"Scrimmage" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... poor thing clean out of her wits, on purpose to laugh at her for being so taken in. Well, but it was a great treat, too," she added, "to hear, in the midst of all this, Buster's heavy foot in the passage, and to see what a scrimmage there was at once amongst all the young hypocrites. How they all run in different directions—one to the fire—one to the table—one out at the back-door—one any where he could—all of 'em as silent as mice, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... Farm's quick changes, my little talk with Dr. Ripley made me a few minutes late at the Knoll, where I found two-score or so of children and half as many grown-ups engaged in a snowball scrimmage. Inquiring for Angus, I turned over the toboggan to him for the first ride. He asked if the slide was all right, if I had made the jump over the brook, and if Mr. Hosmer was badly hurt. As he was a little backward about coming forward, so to speak, I took the initiative, ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears
... forms struggling, men striking with clubbed guns, men snatching at their side-arms, going down, rising or half rising, firing as long as a charge was in a gun or strength in a body. And as they fired and struck and called out after the fashion of the cowboy in a scrimmage the body of men before them wavered and broke and began ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... once into postures of defence. They had drunk too much for science, and so were especially careful to assume correct attitudes, until Jolly smote Val almost accidentally on the nose. After that it was all a dark and ugly scrimmage in the deep shadow of the old trees, with no one to call 'time,' till, battered and blown, they unclinched and staggered back from each other, as a ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... classes, during which the girls ate lunch and amused themselves as they pleased in the house or grounds. The biscuits, three apiece, were laid out in rows on the dining-room table together with each pupil's glass of milk. As Irene ran in to take her portion she heard a scrimmage going on at the other end of the room. Several small girls were quarreling loudly, and above the noise came Desiree's piping, ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... but the humor of such things has an absurd valuation and persistency in camps, and for months afterward, "Ah-r?—indeed!" was the battery's gay response to every startling sound. He had luck in catchwords, this Hilary. He fought the scrimmage through with those unread pages folded slim between a thumb and forefinger, often using them to point out things, and when after it he had reopened them and read them through—and through again—to their dizzying close, the battery surgeon ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... up the sporting image In which you "reach the appointed goal"— With many a loose and many a tight-packed scrimmage Forward and back the fight will roll, Ere with a shattering rush we cross your ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 31, 1917 • Various
... a scrimmage there was between us. I don't care what the girl says, she didn't see it. Colligan, I suppose, has given her half-a-crown, and she'd swear anything ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... singularities each set of Morris-men and their backers held resolutely. There was competition, once, amongst the Morris-folk as there is to-day amongst football teams and their adherents. Many a bout, begun in friendly rivalry, ended in a scrimmage, in which the staves brought for use and ornament in the dance were used to break heads with. We are grown vastly more delicate and refined since then, ...
— The Morris Book • Cecil J. Sharp
... over, but the moon was every now and then obscured by masses of scurrying cloud-wrack, and in these periods of semi-darkness Doomsman and Stockader were hardly to be told apart. So closely packed was the scrimmage that the use of any missile weapon was impossible. The dagger and the night-stick (the latter a stout truncheon weighted with lead) were doing the work, and effectively, too. And in that press a man might be struck and die upon his feet, the corpse being stayed from falling through ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... bulwarks, tried to measure the distance between him and shore. Now the lugger (you'll remember) was adrift when the Navymen first boarded her, through Billy Tregaskis having cut the cable; and with the set of the tide she must been carried close in-shore during the scrimmage before they brought her up: for, to Dan'l's amazement, she lay head-to-beach, and so close you could toss a biscuit ashore. There the shingle spread, a-glimmering under his nose, as you might say; and he put up a thanksgiving when he remembered that a minute ago his only hope had been to ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... to whose bullet first drew blood. These are settled by the captain, and from his decision there is no appeal. Many sportsmen put peculiar marks on their bullets, by which they can be recognised, which is a good plan. In an exciting scrimmage every one blazes at the tiger, not one bullet perhaps in five or six takes effect, and every one is ready to claim the skin, as having been pierced with his particular bullet. Disputes are not very common, but an inspection ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... it. With Mott gone and Dugan wounded we were short two men at the beginning of the scrimmage. Eight to fourteen—devilish long odds. Easy with that sleeve there. Here you, Billie Blue, get me a sponge and a basin of water. And tell Miss Wallace to ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... ah, how charming! I portray myself alarming Herby swearing I would "mount the deadly breach," Or engage in any scrimmage For a glimpse of her sweet image, Or her shadow, or her ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... yander he'd 'a' whipped me out of my boots." And then his eye fell again on Whistling Jim, who was laughing and joking with some of the troopers. He called to the negro in stern tones, and ordered him to ride close to his young master. "We are going to have a little scrimmage purty soon, and a nigger that's any account ought to be right where he can help his ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris
... of the team, said to a party gathered in the senior boys' study, "Harrison and White will be better than last year, but Wade will of course be a great loss; his weight and strength told tremendously in a scrimmage. Hart was a capital half-back too, and there was no better goal-keeper in the college than Wilson. We have not got any one to take their places, and there are four other vacancies in the team, and in each case those who have left were a ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... become somewhat panic-stricken upon experiencing the first symptoms of the bibliomania. While these more opulent victims of book-madness vie with one another in the auction-room, the rational bibliophile sits in the gallery and views with silent awe and amazement the scrimmage over some apparently trifling volume that wouldn't fetch ten cents, but for the fact that it is "unique," and that so and so paid a stupendous sum for it at some previous sale. Despair not, dear bibliophile, of never being able to join in the mad scramble for these "uniques;" ...
— Book-Lovers, Bibliomaniacs and Book Clubs • Henry H. Harper
... heads) waiting for light work and heavy pay. Better work for half a loaf than beg or steal a whole one. Mother earth is always near by, and ready to respond to reasonable drafts on her never-failing treasury. A patch of potatoes raised "on shares" is preferable to a poulticed pate earned in a whisky scrimmage. Some modern Micawbers stand with folded hands waiting for the panic to pass, as the foolish man waited for the river to run dry and ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... than had time to change his clothes, which fortunately had received all the damage in the recent scrimmage, when he saw Nannie hurrying down the road. She was half running, half walking, and her face was so radiantly happy that Steve went out to learn the good tidings she evidently bore. So eager was she to impart her news that she called out ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... to the Governor by a man on horseback, who dropped his reins to give more emphasis to his delivery, and his horse, finding itself free, began to nibble the reins of the horses attached to the Governor's carriage. A general scrimmage seemed imminent, of which the man on horseback took not the least notice. He went on reading the address with the most imperturbable countenance, until two Volunteers rushed to the horses' heads and separated ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... the street appeared to be deserted. There was no telling, however, how soon the submarine boy might run into two or three real men who would take his side in any scrimmage that was due. ...
— The Submarine Boys' Lightning Cruise - The Young Kings of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... and a scrimmage seemed imminent, when the young man took a short whip from a peg in the hall, and thrashing right and left, with a great many oaths and curses, exclaimed, 'The brutes—the underbred brutes,' as the dogs went whining and yelping back to ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... sure of that. Those there must fancy that one or both of us were hurt in the scrimmage, and would look mighty close before letting ...
— Messenger No. 48 • James Otis
... heard tell that Tom Ginty, the pig-jobber, has comed home to Dromod from where he was away tiv' Athlone; and they do be telling me, he brought a thrifle of money with him; and yer honer knows Mary had half given a promise to Ginty afore he went: and so, yer riverence, lest there be any scrimmage betwixt Ginty and I, ye see it's as well to get the ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... I remember happened when they had scrimmage close—it mighter been the one on Long Prairie—they brought a young boy shot through his lung to Mr. Phillip McNeill's house. He was a stranger. He died. I felt so sorry for him. He was right young. He belong ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... The reason, that instead of lying there and drowning he had got up and walked back to the house howling fit to wake the Seven Sleepers, was that God, watching over little children, had arranged for the incident taking place on that side of the pond where it was shallow. Had the scrimmage occurred on the opposite bank, beneath which the water was much deeper, Joan in all probability would have had murder on her soul. It seemed to Joan that if God, all-powerful and all-foreseeing, had been so careful in selecting the site, He might with equal ease have prevented ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... House steeped since Debate on Address opened, not varied to-night till, at ten o'clock, copies of Report of Parnell Commission brought to Vote Office. Then such a scrimmage as never ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 22nd, 1890 • Various
... an identity emerging at last from the confusion of time and place and circumstance; for there followed the public school, the joys of rivalry, the eager outrush for the boy's Ever New, the glory of scrimmage and school-boy sports, the battle royal for the little Auvergnat when taunted with the epithet "Johnny Frog" by the belligerent youth, American born, and the victorious outcome for the "foreigner"; the Auvergne blood ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... off to their boat; but come, we will see. With such a noble and brave ally I would not hesitate to invite a scrimmage with ...
— The Dock Rats of New York • "Old Sleuth"
... that match belongs to a bygone age. Scrimmages were tight and enduring; hacking was direct and to the purpose; and around the scrimmage stood the school, crying, "Put down your heads and shove!" Toward the end everybody lost all sense of decency, and mothers of day-boys too close to the touch-line heard language not included in the bills. No one was actually carried off the field, ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... expected. Instead, one of them seized his weapon and shoved it aside, while with the other Custer planted a blow between his eyes and sent him reeling backward. The two men closed, fighting for possession of the gun. In the scrimmage it was exploded, but a moment later the American succeeded in wresting it from his adversary and ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... has just possessed us of some facts so mirth-provoking, (to us, not to him,) that we jot them down for the amusement and information of suffering mankind and the rest of creation, who now and then get into a scrimmage with rogues, lawyers and law. And perhaps it may be as well to let the ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... the Nevskoi Prospekt, now drives for the first time in the Corso—Dam na vodka, Sabakoutchelovek, thinks he. Yes, my sweet son of a dog, thou shalt have vodka to drink after all this scrimmage is over. So he holds in his horses with one hand, crowds down his fur hat with the other, so that his eyes will be safe; and then bravely faces the stinging shower of confetti his lord and master draws down on him. Up on the back seat of this ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... a scrimmage! Honorius lunges at Andronic; this latter disarms former; then latter comes to his senses, flies over to his old friend, and all the Venetian brawlers are ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... the black "boy" bringing up the rear, we flattered ourselves on the dignity of our departure. Mac called it "style," and the Maluka was hoping that the Creek was properly impressed, when Flash, unexpectedly heading off for his late home, an exciting scrimmage ensued and the ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... those who participated in it were always loud and frequent. But he, too, had a reputation to sustain. The Americans stood grimly silent before him. Harris's finger twitched nervously along the trigger, and a smile played over his thin lips. The man was aching for a scrimmage. ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... modesties. Roy, don't never go into vawdyville with them personal episodes, because they read about as thrillin' as a cook-book. Why, say, I've had the story of that fight from four different fellers already, none of which was within four blocks of the scrimmage, an.' they're all diff'rent an' all ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... service. The voyage was made successfully, although not without adventure; for one night, after the boat was tied up to the shore, the boys were attacked by seven negroes, who came aboard intending to kill and rob him. There was a lively scrimmage, in which, though slightly hurt, they managed to beat off their assailants, and then, hastily cutting their boat adrift, swung out on the stream. The marauding band little dreamed that they were attacking the man who in after ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... Mr. Sparling jovially. "I guess you'll have the liveliest scrimmage you ever had in all your lives if you attempt to lay hands on that boy. Come, now, get out of here! If you attempt to raise the slightest disturbance I'll have the bunch of you in the cooler, and we'll be the boys ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... boys," said the captain, earnestly. "I daren't taste nothing. If I was to drink one glass of beer, it's my belief I'd have the apoplexy. The last scrimmage, and the blooming triumph, pretty nigh ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... Rallywood turned sick and his head felt light. He remembered feeling the same sensation years before, when a heavy opponent sat abruptly down on his chest in a football scrimmage. His hands shook as he lifted the inert figure on to the cushions and scanned the face, sticky and disfigured with blood. After forcing some brandy from his flask down Counsellor's throat and unloosing his collar, Rallywood opened ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... if I wasn't. Always some spicy bit of fighting. If there aren't a fantasia, as they call it, in the field, there's always somebody to pot in a small way; and, if you're lying by in barracks, there's always a scrimmage hot as pepper to be got up with fellows that love the row just as well as you do. It's life, that's where ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... days in a box with coarse lace tied over the top to prevent escape, and studied their habits, and humored their propensities by putting several together in the prison that forthwith became an arena, in which duello and general scrimmage relieved one another in ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... her tongue; but, Lord bless you, her bark's worse than her bite. Her heart is just set on Kit, and she would not hurt a hair of her head in her most contrary moods, when even the black cat won't stay in the place she is making such a scrimmage with the pots and pans. But Kit only laughs. 'It is Ma'am at her music,' she says; 'but it t'aint the sort of music I like.' Yes, indeed, sir, I have heered her say that ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... time very noisy to our left, and as we moved on it was plain that we were skirting the centre of the scrimmage in an attempt to take the enemy in flank. Now our squad columns were sent forward parallel, eight yards apart, ready at command to spring out in one long line, the men side by side. Through a cedar swamp we now made our way among huge old trees, the firing very hot and close in ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... the civilized life were strongly illustrated in our War of Independence. The forerunners of that war were a race of giants. Their like has hardly been seen in any other epoch of that sublime scrimmage called history. Five or six names may be selected from the list of the early American prophets whose deeds and outcry, if reduced to hexameters, would be not the Iliad, not the Jerusalem Delivered, but the ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... killed beside it. Another little mite belonged to no one at all. Who could tell whether its parents had been killed or not? I am afraid many of them will never find their relations again. In the general scrimmage everyone gets lost. If this isn't frightfulness enough, God in ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... got the ball, a minute later, and made a really fine run around the Lemington left end. This brought the pigskin again to center, and there it remained for nearly five minutes, the downs on both sides availing little or nothing. A scrimmage followed, in which one Lemington player was injured, and he accused one of the Oak Hall fellows, a new player named Bemis, of foul play. This protest was sustained, and Bemis was retired and another new player named ...
— Dave Porter and His Rivals - or, The Chums and Foes of Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... time as we had the shop here, and plenty o' custom in it. One day you saw me just a-kissing of a girl in that there corner—leastways you fancied as you saw me," corrected Peckaby, coughing down his slip. "Well, d'ye recollect the scrimmage? Didn't you go a'most mad, never keeping' your tongue quiet for a week, and the place hardly holding of ye? How 'ud you like to have eight or ten more of 'em, my married wives, like you ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... we should push on so fast, an' much need to husband our strength, for no one can tell how soon we may be forced to take part in a hand-to-hand scrimmage. We'll have a bite to eat, for I didn't overload my stomach this mornin', an' be all the better for ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... the movements of the advancing French troops depended? At any minute might he not receive the signal from the captain to attack some fresh Boche, who had climbed high above the battle lines to join the general scrimmage, or else "get" the big French machine while its defenders had their ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... all those years at the boarding schools, and the scrimmage we had when the mortgage was foreclosed—to feel secure at last," said Elinor gratefully. "Everything seems to be heaping up to make ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... might have chucked him aside and bolted out, there and then—it was dark already. Well, no. And for the same reason I wouldn't think of trying to smash the door. There would have been a rush to stop me at the noise, and I did not mean to get into a confounded scrimmage. Somebody else might have got killed—for I would not have broken out only to get chucked back, and I did not want any more of that work. He refused, looking more sick than ever. He was afraid of the men, and also of that ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... not get into a scrimmage, boys," said the major, speaking as calmly as though he was at that very moment safe in the cabin of the Boxer, "we must stick together, if possible; but if they come on us in a heavy force, we must separate and every ...
— Frank on the Lower Mississippi • Harry Castlemon
... badly injured that for a long time they were unfitted for driving. But the others had discreetly decided that it was better "to run away and live to fight another day," and were none the worse for their scrimmage. ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... lamb among its daffodils. The second item makes it still clearer that he had other elements as well as the pastoral in his blood. On the 10th of December he got himself fined for his share in a street-scrimmage, where he would seem to have decidedly preferred the livelier to the "better ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue
... hot tea, and books to both the men who were going to the front and to those who were being brought home. We work side by side with Buddhist priests, ladies of rank, and coolies, serving from one to four hundred men in fifteen minutes! You never saw such a scrimmage, everybody works like mad while the train stops, and the wild "Banzais" that greet us as the men catch sight of the hot tea, show us ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... the pioneers; he was the invading Indians—let him attack them if he dared! He did dare and that at once; for he knew that otherwise there would be no school that day or as long as the white race on the inside remained unconquered. So had ensued a rough-and-tumble scrimmage for fifteen minutes, during which the babies within wailed aloud with real terror of the battle, and he received some real knocks and whacks and punches through the loop-holes of the stockade: the end being arrived at when the ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... others, joined by a fourth, fell upon me, but by doing so the cord became loosened, and I ducked my head. For a second my right hand was freed, and I drew from my belt the long Italian knife which I often carry as a better weapon in a scrimmage than a revolver, and struck upward at the fellow who had sentenced me to death. The blade entered his stomach, and he fell forward with an agonised cry. Then slashing indiscriminately right and left, I quickly ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... and varying inflections, a genuine whisper-song such as most birds that I have studied delight in. It did not please madam, his mate; she listened, looked, and then rushed at the singer, and I regret to say, they fell into a "scrimmage" in the grass, quite after the vulgar ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... older than O'Ryan by three years, which in men is little, but in boys, at a certain time of life, is much. It means, generally, weight and height, an advantage in a scrimmage. Constantine Jopp had been the plague and tyrant of O'Ryan's boyhood. He was now a big, leering fellow, with much money of his own, got chiefly from the coal discovered on his place by Vigon, the half-breed French-Canadian. He had a sense of dark and malicious humor, ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... imagined that the fight would be hardly more than a wild rush down the slope of the beach, a dash over the beach-combers' breastworks of sand, and a brief hand-to-hand scrimmage around the old cabin. In all accounts he had ever read of such affairs, and in all ideas he had entertained on the subject, this had always been the case. The two bodies had shocked together like a college rush, there had been five minutes' play of knife and club ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... Then the scrimmage was on in earnest. As soon as the play had properly developed Mr. Morton blew his whistle, for this was practice only in ...
— The High School Captain of the Team - Dick & Co. Leading the Athletic Vanguard • H. Irving Hancock
... Tuesday, during the 'Varsity practice, suddenly as a scrimmage ended and sifted open a cry went up. Ned Banks, left end on the 'Varsity, was seen lying on the ground after an attempt to rise. They gathered about him with grave faces, while Mr. Ware bent over ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... opinion between the parties most interested, and there's no telling who is Governor until after the election," said Dixon quietly. "But I respectfully submit that the top of a high tower is no place to settle a dispute that may end in a scrimmage. We don't want to begin killing one another until we have to, and there are two ways in which the matter can be arranged: Wait until after dark, and then go silently to the parade and have it over before anybody knows a thing ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon
... that's a fact," Rupert answered. "Never had much to read," he added with a laugh. "Fact is, my life up to now has been pretty much of a scrimmage for the needful." ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... seen signals, especially if they have got a hot-headed boatswain in charge of their station, a sort of chap who would want to go down to meddle with a hundred men, with only five or six at his back. A man with a wife and some children, perhaps, don't relish the thought of going into a bad scrimmage like that if he can keep out of it; why should he? He gets a bit of money if they make a good seizure, but he knows well enough that he ain't going to make a seizure unless he has got a pretty strong party; and you take my word for it, four times ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... Astrolabe and the Boussole, on the shores of the cannibal Solomons. Another head—for Bashti was a confirmed head- collector—went back two centuries before La Perouse to Alvaro de Mendana, the Spaniard. It was the head of one of Mendana's armourers, lost in a beach scrimmage to one of Bashti's ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... "That first scrimmage showed me just what the men were after," Stoddard said. "Buckheath plainly wanted me put out of the way; but the others had some vague idea of holding me for a ransom and getting money out of the Hardwicks. Dawson complained ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... frightening game, to leap forth and make her jump. Before Miss Overmore could speak he replied: "Why, you little donkey, when you're away what have I left to do but just to love her?" Miss Overmore hereupon immediately took her from him, and they had a merry little scrimmage over her of which Maisie caught the surprised perception in the white stare of an old lady who passed in a victoria. Then her beautiful friend remarked to her very gravely: "I shall make him understand that if he ever again ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... church, instead of meeting the man he expected, who was a trifle late, Charles Crochard came face to face with a celebrated agent of the detective force, who was well known to him, inasmuch as the young rascal was not at his first scrimmage with the police. The absence of his accomplice, this encounter with the detective, and, lastly, a rapid movement made by the latter, by the merest chance, toward the door, induced the robber to fancy he was being watched. Losing his ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... were approaching, Mr. Finnegan had decided that his superabundant locks were unseasonable, and had therefore had his hair cropped close to his scalp, showing here and there a white scar, the record of some former scrimmage. Reaching to the edge of each ear was a collar as stiff as pasteboard. His derby was tilted over his left eyebrow, shading a face brimming over with fun and expectancy. Below this was a vermilion-colored necktie and ...
— Tom Grogan • F. Hopkinson Smith
... to drag you there against your will. It's my private opinion that the ghost is made up of rats, but be that as it may, there's an awful scrimmage in the old tower at night. Now, then, will you see it, or will ...
— Red Rose and Tiger Lily - or, In a Wider World • L. T. Meade
... me and some more by night to take the bearings of the harbor. We was in a skiff, and a gale came on and beat us about all night and split our sails and drove us ashore in the very teeth of a crew o' Frenchies. There was a tight little scrimmage, I promise you, but they were two to one, and grappled us close, and clapped a stopper on our cable, hang 'em. They chained us together, the dogs, and marched us into St. Malo with scarce a rag to our backs, and yesterday they sent ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... time the scrimmage had been seen at a distance, and there was a rally to the spot. Two savages were clubbed to death, and a third fell by Captain Rudstone's musket. I shot a fourth through the chest, but in spite of the wound, he ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... whiff! whiff! We heard the sharp whistling snort, with a tremendous rush through the high grass and thorns close to us; and at the same moment two of these determined brutes were upon us in full charge. I never saw such a scrimmage; sauve qui peut! There was no time for more than one look behind. I dug the spurs into Aggahr's flanks, and clasping him round the neck, I ducked my head down to his shoulder, well protected with my strong hunting-cap, and I kept ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... for an exchange of kicks however, ere the referee's whistle blew, signifying that time was up, and the players, who were just ready for a scrimmage, with the ball in Clifford's possession on her opponent's fifteen-yard line, dissolved, and raced ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... brought him to the ground at once, and ran another giant through the heart with his sword; and when their followers saw that their leaders were slain, they turned and fled back to the shore, but Horn tried to cut them off from their ships, and in the scrimmage the King's two sons fell. At this Horn was sore grieved, and he fell upon the pagans in fury, and slew them right and left, to avenge the ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... forward, came under the clubs and went down with the rest, and still the mass poured over them. Now at last the circle of bluecoats was broken, policemen alone and in small clusters were rushed and whirled this way and that. Outnumbered twenty to one, they began to go down in the scrimmage. ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... in the least a despot; Johnson was a demagogue, he shouted against a shouting crowd. The very fact that he wrangled with other people is proof that other people were allowed to wrangle with him. His very brutality was based on the idea of an equal scrimmage, like that of football. It is strictly true that he bawled and banged the table because he was a modest man. He was honestly afraid of being overwhelmed or even overlooked. Addison had exquisite manners and was the king of his company; he was polite to everybody; but superior to everybody; ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... events," said Mr Moynham, who kept up his spirits still wonderfully, "we sha'n't fall off, that's one comfort, and so we'll have the less bruises after the scrimmage!" ...
— Tom Finch's Monkey - and How he Dined with the Admiral • John C. Hutcheson
... Celie! Punch her!" yelled a chorus from the stairs who came swooping down from above, attracted by the scrimmage, and just in time to see the combatants rush at each other in a hand-to-hand struggle, ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... disappointing them again and again, was said to have been bought off by a friend. His crime had been stolen entrance into a house in Thrums by the chimney, with intent to rob; and, though this old-fashioned family did not see it, not the least noticeable incident in the scrimmage that followed was the prudence of the canny housewife. When she saw the legs coming down the lum, she rushed to the kail-pot which was on the fire and put on the lid. She confessed that this ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... in a scrimmage, boys, I’ve corked it with my thumb, To keep the life from leaking From the Old Keg ...
— The Old Bush Songs • A. B. Paterson
... from Headquarters to move a vote of thanks to the chairman. He said he'd seen some revolting things in his time, but the scrimmage of the stewards and the police with those women——!' Farnborough ended ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... poor civilians, we took it into our heads to invite some of 'em to a grand tea-fight in the big hall, so we asked a lot o' the poorest who had faithfully kept the pledge through their first teetotal Christmas; and it was a scrimmage, I can tell you. We got together more than forty of 'em, men and women, and there were about three hundred soldiers and sailors, and their wives to wait on 'em ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... on speaking, but through the clang outside none could hear. The populace seems to be trying to take the committee room by assault. Out of the scrimmage a man emerges dishevelled and bursts into the room, closing the door behind him. It is JOHN SHAND in a five guinea suit, including the hat. There are other changes in him also, for he has been delving his way through loamy ...
— What Every Woman Knows • James M. Barrie
... one of the boats. It seems to me as though he might have come to warn us—that is to say, to warn them, I mean—just to do em a good turn, as he was always ready to do if he had the chance. But he wouldn't have had anything to do with the scrimmage, and might have been standing, quiet like, near the boats, when the other lot came along the shore, and then, seeing as the game was up, he might, likely enough, have jumped on board and gone ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... in hand he was closely studying the receding party, moving now at leisurely gait as though assured of safety. His heart was beating hard, his blood was bounding in his veins. He had had some lively brushes with the Indian foe, but no such scrimmage as this promised to be. Never once had there been at stake anything to compare with what lay here before his eyes. Sometimes in boyish day-dreams he had pictured to himself adventures of this character,—the rescue of imperilled beauty from marauding foe; but never ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... the death of Mr. Hawkins. Eight years are not many in the life of a nation or the history of a state, but they maybe years of destiny that shall fix the current of the century following. Such years were those that followed the little scrimmage on Lexington Common. Such years were those that followed the double-shotted demand for the surrender of Fort Sumter. History is never done with inquiring of these years, and summoning witnesses about them, and trying to ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... by shipping off some of the old-time whiskey-guzzling drivers who are too high and mighty to do anything but handle the ribbons, and are above speaking to a passenger unless he's a favorite or one of their set. Over-praise for an occasional scrimmage with road agents, and flattery from Eastern greenhorns, have given them the big head. If the fool-killer were let loose on the line with a big club, and knocked a little civility into their heads, it wouldn't be a bad thing, and would be a particular relief to the passengers for Gilead who have ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... interesting to herself, and obtaining permission at last to bring the Bible itself on her next visit. She was strictly cautioned, however, to bring it privately, lest Father M'Clane should hear of it, and, in Biddy's language, "kick up a scrimmage." ...
— Live to be Useful - or, The Story of Annie Lee and her Irish Nurse • Anonymous
... coolly capping the nipples. I have shot on each Gulf, both Southern and Northern. I have trailed the long trail between either ocean. Brave men I have seen, both in good and in evil, But never a braver than the man called Jack Whitcomb. Well, why describe it? Call it scrimmage or battle, It was done in a minute, or it may be a dozen. It came like a whirlwind, and we three were in it As men are in whirlwinds. It came like the thunder, With a crash and a roar and a long running rumble Dying down into silence. There were dead and some wounded, And a few lucky ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... friends, reunited after three weeks' separation, celebrated their reunion with paeans of jubilation and war-whoops of triumph. "Cargoes" were being unladen here; Liddell-and-Scott was officiating as a cricket ball there; a siege was going on round this door, and a hand-to-hand scrimmage between the posts of that. A few of the placid ones were quietly unpacking in the midst of the Babel, and one or two ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... not?" said Jack, with great gravity. "I will pledge my word—Jack Pringle's word—that Admiral Bell shall be second to Sir Francis Varney, during his scrimmage with Mr. Henry Bannerworth. That will let the matter go on; there can be no back-out then, eh?" continued Jack Pringle, with a knowing nod ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... which is to say you and I,—accept the trumpet blast of one of these heralds precisely as we do that of another. Practically," said he, pensively, "when we were detached to serve with the 33d Corps in Mobile Bay, I found I liked the talk of those light-infantry men who had been in every scrimmage of the war, quite as much as I did that of the bandmen who played the trumpets on parade. But this is neither here nor there. I thought of coming round to see your father, but I knew I should bother him. What can I ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... time in an ugly mood and the nearer Joe and Arthur edged toward the printing office the more numerous their enemies became. The Millville people were getting rather the worst of the scrimmage when out rushed Thursday Smith, swinging a stout iron bar he had taken from the press, and with this terrible weapon he struck out so vigorously that the diversion in their favor enabled the retreating villagers to gain the office, where Booth ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne
... only took half, so not too much" (scrimmage, fuss, row, trouble,—the native word he used meant no one of these exactly, and yet included them all) "would be made. I was tired of working so hard, and the sharks, and not getting anything for it but shells. I made up my mind I would do it soon after I ...
— Anting-Anting Stories - And other Strange Tales of the Filipinos • Sargent Kayme
... and offered a determined front. I extract the following entry from my journal. "These Turks are delightful neighbours; they will create a row, and I shall be dragged into it in self-defence, as the natives will distinguish no difference in a scrimmage, although they draw favourable comparisons between me and the Turks in times of peace. Not a native came to work at the huts today; I therefore sent for the two chiefs, Commoro and Moy, and had a long talk with them. They said that 'no ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... last truth more loudly than Henrietta—at times. Nevertheless she went on and on, making the business of this rather second-rate pleasure-seeking daily of greater importance. How could Damaris be expected to discriminate, to retain her sense of relative values, in the perpetual scrimmage, the unceasing rush? Instinct and nobility of nature go an immensely long way as preservatives—thank God for that—still, where you have unsophistication, inexperience, a holy ignorance, to deal with, it ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... two in height, and the Chappar boy, six feet two, came to words and soon after to most sonorous blows. To add to our comfort, the Chappar boy, who got the worst of the scrimmage, ran away, and it was only at sunrise that we perceived him again a long way off following us, not daring to get too near. Eventually, by dint of sending him peaceful messages by a caravan man who passed us, Sadek induced him to return, and still struggling ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... appeared, and the usual English country-house breakfast followed: a haphazard banquet, a decorous scrimmage for a surfeit of eggs, and fish, and bacon, and tongue, and tea, and coffee, and porridge, and even Heaven itself hardly knows what. Less than usual vanished to become a vested interest of digestion; more than usual went back to the kitchen for appreciation elsewhere. For Sir ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... home from the first scrimmage with an aching body. He had been placed in the line of one of the picked teams made up by Coach Little and it had seemed to Judd that every play was directed at him. Time and again he was on the bottom of the ...
— Over the Line • Harold M. Sherman
... ball where it lay in the dust, close to his near fore-leg, with Macnamara's shortened stick tap-tapping it from time to time. Kittiwynk was edging her way out of the scrimmage, whisking her stump of ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... theirs. He said his name was "El Jaridiah," which was true enough, this being the title he bore among his fellow- tribesmen. He also explained that he met Mulai Hamed, and happened to see the direction taken by the vehicle when it dashed clear of the scrimmage in the street. But he modestly disclaimed any special credit for his share in subsequent events, stating that he had many friends among the European colony at Cairo, and was naturally willing to help a lady against the thievish dogs ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... myself standing up with arms in my hands, ready to take away the life of a fellow-creature—to take away the lives of several fellow-creatures, if needs must. Moreover, I knew very well that there were plenty of chances of my getting knocked on the head in this my first scrimmage, and I trembled a little inwardly—though not, as I believe, outwardly—at the thought of my promise to Marjorie. And yet even with that thought a new courage came into my heart. For I immediately resolved ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... stones in the road by hand. Now I'll break stones before I'd have a job at Washington now. I spent four days with them last week—the new crowd. They'll try their best. I think they'll succeed. But, if they do succeed and survive, they'll come out of the scrimmage bleeding and torn. We've got to stand off and run 'em, Uncle Henry. That's the only hope I see for the country. Don't damn Houston, then, beforehand. He's a real man. Let's get on the ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... worse than the Hessians He shot in the Bennington scrimmage— Have I outlived the newspaper critic, To be ...
— Whittier-land - A Handbook of North Essex • Samuel T. Pickard
... more or less prominent in city politics—some of them Democrats, some Republicans. Bill Lewis was sent out of the country none too soon. He was a great, powerful, terrorizing fellow, desperate and unscrupulous, and one to beware of. He took active part in politics, and was terrible in a "scrimmage. Of his redeeming, traits I never obtained information. Doubtless he had some. Unlest it was on account of Woolley Kearney's facial configuration, I have never been able to divine why the Committee banished him. He was the homeliest, ugliess looking mortal I ever saw. Had the ...
— The Vigilance Committee of '56 • James O'Meara
... wider field for himself and men than merely remaining as a garrison of a fort, with the mild excitement of an occasional scrimmage with the enemy when out on a foraging expedition, so he handed over the forts to Col. Hinman, taking a ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan
... us to get knocked about in that scrimmage. We'll wait a minute and then go out easy. It's a regular rouser, and you'll be as wet as a sop before we get home. Hope you'll like that?" added Ben, looking out at the heavy rain pouring down as if ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... a little scrimmage, in which a dozen were involved. The brokers, staid, middle-aged men, most of them, seemed like a pack of school boys at recess. Grant surveyed the scene with ...
— Helping Himself • Horatio Alger
... reply, and away we went, Gilpin-like, with the horse on the run. We headed off the girl, and after a rough-and-tumble scrimmage threw her into the wagon, kicking, screaming, and scratching like a wild-cat. We took her by main force to the girls' wing of the prison and put ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... made a move to interfere with the combatants, but a movement on the part of the lumberjacks, a gradual edging up, warned Hippy that his opportunity to get into the scrimmage was ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods • Jessie Graham Flower
... got that in a small scrimmage under old GRAY EYES. 'Twas next day after a fight though, cum to think on it. We'd been up there and took a small odobe hole called Santa Sumthin', and had spasificated the poperlashun, when I went to git a gold cross off an old woman, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... struggle for existence, when not an inch of ground was vacated without resistance. Men fought for every projecting rock, every piece of wreckage, every straw, as they must have fought in the waves of the Flood, and yet one victim after another was swallowed by the vortex. In the midst of the mad scrimmage on the floor of the Exchange one excited individual, the general manager of a large railroad—with his hair disheveled and the perspiration streaming down his face, one of his sleeves ripped out and his collar torn off—suddenly climbed on a platform and ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... opened out a gentleman's game in the Smith Hotel bar-room. There were a number of sports from Louisville and Cincinnati present, and everything was moving along lively, and as decorous as a funeral, when some of the Paris and Louisville boys indulged in a scrimmage and were arrested. Everybody left the hotel and went to see the result of the trial. I sat near the judge, and when the evidence was all in I whispered to him to fine them $10 each. This he did, and as we were leaving the court-room, I noticed that a big fellow ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol
... starting the canoe forward again. "If that Apache is anxious for a scrimmage, he ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne
... of room for you and the lady now, sir!" Coxeter hurried Nan across the deck, but suddenly they were pushed roughly back. The rope barriers had been cut, and a hand-to-hand struggle was taking place round the boat,—an ugly scrimmage to which as little reference as possible was made at the wreck inquiry afterwards. To those who looked on it was a horrible, an unnerving sight; and this time Coxeter with sudden strength took Nan back into his arms. He felt her trembling, ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... and scrimmage at the first few fences resulted in plenty of grief. Jockeys were rising from the ground and running off the course, and loose horses were pursuing their perilous ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... thing. And it isn't civilization, it's intellectual savagery. It isn't progress either, it's a blind rush, an inhuman scrimmage—the very worst form of the struggle for existence. It doesn't even mean survival of the intellectually fittest. It develops monstrosities. It defeats its own ends by brutalising the intellect itself. ...
— Superseded • May Sinclair
... Pongo-land are the real record of my career as a marksman. The first at night broke the arm of the gorilla god and would have killed him had not the charge hung fire and given him time to protect his head. The second did kill him in the midst of a great scrimmage when everything was moving. The third, fired by the glare of lightning after a long swim, slew the Motombo, and the fourth, loosed at this great distance from a moving boat, was the bane of that cold-blooded and treacherous man, Komba, who thought that he had trapped us to Pongo-land to be murdered ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... think—and our lot had got badly whipped at the first round when I stood on the veranda and sang them, 'No Surrender.' That was enough for the Ulster boys, and three or four of them go a long way in this kind of scrimmage." ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... a rush. But to their surprise Brill shifted to the left—that one weak spot—and got the ball on a fumble by the Roxley half-back. There was more quick action by four of the Brill players, and when the scrimmage came to an end the leather was found just three yards from ...
— The Rover Boys at College • Edward Stratemeyer
... such possessions? We compete for the allotments of shares in American-meat companies, we outbid each other for tickets 'to view the Royal procession,' we buffet at the gate of the football field, and enter into many another of the ignoble rivalries of peace; and are not books worth a scrimmage?—books that are all those wonderful things so poetically set forth in a preceding paragraph! Lightly earned, lightly spurned, is the sense, if not the exact phrasing, of an old proverb. There is no telling ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne |
