep-hook, or have learn'd aught else the least That to the faithful herdman's art belongs! What recks it them? What need ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... terrified, was struggling towards the opposite bank. In a moment Carrington, drawing something from his breast as he went, had run across the bridge, and reached the spot where the animal was now attempting to scramble up the steep bank. As Carrington came up, he had got his fore-feet within a couple of feet of the top, and was just making good his footing below; but the surgeon, standing close upon the brink, a little to the right ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... head. At the bottom of the hill we tethered the donkeys, and at once began the ascent. The distance up was said to be two miles, which took us about two hours to climb. The first part was over grassy mounds, but the latter portion involved a real scramble. We had to stoop to get under trees, and to push through thick brushwood, while in places it was so steep we had to get on our knees and be pulled up. To make matters worse the ground was very soppy. We arrived at the top somewhat exhausted. Graham spread his ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow
... come on," said Mr. Haydon, and Jack brought up the rear in the march along this tiny passage, where he had almost to scramble on hands ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... him back near the extensive ruins of the destroyed city: they soon found tolerably passable roads, the few unobstructed tracks of the former principal streets of the large royal city; but they were often obliged to scramble over the rubbish of overthrown buildings, across pillars, and the remains of mighty columns. His guide turned now right, now left, to seek the easiest road; then backwards, then forwards. They might, perhaps, have spent ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... business before holiday; rather a scramble at the end. OLD MORALITY, as usual, piled up heap of work to be got through. "Quite easy, you know," he said. "Tithes Bill, Electoral Disabilities Removal Bill, Savings Bank Bill, take them in your stride. What does the poet say? Line upon Line; Little by Little; Here to-day and gone ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 4, 1891 • Various
... crowded round the man, yelling continuously, "Where's our ale? Where's our ale? You've stole our ale." And the ragged man with drooping shoulders and white scared face slunk along the fence under the road, looking for a weak place by which he might scramble out of the field. At last he found one and made a bound to climb up it; but the bank was too steep and he fell back. The boys seeing that he was afraid of them began to raise the cry of thief, or, as they called it, thafe. Half a dozen ...
— The Drummer's Coat • J. W. Fortescue
... narrow escapes of all kinds. But never had he felt so utterly hopeless as now. The moment he landed in that sap, Whitefoot began to swim frantically. He isn't a particularly good swimmer, but he could swim well enough to keep afloat for a while. His first thought was to scramble up the side of the tin pail, but when he reached it and tried to fasten his sharp little claws into it in order to climb, he discovered that he couldn't. Sharp as they were, his little claws just slipped, and his struggles to get up only resulted ...
— Whitefoot the Wood Mouse • Thornton W. Burgess
... next came by and said: 'Poor fellow! I am very much pained to see you there. I think if you could scramble up two-thirds of the way, or even half, I could reach you and lift you up the rest.' But the man in the pit was entirely helpless and unable to rise. That ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon
... children were gathered in a swarm, was built up in one corner; and our coming was the signal for the first of the ceremonies, the lighting of the creche candles, to begin. In this all the children had a part—making rather a scramble of it, for there was rivalry as to which of them should light the most—and in a moment a constellation of little flames covered the Bethlehem hill-side and brought into bright prominence the Holy Family and ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... carriage-wheels grinding, crunching, and skidding within a foot of his head. Luckily the reins held, and when, after being dragged a hundred yards or so, and half choked by the thick dust, he managed to scramble to his feet, he pulled with frenzied, convulsive strength on the off-side rein. The horses swerved to the fearful saw on their jaws, and pulled nearly into the left-hand hedge. Acton's desperate idea was to overturn the carriage into the hedge before the ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... protection; there was only the steep hillside above, and the steep hillside below. To go up was quite impracticable, to go down was destruction! My horse approached the impediment very quietly, and allowed me to break off several of the worst branches, and then scramble by. Miss Blunt's horse came close up to it as though intending to pass quietly, but, instead, wheeled round on the extreme edge of the path in anything but a pleasant fashion, either for the rider or the observer. Dismounting and tying my steed to one of the branches on the ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough
... there, speering and spying about him, he saw, far away, the smoke of a Finn Gamme,[3] which stood beneath a cliff, and he managed to scramble right ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... Line up!" ordered Dunston Porter, and after a general scramble and amid much merriment, the boys lined up. Then came the order "Go!" and all of them struck out lustily for the rock that ...
— Dave Porter At Bear Camp - The Wild Man of Mirror Lake • Edward Stratemeyer
... and a few small things dashed into a weird travelling bag which a confused porter rushed out to buy at a neighbouring shop. While I settled the hotel bill, Jack arranged to have my portmanteau expressed to Grenoble, and by a scramble our tasks were finished when the voice of the car called us ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... his hands and feet in an attempt to scramble upward, and, possibly more by chance than design, he fell into the stroke that a dog uses when swimming, so that within a few seconds his nose was above water and he found that he could keep it there by continuing his strokes, and also make progress ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... scramble along those rugged tracks we made our way to the point where the Gypsy expected that Winifred would pass. We remained for hours, beating about in all directions in search of her,—Sinti every now and then touching her crwth with the ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... startled the men, and there was a general scramble for guns. Alec, quick to see his danger, rushed up, and taking a position beside Napoleon forbade any shooting, and speedily made some very necessary explanations, much to the relief ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... Rabbis of Sadagora who are in touch with all the spirits of the air enjoy the revenue of princes and the reverence of Popes. To snatch a morsel of such a Rabbi's Sabbath Kuggol, or pudding, is to insure Paradise, and the scramble is a scene to witness. Chasidism is the extreme expression of Jewish optimism. The Chasidim are the Corybantes or Salvationists of Judaism. In England their idiosyncrasies are limited to noisy jubilant services in their Chevrah, the worshippers ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... were stumbling in an indistinguishable mass towards the haven indicated by the latest comer. It was a difficult scramble, not the least difficult part of it being the task of keeping in touch with each other. But Derrick's spirits returned at a bound with this further adventure, and he began to rejoice somewhat prematurely in his triumph ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... religious thoughts and religious conversation in every thing; inviting them to ride, walk, row, wrestle, and dine out religiously;—forgetting that the being to whom this impossible purity is recommended, is a being compelled to scramble for his existence and support for ten hours out of the sixteen he is awake; —forgetting that he must dig, beg, read, think, move, pay, receive, praise, scold, command and obey;—forgetting, also, that if men conversed as often upon religious subjects as they do upon the ordinary ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... to fire," he said to Friday, "and when I say the word let us run forward yelling and firing our guns over their heads. This will fill them with such fright that they will take to their heels and boats and get away as soon as possible. In the scramble and confusion we will rush in and ...
— An American Robinson Crusoe - for American Boys and Girls • Samuel. B. Allison
... un, and let's come in," he panted; and somehow he managed to scramble in as Will held ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... the Prince of Wales, that, driving home from the late Derby Races, he lifted his hat to a group of ladies, and by accident dropped a glove, whereupon the fair ones dived eagerly into the dirt for it, while his Royal Highness laughed heartily at the scramble. Young ladies this side of the Atlantic, it may be said with justice, are quite as practiced divers; but when the darlings duck their fingers into the dirt before any young fellow here, it more frequently ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870 • Various
... scramble. Several men stumbled and fell, and from their midst a figure dashed—a figure at the sight of which a gasp of astonishment came from ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young
... was Mrs. Bellamy, whom Sally Carrol detested. The first day's impression of an egg had been confirmed—an egg with a cracked, veiny voice and such an ungracious dumpiness of carriage that Sally Carrol felt that if she once fell she would surely scramble. In addition, Mrs. Bellamy seemed to typify the town in being innately hostile to strangers. She called Sally Carrol "Sally," and could not be persuaded that the double name was anything more than a tedious ridiculous nickname. To Sally Carrol this shortening of her name was presenting ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... modern languages. In some ways the last state was worse than the first. For the first state had at least been based upon a great tradition and an ordered philosophy of life, but in the last state there was no tradition, no ordered philosophy; only a jumble and a scramble, and a passing of examinations. Such a system or lack of system must fall a prey sooner or later to some educational movement based on a ...
— The School and the World • Victor Gollancz and David Somervell
... to seven, Mrs. Inglethorp called us that we should be late as supper was early that night. We had rather a scramble to get ready in time; and before the meal was over the motor ...
— The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie
... opened, and the sound of heavy snoring struck their ears. Inside they perceived by the light of the jailer's lantern a dozen figures stretched on straw pallets, and between the sleepers as many more empty couches, for which the newcomers were left to scramble. Tristram secured one as the door clanged and left them in pitch-black night, but gave it up to a pitiful wretch who crept near and kissing his hand implored leave to share it. Curling himself up upon the ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... avoided." I scrambled to my feet, and Amroth helped me a little higher up the rocks, looking carefully into the mist as he did so. Close behind us was a steep rock with ledges. Amroth flung himself upon them, with an agile scramble or two. Then he held his hand down, lying on the top; I took it, and, stiffened as I was, I contrived to get up beside him. "That is right," he said in a whisper. "Now lie here quietly, don't speak a word, ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... get thoroughly awaked, being so exhausted, and overpowered with sleep. Most of us were scrambling upon all fours down to the river, and crying for Christ's sake to have mercy upon them, till those who were foremost in the scramble, in crawling into the creek, got recovered from their plight by their hands being immersed in water; yet those who were foremost in running away, were not last in upbraiding the rest with cowardice, notwithstanding there were pretty ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards
... arouse the sleeper, but Jasper Lamotte was equal to the occasion; this not being his first morning interview with his son-in-law; and, after a little, John Burrill was sufficiently awake to scramble through with a hasty toilet, talking ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... order given when the boat shot into the water. During the scramble of the seamen for places on her thwarts, Jeremy and Bob jumped down and crouched in the bows, unseen by any but those nearest them. Ten seconds after she hit the waves the boat was filled from gunwale to gunwale with sailors, armed to the teeth with pistols, ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... to you as it sang of old. The old dreams come back to you, the dreams you dreamed as you slumbered upon the cornhusk mattress in the clean, sweet little chamber of the old home. Forgotten are the cares of business, the scramble for money, the ruthless hunt for fame. Here are ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... handle of the shop door and went in. There was nothing in the world which now galled him more than the suspicion that he was stuck-up and wished to cut old friends. He picked his way through the nine brats who clung affectionately to his wet knees, dispersing them finally by a jet of coppers to scramble for. Peter met him on the stair and shook his hand lovingly and admiringly, and took him into Mrs. ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... Castle of Indolence, so don't flatter yourself that I shall grumble at having had to take our house on again. Let us keep Leonard; we should both miss him extremely, and Aubrey would lose half the good without some one to swim, scramble, and fight with. Indeed, for the poor fellow's own sake, he should stay, for though he is physically as strong as a young megalosaur, and in the water or on the rocks all day, I don't think his head is come to application, ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... came at Good Ground, and they all had to scramble with curtains, "smelly" curtains, Nina called them. And the dinner was eaten in warm, sticky half-darkness on a hotel porch, with horrible music making a horrible racket, according to the same authority. Saunders and Amy held hands all the way home, too, and Nina thought it was disgusting; ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... be beaten. We jump ashore, scramble up the bank ahead of all the soldiers, reach the upper works, and fling out the Stars and Stripes to the bright morning sunshine on the abandoned works ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... his way into the gateway, his tall figure towering above the pack there as he halted and gazed down the hill. In the darkness and confusion it was easy enough for her to scramble upon the hedge unobserved, and at the cost of a few scratches only. From the top of the hedge ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... right," he said to Thede. "You take the light and hold it down and I'll scramble in. May as well break my neck as to freeze ...
— Boy Scouts in Northern Wilds • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... in swimming across a rapid river, was swept away by the current and carried a long way downstream in spite of his struggles, until at last, bruised and exhausted, he managed to scramble on to dry ground from a backwater. As he lay there unable to move, a swarm of horseflies settled on him and sucked his blood undisturbed, for he was too weak even to shake them off. A Hedgehog saw him, and asked if he should brush away the flies ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... high in front, arose the precipitous barrier of the mountain, greened over where it seemed that scarce a harebell could find root, barred with the zigzags of a human road where it seemed that not a goat could scramble. And in truth, for all the labour that it cost, the road is regarded even by the Marquesans as impassable; they will not risk a horse on that, ascent; and those who lie to the westward come and go in their canoes. I never knew a hill ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of hot butter slice six good-sized green onions, tops and all. Cook until wilted, add a little water and boil until it has evaporated. Scramble in a spoonful of Armour's Beef Extract, three eggs, pepper and salt to taste. Cook until creamy and serve hot.—MRS. ...
— Armour's Monthly Cook Book, Volume 2, No. 12, October 1913 - A Monthly Magazine of Household Interest • Various
... its own left; then bumped round by careless glaciers until it didn't care where it came to rest; and at last, after a few hundred million years of stony unconcern for its ultimate fate, here it had been drawn by the cunning hand of man sprang into the complex mechanism of our industrial human scramble. ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... where this river flows out of the side of the hill, is a path which leads to the entrance of the cave. A long downward slope brought us into the first great vaulted chamber, perhaps a quarter of a mile long and eighty feet high; then a long scramble through a narrow passage, and another hall still grander than the first. At the end of this hall is another passage leading on into another chamber. Beyond this we did not go. As it was, we must have walked between one and two miles into the cavern, but people have explored it to twice this distance, ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... rocky paradise," observed Sandy Black, "an' the angelic appendages o' wings wadna be unsuitable to its inhabitants, for it seems easier to flee oot o't ower the precipices than to scramble intil't ower the rocks an' rooten trees. I ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... day, Left her work and ran away: When soon she reach'd the garden gate, Which finding lock'd, she would not wait, But tried to climb and scramble o'er A gate as ...
— Aunt Kitty's Stories • Various
... stress of the weather, which had now increased to a storm of wind and rain. The time of his earlier appointment was not quite due; but the lady knew her way. With a shiver the Captain turned and began to scramble up towards the summit. The sooner he found the shepherd's hut the better: if it were open, he would enter; it not, he could at least get some shelter under the lee of it. But he trusted that the Countess would keep her tryst punctually: she must be come and gone before seven ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope
... the timeless, proceeded from a multitude of ignoble motives: from lassitude with the petty and repeated annoyances of existence, quarrels with the laundress, with the waiter, with the landlord; the sordid scramble for money; in a word, from the general spiritual failure of a man approaching forty. He thought of escaping into a monastery somewhat as street girls think of going into a house where they will be free ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... is on the cold table-lands of Thibet and Tartary, or still higher up among the mountain valleys of the Himalayas, where they feed on grass or the smaller species of carices. They love to browse upon steep places, and to scramble among rocks; and their favourite places for resting or sleeping are on the tops of isolated boulders, where the sun has full play upon them. When taken to warm climates, they languish, and soon die of disease of the liver. ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... into my mind, with more enjoyment in the retrospect than I had experienced at the time, an adventure on a lecturing tour in other years, when I had spent an hour in trying to scramble into a country tavern, after bed-time, on the coldest night of winter. On that occasion I ultimately found myself stuck midway in the window, with my head in a temperature of 80 degrees, and my heels in a temperature of -10 degrees, with a heavy windowsash pinioning the small of my back. However, ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... said it is merely a rush and a scramble, "personally conducted," or otherwise, to get over as large a space of ground in a given time as legs and lungs will carry one. Walpole remarked the same sad state of affairs when he wrote of the ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... climb on to these rocks," she exclaimed. "Let us scramble up the tallest; perhaps it may be above high-water mark. Put your arms round my neck, Muriel, and I'll carry you as well as ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... "Nuke it." 3. Used of processes as well as files; nuke is a frequent verbal alias for 'kill -9' on Unix. 4. On IBM PCs, a bug that results in {fandango on core} can trash the operating system, including the FAT (the in-core copy of the disk block chaining information). This can utterly scramble attached disks, which are then said to have been 'nuked'. This term is also used of analogous lossages on Macintoshes and other ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... the pony up over the round of the ridge as fast as he could scramble. At the top he broke into a lope and raced headlong down the other side of the ridge through the tall brush. The reverberating sound of water was clearer ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... PASTRY COOKS, after bowing with great ceremony to the KING, to each other, to the CHANCELLOR—for this is the most important moment of their lives by far—walk to the oven door and open it, impressively. They fall back in astonishment so great that they lose their balance, but they quickly scramble ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... Collier discoursed to me, pathetic. I gathered the diagnosis that his affections and his digestions had been implicated in a scramble and the commissary had won out. I never disliked Ed Collier. I searched my internal admonitions of suitable etiquette to see if I could find a remark of a consoling nature, ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... lying on the bed, just as Miss T. had left her, on the verge of a fit, and on seeing me she held out her hands piteously, and when I stooped over her she whispered, "Send her away, send her away." Then she became unconscious and going into the next room I ordered Miss T. (who had managed to scramble on her dress) out of the house. I spoke scornfully as if addressing a dog, and she slinked out with a malignant but cowed look I hope never to see on a woman's face again. What they had been doing with their clothes off I do not know; women will rather die than ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... extraordinary if it could be borrowed without a high rate of interest. That it can be borrowed at all can only arise from the fact that England, whatever disasters she gets into, generally contrives, by the blood of her soldiers or by the taxation of her people, to scramble through her difficulties, and to maintain before the world, though by enormous sacrifices, a character for good faith which is scarcely held by any other country in the world. With regard to the question of an Imperial guarantee, I take an opposite ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... beginning nor end nor plan. It had no traceable pattern in it. It was as if the demands of everybody in the United States had all been thrown indiscriminately into one basket and that basket presented as a piece of legislation. It had been a general scramble and everybody who scrambled hard enough had been taken care of in the schedules resulting. It was an abominable thing to the thoughtful men of that day, because no man guided it, shaped it, or tried to make an equitable system ...
— The New Freedom - A Call For the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People • Woodrow Wilson
... since the establishment of the Royal African company, "we buy negroes at the price of an engrossed commodity, the common rate of a good negro on shipboard being twenty pound. And we are forced to scramble for them in so shameful a manner that one of the great burdens of our lives is the going to buy negroes. But we must have them; we cannot be without them."[9] The overthrow of the monopoly, however, brought no relief. In 1766 the price of new negroes in the West Indies ranged ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... or more railroads, starting at an identical point, would each pursue a separate course for several hundred miles and then suddenly come together again at another large city. The result was that they competed at terminals, but that each existed as an independent monopoly at intermediate points. The scramble for business would thus cause the roads to cut rates furiously at terminals; but since there was no competition at the intervening places the rates at these points were kept up, and sometimes, it was charged, ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody
... had just struck when a faint, cool breeze swept across the surface, and a few minutes later the first vivid flash of lightning forked the eastern sky. There was a scramble for oilskins on Drifter 42 as the rain came hissing down like a flood released. The storm was severe while it lasted. The thunder rolled over the placid surface. Lightning darted athwart the sky, illuminating the black void ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... felt so tired with her scramble that she could not help nodding off to sleep, though she would have liked very much to have stayed longer with the dear little Tyrolese. But we know by this time where she always found herself ...
— Little Lucy's Wonderful Globe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... United States almost every man is the possessor of property. He has his house, his little farm, his shop and implements of labor, or something which is his own, and which he feels would be jeopardized by revolution and anarchy. He dreads a general scramble, knowing that he would probably get less than he would lose by it. He is willing, therefore, to be governed by abstract law. There is no need of holding up before him a scepter or a crown to induce obedience. He submits without them. He votes with the rest, and then abides by the ...
— Charles I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... wonder that Johnnie Green shouted. And he shouted still more loudly when he saw Fatty scramble out of the big chestnut and into the other tree, and out of that tree and into another, and then out of THAT tree. Fatty was going straight ...
— Sleepy-Time Tales: The Tale of Fatty Coon • Arthur Scott Bailey
... and Wrykyn. Sometimes an exceptional Geddington team would sweep the board, or Wrykyn, having beaten Ripton, would go down before Wilborough. But this did not happen often. Usually Wilborough and Geddington were left to scramble for the ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... her credit for having swallowed it. 'Ada's' greatest delight was in getting up small trees; even when she was a chubby infant I could, by merely striking the bark, or a branch some feet above her head, cause her to scramble up almost any tree. At this time poor 'Ada,' a Burman otter, and a large white poodle were, like many human beings of different tastes or pursuits, very fast friends." In another part he mentions having heard of a bear of this species who delighted ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... scramble on the wharf, just before the plank was drawn in; with a sigh of relief I ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... had placed a little distance between himself and Grandfather Mole down in the gallery under the cornfield. For when Grandfather Mole rushed at him, Mr. Meadow Mouse had just enough lead to escape. He made for the open air as fast as he could scramble, knowing that Grandfather Mole could never catch him once he reached the ...
— The Tale of Grandfather Mole • Arthur Scott Bailey
... when, after a last scramble up a trough of rocks and gravel too steep for riding, the small cavalcade reached a plateau in the shadow of still loftier elevations. Here they were greeted by a furious barking of dogs. Indeed it quickly became necessary ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... with vigor, attacking one end of the hole by loosening the dirt so that a large portion of it soon fell at their feet. Standing upon the fallen portion he continued his operations, and presently more of the dirt fell, leaving an incline up which both began to scramble on hands and knees. It was not a very dignified thing to do, but it was far better than to remain in the hole, and besides, there was nobody at hand to comment on the want ...
— The Campaign of the Jungle - or, Under Lawton through Luzon • Edward Stratemeyer
... saw a diver it was in deeper water. I was sporting to and fro at another time when there was just such a panic among the fishes as I had seen before, and just such a scramble. ...
— Lord Dolphin • Harriet A. Cheever
... funeral of Messalina occurred, when there was a pretty scramble among the eligible to see who should solace the stricken widower. Among other matrimonial candidates was Agrippina, a beautiful widow, twenty-nine in June, rich in her own right, and with only a small encumbrance in the way of a ten-year-old boy, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... to the porch. The fourth was crouching within the latter, and in another moment they heard his fist descend upon the door inside in a way to rouse the echoes. Meantime, the voice in the audience hall above had ceased, and there could be heard instead the scramble of hurrying feet and the noise of overturning benches. Then a window flew up and ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... whose name was Toller, dashed to the door. On the pavement there was a confused scramble. Blows were struck indiscriminately. Two policemen appeared. One was laid hors de combat by a kick on the knee-cap from Toller. The two men fled into the darkness, followed by a hue-and-cry. Born and bred in the locality, they ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... and having made the acquaintance of the two horses, six cows, three pigs, and one Alderney "Bossy," as calves are called in New England, Tommy took Nat to a certain old willow-tree that overhung a noisy little brook. From the fence it was an easy scramble into a wide niche between the three big branches, which had been cut off to send out from year to year a crowd of slender twigs, till a green canopy rustled overhead. Here little seats had been fixed, and a hollow place ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... poison plot, and Hamlet felt in his soul that foul play was intended, but in the general scramble and conclusion he hoped to wipe off the score of his vengeance from the slate of ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... hours out there. Little Lasse was allowed to scramble about to his heart's content, and it was wonderful how he tumbled about; he was like a frolicsome little bear. "I believe he can smell the earth under him," said Pelle, recalling his own childish transports. ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... and still more of the openly displayed presents, left nothing to be desired. The distribution of the presents gave rise to a tremendous scramble among our future friends; but when this was over—fortunately without any serious mischief—we were overwhelmed with extravagant asseverations of affection and zealous service. First we were invited to honour with our presence their huts, so ingeniously ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... on his feet, Mr. Ellins is, and someway he manages to get himself hung up on the cab door. Anyway, Auntie must have seen us doin' the wild scramble, and got suspicious; for, just as they got alongside, she pounds on the front window, shouts something at the driver, and instead of stoppin' the other taxi veers off and goes ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... Marie Delhasse,—my vehement cry witnessed it,—yet I had not the will to move to her aid; will and power both seemed to fail me. I could fear, I could shrink with horror, but I could not act; nor did I move till the increasing pain of my wound drove me, as it might any unintelligent creature, to scramble to my feet and seek, half-blindly, for some place that ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope
... startled me for an instant, and with a scramble I gained my feet, prepared to face whatever was before me. Then I saw the disappearing form of a great rat, ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott |
