"Scramble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... my own story. I had, as I said before, to live by my pen; and in that painful, confused, maimed way, I contrived to scramble on the long winter through, writing regularly for the Weekly Warwhoop, and sometimes getting an occasional scrap into some other cheap periodical, often on the very verge of starvation, and glad of a handful of meal from Sandy's widow's barrel. If I had had ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... interminable length of time they bore slowly on through timber, crossed openings where the murk of the night thinned a little, enabling her to see the dim form of Wagstaff plodding in the lead. Again they dipped down steep slopes and ascended others as steep, where Silk was forced to scramble, and Hazel kept a precarious seat. She began to feel, with an odd heart sinking, that sufficient time had elapsed for them to reach the Meadows, even by a roundabout way. Then, as they crossed a tiny, gurgling stream, and came upon a level place beyond, Silk bumped into the ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... 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 of dignity in ...
— The Campaign of the Jungle - or, Under Lawton through Luzon • Edward Stratemeyer
... her eyes rested on Alice's face, then they drooped to the dog at her side, but Alice was forced to repeat her question before the other moved. Then, in silence, she stepped back and summoned the dog to her with an encouraging chirrup. Neche needed no second bidding. There was a scramble and a scraping of sharp claws upon the woodwork, then the animal stood in the room. And his attitude as he eyed the two seated upon the sofa said as plainly as possible, "Well, which one is ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... 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 marked ...
— Dave Porter At Bear Camp - The Wild Man of Mirror Lake • Edward Stratemeyer
... the bayou playing in the water. She told the child to stop playing in the water, and it did not. Instead it threw dirt into the water that had the bluing in it. Then she took the child and threw it into the Bayou. Some way or other the child managed to scramble out. When the child's aunt herd it from the child, she questioned my mother and asked her if she did it. My mother told her "Yes". Then she said. "Well what do you want to own it for? Don't you know if they find it out they ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... always set the table for breakfast the night before. The next morning it was very easy for the housewife, with the aid of an electric heater on the breakfast table, to heat the cereal, boil the water for the coffee, and broil the bacon or scramble the eggs, or indeed to prepare any of the usual ...
— Wanted, a Young Woman to Do Housework • C. Helene Barker
... that if she would leave the rabbit to drown that she could reach the shore safely; but this seemed hardly to be thought of. She now resolved to clutch at the first branch within reach, hoping in that way to scramble to safety with Trit. But the boat was being carried steadily along by the current, although the water came in constantly about ...
— A Little Maid of Old Maine • Alice Turner Curtis
... your own merits. Be content then with a modest retirement, with the esteem of your intimate friends, with the praises of a blameless heart, and a delicate, ingenuous spirit; but resign the splendid distinctions of the world to those who can better scramble for them. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... from Long Lake to Linderman, was three miles, and the trail, if trail it could be called, rose up over a thousand-foot hogback, dropped down a scramble of slippery rocks, and crossed a wide stretch of swamp. John Bellew remonstrated when he saw Kit arise with a hundred pounds in the straps and pick up a fifty-pound sack of flour and place it on top of the pack against the back ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... (The golden opes, the 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 ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... Tom Reade turned, too. His added weight sent the canoe careening. There was a quick scramble to right ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock
... gone to the bottom, carrying brave souls with her? No; there she lay, beating against our iron sides; but still, though bruised and broken, a lifeboat to us. There was no hasty scramble for life when it was found she floated,—all held back. The men kept steady on at their work of bailing,—only those leaving, and in the order named, whom the captain bade save themselves. They descended from the turret to the deck with mingled fear and hope, for the waves tore from ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... coffee was hot, Mrs. Gray seated herself by the rock, lit the lamp under her chafing-dish, dropped in a bit of butter, sprinkled with pepper and salt, and proceeded to "scramble" a great dish of eggs. Did any of you ever eat hot scrambled eggs under a tree when you were furiously hungry? If not, you can form no idea of the pleasure which the "Early Dippers" took in theirs. But it was not the eggs ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge
... virtues which were, he thinks, graven ineffaceably on his nature at St. Sulpice. They taught him there not to care for money or success. They taught him the old-fashioned French politeness—that beautiful instinct of giving place to others, which is perishing in the democratic scramble for the best places, in the omnibus and the railway as in business and society. It is more curious to find that he thinks that they taught him to be modest. Except on the faith of his assertions, the readers of his ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... and drink, the wooden framework at the top gives way and precipitates me head first into the water. Luckily, the tank is large enough to enable me to turn round and reappear at the surface, head first, and with considerable difficulty I scramble out again, with, of course, not a ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... received such a storm of fisticuffs without giving up the ghost. Fortunately for him, he had one of those excellent Breton heads that break the sticks which beat them. Save for a certain giddiness, he came out of the scramble safe and sound. Far from losing his presence of mind by the disadvantageous position in which he found himself, he supported himself upon the ground with his left hand, and, passing his other arm behind him, he wound it around the workman's legs, who thus found himself reaped ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... the idea—'such,' he writes with characteristic emphasis and capital letters, 'is the Plague of Baiting.' He was a good pedestrian; at the age of fifty-eight I find him covering seventeen miles over the moors of the Mackay country in less than seven hours, and that is not bad travelling for a scramble. The piece of country traversed was already a familiar track, being that between Loch Eriboll and Cape Wrath; and I think I can scarce do better than reproduce from the diary some traits of his first ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hurriedly collected appeared under the leadership of Clodius Glaber, and occupied the approaches to Vesuvius with the view of starving out the slaves. But the brigands in spite of their small number and their defective armament had the boldness to scramble down steep declivities and to fall upon the Roman posts; and when the wretched militia saw the little band of desperadoes unexpectedly assail them, they took to their heels and fled on all sides. This first success procured for the robbers arms and increased accessions ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... prominent hill to the south. I found the brush, however, so thick on the top of the mountain, that I could obtain no satisfactory view, and and M'Leay, who accompanied me, agreed with me in considering that we were but ill repaid for the hot scramble we had had. Crossing the western extremity of Goulburn Plains on the 15th, we encamped on a chain of ponds behind Doctor Gibson's residence at Tyranna, and as I had some arrangements to make with that gentleman, I determined to give both the men and animals a day's rest. I availed ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... sooner than disobey the word of the girl who sang in the rain. Presently I was on a steep hill-side, which I ascended only to drop through a tangle of screes and jumper to the mires of a great bog. When I had crossed this more by luck than good guidance, I had another scramble on the steeps where the long, ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... a wild scramble in the tree at that moment, and we thought all was over. We learned later that Percy had made a move to climb higher, out of the firelight, and the coon had been so startled that he almost fell out. But instead of looking up to investigate, ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... prospect of getting any refreshment. The night, too, was growing cold, and he found it necessary to walk briskly about to keep himself warm. At first he tramped backwards and forwards, some fifty paces each way, but growing weary of the monotonous exercise, he began to scramble about among the heaps of ruins. His quick imagination called up the scene as it must have looked at the moment of the explosion, and then reverted with a sharp pang to the thought of his poor comrades-in-arms who lay crushed ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... Every man was left to shift for himself, and every man did shift for himself, in that selfish or bewildered manner which increased the general disaster. The captain was not among the last, but among the first to scramble into a boat; and the boats pushed off from the sides of the frigate, before they had taken in as many as each was capable of holding. Reproaches, recrimination, and scuffling took the place of order and of the word of command, both in the ship and ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... without that fishy odour so unavoidable in the villages. When the sun is beginning to climb down the sky in the direction of Hinderwell, and everything is bathed in a glorious golden light, the ferryman will row you across the bay to Runswick, but a scramble over the rocks on the beach will be repaid by a closer view of the now half-filled-up Hob Hole. The fisher-folk believed this cave to be the home of a kindly-disposed fairy or hob, who seems to have ...
— Yorkshire—Coast & Moorland Scenes • Gordon Home
... partly filled with water and in the scramble which occurred the boat was overturned, and once more we were pitched into the water. This occurred, I should say, eight times, the boat usually righting itself. Before we were picked up by the Bluebell six of the party of eight or nine were lying drowned in the bilge ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... up or downward, and let politicians wrangle, Let the parsons and philosophers grope in a wordy tangle, Let those who want them scramble for their dignities or dollars, Be millionnaires or magnates, or senators ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... a more anxious {141} aspect. The nations of Europe were entering on a mad scramble for empire, for colonial possessions overseas. Russia pushed steadily westward to the Pacific and south to the gates of India. France sought territory in Africa and in Asia, Germany in Africa and the Pacific, Italy in ...
— The Day of Sir Wilfrid Laurier - A Chronicle of Our Own Time • Oscar D. Skelton
... The beginning of that scramble was trivial enough. But the trouble which it kindled was destined to outlive the moment and seriously affect the life and fortunes of at least one of the participants. Jones was merely grumbling one of his ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... our sacks for the half-mile walk to the Moondaisy. Walk.... Scramble! Uncle Jake seemed to glide from rock to rock, but with two or three stone weight awkwardly perched on my shoulder, the wet running down my neck and an arm going numb, I slithered down the weed-covered slopes in a very ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... found himself on the left bank of the creek. And still he felt life stir in him. So he started to swim across, for if you were in this world you were on the other side. While he swam he felt his strength abandoning him. He managed to scramble on to a drifting log and lay on it like one who is dead, till we pulled him ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... mind, and to hold in the faith of the feelings, a conception so vast, so mysterious, so remote from the usual routine of the selfish trifles and petty notions which monopolize the powers and fritter down the faculties of the average people of the nineteenth century. The battle of sensualism, the scramble over material interests, the wearing absorption in the small and evanescent struggles of social rivalry, the irritated attention given to the ever thickening claims of external things, the pulverizing discussions of all sorts of opinions by hostile schools, are ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... few weeks out of the trenches after my chat with Ruggles, and one afternoon I came upon them enjoying a hearty, homely, ten-round hit, kick, and scramble in a quiet corner near their billet. They looked as if they meant it, but they finished up in about ten minutes, hugging each other in six inches of mud. Ruggles got up first, and while he waited for Jenks he turned on his Little Tich smile. It worked; Jenks smiled ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 30, 1917 • Various
... that's enough; he is a Radical then; he says so himself!" cried Telson, shutting up the book, and flinging it across the room at Bosher, who was standing near the door and just dodged it in time. A regular scramble ensued to secure the "gross" volume, in the midst of which the unhappy author, seeing his chance, slipped from the room, and bolted for his life ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... by daylight, for now I saw his design. The ledge terminated only where it met the ancient wall of the tower, and it was possible for an agile climber to step from it to the edge of the unglazed window some four feet below, and to scramble from that point to the stone fence and thence on to the path by which we ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... at that," she shouted, "ye little rascal, come out o' that oven," for now the Blackbird had taken advantage of the open door to scramble into ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... wretch, that, while the Fiend Of Discord here full riot ran, He, like the rest, was guillotined;— But that when, under BONEY'S reign, (A more discreet, tho' quite as strong one,) The heads were all restored again, He, in the scramble, got a wrong one. Accordingly, he still cries out This strange head fits him most unpleasantly; And always runs, poor devil, about, Inquiring for his ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... alongside the Ark, and Capt. Noah let down a rope ladder, up which the two bears managed to scramble after ...
— The Cruise of the Noah's Ark • David Cory
... itself, as we shall soon be compelled to recognise, had its roots deep in the political and social structure of Europe. The growth of wealth and population, and the law of diminishing returns, led to a scramble for unappropriated lands producing the raw materials of industry. It was, in a sense, a war of capital; but capitalism is no accretion upon the body politic; it is the creator of the modern world and an essential part of a living organism. The Germans ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... jump for it, but cross that infernal stick—never! Consigning Matang and all things connected with it to a considerably warmer sphere than Borneo, I "threw my heart over" and followed it a run, a wild bound in the air, a scramble, and I was over, L. almost jumping on my back, and both being ignominiously hauled out of danger by H., who showed no more interest in the whole affair than he would have ...
— On the Equator • Harry de Windt
... Headquarters. But the pull could not be depended upon at all times, particularly if the robbery made a noise and the press took it up. Then there would be violent kicks at Headquarters, and a general all-around scramble to get the thieves, and so far as safe, stick to more or less of the plunder. The gang that got Mr. Lord's bonds was what in police and thieves' slang was known as "On the Office," so named because they went around visiting offices in the business part of the city, one of the gang going ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... enough aware that many sturdy girls stand the strain, but he knows also that very many do not, and that the brain, sick with multiplied studies and unwholesome home life, plods on, doing poor work, until somebody wonders what is the matter with that girl; or she is left to scramble through, or break down with weak eyes, headaches, neuralgias, or what not. I am perfectly confident that I shall be told here that girls ought to be able to study hard between fourteen and eighteen years ...
— Wear and Tear - or, Hints for the Overworked • Silas Weir Mitchell
... the flank of the cub that held for the moment the coveted position of king. Withal this was a sober pastime, unless Brock, the strongest and most determined member of the family, chanced to provoke his playmates beyond endurance, and caused a general, reckless scramble, in which tiny white teeth were ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... for him to fear when Caesar was in Gaul, and Crassus about to start for Syria, and Pompey for his provinces. Such was the condition of Rome, social and political, that all was uncertain and all was dangerous. But men had become used to danger, and were anxious only, in the general scramble, to get what plunder might be going. Unlimited plunder was at Cicero's command—provinces, magistracies, abnormal lieutenancies—but he took nothing. He even told his friend in joke that he would have liked to be an augur, and the critics have thereupon concluded that ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... books half the night, being gifted, according to her own account, with a marvellous power of sacrificing sleep to any other necessity. At this time she learned to ride on horseback, her first exploit being to tame a colt of four years, the after-companion of many a wild scramble, who grew old and died in her service. Her grandmother becoming soon after disabled by a paralytic stroke, the alternation of this new exercise enabled Aurore to bear the fatigues of the sick-room without serious inconvenience. Of this period of her ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... a general scramble for bags and suit-cases, and, burdened with their impedimenta, the Midshipmen made their way ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... his way he meant to call for his brother Antoine at the Museum of the Louvre. That bright afternoon the Louvre picture galleries were steeped in warm and dignified quietude, which one particularly noticed on coming from the tumult and scramble of the streets. The majority of the few people one found there were copyists working in deep silence, which only the wandering footsteps of an occasional tourist disturbed. Pierre and Francois found Antoine at the end of the gallery assigned ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... with a slight deviation near the Burford Bridge Inn, as far as Boxhill Station, whence it took a bee-line to the high ground at Minnickwood by Anstiebury, four miles distant, a little to the west of Holmwood. This, if the line is to be followed, means some deliberate trespassing and a scramble through Dorking churchyard, which is partly on ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... a few of the wheeling doves flew across from the mosque to the roof where the woman waited for a message. At her feet lay a small covered basket, from which she took a handful of grain. The dove Imams forgot their saintly manners in an unseemly scramble as the white hand scattered the seeds, and while they disputed with one another, complaining mournfully, another bird, flying straight to the roof from a distance, suddenly joined them. It was white, with feet like tiny branches of coral, whereas the doves ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the mischief would have it, a launch coming from the other way pushed through and under the bridge and struck us such a blow that the women screamed, and one of them let her parasol fall into the water. Then, of course, there was an exchange of compliments between the two crews, and a scramble and delay in securing the parasol: and when at last we were out on the other side the boat ahead was so far away from the landing, where she had of course made her stop, that I could just make out that the two men had left ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... Bonnet, what a mad scramble! And after a five days' journey across the continent I should think ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... of events also served to discredit the party of progress in the constitutional States. Italian politics during the ascendancy of Depretis, Mancini, and Crispi became on the one side a mere scramble for power, on the other a nervous edging away from the gulf of bankruptcy ever yawning in front. France, too, was slow to habituate herself to parliamentary institutions, and her history in the years 1887 to 1893 is largely that of a succession ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... a half's scramble we turned to the right beneath a perpendicular cliff of exquisite colouring on our left, combining the bright red which denoted the presence of iron, with the dark purple and the silvery grey of the Jura limestone. On our right was a deep and precipitous ravine, sparsely covered with ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... Hastily then did Perk scramble for the rocks mentioned by his companion—it was much too dark for him to see where they lay, but he used his common sense with such signal success that almost immediately he ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... hatching; and when, therefore, eggs are found fresh so late in the season, it is pretty plain that someone has been there to take those earlier laid. Rollo seemed pleased that the lady could comprehend this when it was explained to her. He gave her an encouraging nod, and began to scramble onward over the rocks, his companion being already some paces in advance of him. The lady followed with her basket as well as she could; but she soon found herself alone, and in not the most amiable mood at being thus neglected. ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... "which shall it be? Do I leave home for the noise and grime of the city, open an office and enter the money-making scramble?" ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... the show, though with an uneasy consciousness that I was pledged to become, sooner or later, a part of the spectacle. I saw a shepherdess fresh from Arcadia wave back a dozen importunate gallants, then throw a knot of blue ribbon into their midst, laugh with glee at the scramble that ensued, and finally march off with the wearer of the favor. I saw a neighbor of mine, tall Jack Pride, who lived twelve miles above me, blush and stammer, and bow again and again to a milliner's apprentice of a girl, not five feet high and all ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... just as a spaniel does when it comes out of the water. He had been nigh to drowning in the depths, and out of his pocket, to be lost for ever, had fallen the jewel of youth; but somehow he had managed to scramble to the bank and to pull himself out, and he made a step forward and swept the horizon to see if his journey was at an end; ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... a wild scramble, and the vision of a fleeing form in the Linden yard, but that was the last seen of the black man. The yard was entered and searched, and neighboring yards were also searched, but not even the trace of blood was found. It is almost impossible ...
— Mob Rule in New Orleans • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... time the water bottle did a good trick!" cried Bully, as he went to see if Johnnie was hurt. But the squirrel wasn't, very much, and he could soon scramble home, after thanking ...
— Bully and Bawly No-Tail • Howard R. Garis
... his coat, he kissed her, designing at the same time to dispatch her; but his heart failed him the first time. However, getting up and kissing her a second time, he darted it into her windpipe; but its edge being very dull, the poor creature made a shift to mutter his name, and endeavoured to scramble after him. Upon which he returned, and with the utmost inhumanity cut her neck to the bone quite round; after which he robbed the house of some silver, but being confounded and astonished did not ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... potatoes again with your half-pint of bitter.' And nine cases out of ten I've been right. James Wrench followed the course of the majority, only a little more so: tried to do others a precious sight sharper than himself, and got done; tried a dozen times to scramble up again, each time coming down heavier than before, till there wasn't another spring left in him, and his only ambition victuals. Then, of course, he thought of his wife—it's a wonderful domesticator, ill luck—and wondered what she ...
— The Observations of Henry • Jerome K. Jerome
... 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 o'clock, or she would ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope
... a shop assistant in Woking I believe he was, standing on the cylinder and trying to scramble out of the hole again. The crowd had ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... England, though Sir Lionel says I'll think nothing of it when we get into Devonshire; up, up to a high place where they've built a restaurant. Near by we left the motor (and Emily, who never walks for pleasure), and ho, for the caves! It was a scramble among dark cliffs of Purbeck limestone. The caves are delightfully weird, and of course there are smuggling stories about them. A strange wind blew through their labyrinths, ceaselessly, like the breathings of a hidden giant, betrayed by ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... one, then three, things as they ran up the canvas and darted this way and that like crazy things, and which could not possibly have grown on a pine tree. And almost at the same instant, something pulled my hair! With a scream and scramble I was soon out of that tent, but of course when I moved all those things had moved, too, and wholly disappeared. So I was called foolish to be afraid in a tent after the weeks and months I had lived in camp. But just then Mrs. Stokes ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... the cliff! Creep, crawl, wriggle, slide, clamber, scramble, clutch, climb, here jumping—actually jumping, I!—over a crevice, then drawing myself round an insuperable jut by two honest sturdy weeds—many thanks to them!—which had the consideration to be there and to plant themselves firmly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... far behind, just emerging from the scrub, are seen those who, from their wandering habits, must wear the bracelets, hurrying and shuffling along with a rattle of chains, tripping up in their eagerness to be even with their mates in the scramble for water: presently they pause to look about and neigh—a delay resented by those behind by a friendly bite, answered by a kick; which starts them all off at full gallop, in the approved rocking-horse style, with ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... upon them almost as soon as its threat could be measured. Of the two, it was the young woman who met it with skilful purpose. While the man could only scramble, choked and half-blinded, to windward to throw his weight on the careening gunwale, the helmswoman had pounced upon the tiller and was standing knee-deep in the water pouring over the submerged lee rail to pay out and steer and miss the island ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... to every soul within reach, and presently dispatched;—two others followed, before they "weighed anchor and proceeded on their voyage," cheered by the ragged multitude, among whom they lavishly scattered their change; and a most riotous and ridiculous scramble ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... all lingered as dance after dance went on above them. It was cool and pleasant and they were tired. Rilla sat silent, taking no part in the gay conversation. She was glad when someone called down that the over-harbour boats were leaving. A laughing scramble up the lighthouse rock followed. A few couples still whirled about in the pavilion but the crowd had thinned out. Rilla looked about her for the Glen group. She could not see one of them. She ran into the lighthouse. Still, no sign of anybody. In dismay she ran to the rock ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... ball went off to one side. In the scramble after it two opposing centres grabbed it at once, and each claimed precedence. The game stopped while Miss Andrews and the line-men came up to hear the evidence. There was a breathless moment of indecision. Then Miss Andrews took the ball and tossed up between the two ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... travellers hurrying from the ferry boats and rolling off in hansom cabs to the huge hotels on Madison Square. A city where American faces were still to be seen upon all its streets, a cleaner and a kindlier town, with more courtesy in its life, less of the vulgar scramble. A city of houses, separate homes, of quiet streets with rustling trees, with people on the doorsteps upon warm summer evenings and groups of youngsters singing as they came trooping by in the dark. A place of music and romance. At the old opera house downtown, on those dazzling evenings when ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... walk to me, although, child that I was, I feel sure the loveliness of the outer world had the effect, unconsciously to myself, of brightening my little inner world; but over and above all this must be ranked my keen enjoyment of a scramble, and of the sense of difficulty and danger attendant upon certain steep parts of the descent. It was one of my great amusements to be trusted occasionally to guide my parents' visitors down by this path, for the sake of the view, whilst their carriages would be sent the long way ...
— The Story of the White-Rock Cove • Anonymous
... really wonderful how people do thoroughly and unaffectedly enjoy a fearful disturbance; if the cannon could be shot off quietly, and guns made no noise, battles would not be half so popular to read about. The silent arrow is uninteresting, and if you describe a mediaeval scramble you must put in plenty of splintering lances, resounding armour, shrieks and groans, and so ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... had not yet been able to approach. What a frightful disappointment—to have beheld the living manifestation of the Deity and to see it disappear before gaining salvation by just touching it! So terrible became the scramble, so extraordinary the confusion, that the Swiss Guards were swept away. And ladies were seen to dart after the Pope, to drag themselves on all fours over the marble slabs and kiss his footprints and lap up the dust of his steps! The tall dark lady suddenly fell at the edge ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... long before the girl's scant strength was gone, and when after a mad scramble she fell from a boulder to the ground, she was too done up to rise. She lay face to the stars, half sobbing with excitement and disappointment. After a time, however, the sobs ceased and she lay thinking. She knew now that until she was inured ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... the time they drew steadily nearer to the fort, and Tommy watched their movements with the keenest interest, ready to scramble ...
— A Tale of the Summer Holidays • G. Mockler
... voice from below. There was a scramble of feet, two or three varied exclamations in masculine tones, and then Mr. Savage came bounding up the stairs. "Playing chess with your brother and had to break up the game. When duty calls, you know. Morning, Miss Garrison. ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... he come across; they are suspicious, and roost out of reach. At last, half dead, he desires to drink, and sees a well with two pails on the chain; he descends in one of the pails, and finds it impossible to scramble out: he weeps for rage. The wolf, as a matter of course, comes that way, and they begin to talk. Though wanting very much to go, hungrier than ever, and determined to make the wolf take his place, Renard would not have been Renard had he played off this trick on his ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... same old boat, Same old dust round Rouen way, Same old narsty one-franc note, Same old "Mercy, sivvoo play;" Same old scramble up the line, Same old 'orse-box, same old stror, Same old weather, wet or fine, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, March 21, 1917 • Various
... Mr. Norton. "Just you wait till we can buy a tame mountain, and carry it to Willingham with us. Then we'll put it down in the middle of the garden, and the clouds will come down to sit on the top of it just as they do here. But now, who can scramble over that gate?" ...
— Milly and Olly • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... confined themselves to making life one long and breathless scramble, it was bad enough, but a line should have been drawn where meddling with the sanctity of the toilet began. This, alas! was not done. Nothing has remained sacred to the inventor. In consequence, ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... really a theocracy and encourage its aptitude for generous love? If educationists do not view such a proposal with favour, this shows how miserable and distorted our common conception of God has become; and how small a part it really plays in our practical life. Most of us scramble through that practical life, and are prepared to let our children scramble too, without any clear notions of that hygiene of the soul which has been studied for centuries by experts; and few look upon this branch of self-knowledge ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... later, the inmates of the cabins began to go forward and pick favorable positions for jumping off on the other side. The scramble to evacuate the seats then was as sharp as the scramble to possess them, three minutes before. A few more rounds of the wheels, and the boat thumped in the usual way against one row of piles at the entrance of the Jersey slip, and then caromed like a billiard ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... breeze sprang up, and with sail set I managed to proceed through the snowy "deluge" in short stages. The snow clung in lumps to the runners, which had to be scraped frequently. I passed some broken ridges and sank into several holes leading down to crevasses out of which it was possible to scramble easily. ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... that were possible, than the downhill roll. The black giant was nearer the goal, but the red giant had longer and nimbler legs, which made it again about nip and tuck between the black and the red. Leaving their tracks to be traced by great handfuls of iron-weeds, caught at and uprooted in the scramble, up they struggled, with might and main, and with feet that could not quicken their speed, however fear might urge or hope incite. Panting and all but spent, the two giants gained the top of the hill at the same instant—Burl nearest ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... sprang into the skiff, with the evident intention of attempting to rescue his four-footed comrade. Winn Caspar was just in time to scramble in over the stern as the skiff shot away. "I may be ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... 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
... every toe was as useful to him as a finger, managed to scramble up; and not to be outdone, I also attained some height, when, holding on fly-fashion, and clinging to the rock with my fingers and grass shoes, suddenly the pole which partly supported me slipped away, and my whole attention had to be directed to again reaching ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... Vailima and all the beauties of the South Seas. Upon the road came another figure—this time a young man who made a friend of me at a glance. He now took me in hand. Together we made the rest of the journey along this beautiful road, and to the cottage of residence. I entered. There was a scramble. At last I met my host, who leapt from ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... good man, kind and true; loving to live a gentle, thoughtful life, in his home and among his books; not made for the din and scramble of business. ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... in the old boyhood days. The sea wind sings 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 perfect rest ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... is worth while (without a practical object in view) to admit into one's imagination. No wonder that they creep forth from the foul mystery of their interiors, stumble down from their garrets, or scramble up out of their cellars, on the upper step of which you may see the grimy housewife, before the shower is ended, letting the rain-drops gutter down her visage; while her children (an impish progeny of cavernous recesses ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... point where she stood to the spot where Billy lay was only a rough scramble. She was beside the youth ...
— The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna - or, The Crew That Won • Gertrude W. Morrison
... it you will ask it. Is there any place in any of your rooms where there is a little bit of carpet worn white by your knees? Or do you pray when you are half asleep at night, and before you are well awake in the morning, and scramble through a prayer as the necessary preliminary to going to the work that really interests you, the work of your trade or business? 'Ask, and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... great stones, or sinking to the knees in bog, patches of it red with iron, from which he would turn away with a shudder. Sometimes he walked in the water, along the bed of the burn itself; sometimes he had to scramble up its steep side, to pass one of the many little cataracts of its descent. Here and there a small silver birch, or a mountain-ash, or a stunted fir-tree, looking like a wizard child, hung over the stream. Its banks were mainly of rock and heather, but ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... study halls, was finishing her preparation for Monday's classes. She always got rid of this task on Saturday morning, so as to have her Saturday afternoon and Sunday free. She had never succeeded in winning Laura and Vi over to her method, so that on their part there was usually a wild scramble to prepare Monday's ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler
... God that let it happen so near the Bullfinch. We might have been out o' sight o' that ship at the time, and then every man of us would have bin lost. As it was, we had a hard scramble over a good deal of loose ice, jumpin' from lump to lump, and some of us fallin' into the water several times, before we got aboard. Now that was a bad nip, ...
— Fast in the Ice - Adventures in the Polar Regions • R.M. Ballantyne
... and into the demesne, neck and neck with Fly, the smith's half-bred greyhound; and in the wake of these champions clambered the Craffroe Pack, with strangled yelps of ardour, striving and squealing and fighting horribly in the endeavour to scramble up the tall smooth face of ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... people was hastening to complete its purchases, so that it might have nothing but its departure to think of afterwards. The thousands of pilgrims of the national pilgrimage streamed along the thoroughfares and besieged the shops in a final scramble. You would have taken the cries, the jostling, and the sudden rushes for those at some fair just breaking up amidst a ceaseless roll of vehicles. Many, providing themselves with provisions for the journey, cleared the open-air ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... the lord that owned him, but the land. It is hardly unsafe to suggest that in this (by one of the paradoxes of this extraordinary period) the very fixity of serfdom was a service to freedom. The new peasant inherited something of the stability of the slave. He did not come to life in a competitive scramble where everybody was trying to snatch his freedom from him. He found himself among neighbours who already regarded his presence as normal and his frontiers as natural frontiers, and among whom all-powerful customs crushed all experiments in competition. By a trick or overturn no romancer ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... success in the thick of things. The city attracts the country boy who is ambitious, exactly as old Rome attracted the immature German. The blare of its noisy traffic, the glare of its myriad lights, the rush and the roar and the rabble all urge him to get into the scramble for fun and gain. The crowd attracts. The instinct of sociability draws people together. Those who are unfamiliar with rural spaces and are accustomed to live in crowded tenements find it lonesome in the country, and ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... whooping, a great thumping of hoofs, a monstrous swirl of dust, as the riders at the side of the race-course saw the Duke's maneuver and read his intention. Away they swept, a noisy troop, like a flight of blackbirds, hats off, guns popping, in a scramble to get up as close to the ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... of gold, diamonds, and rubies. When we left the Nebula I said to myself that if Grim Hagen owned everything here, it was quite possible that many would be eating very little. Knowing Grim Hagen, I said to myself, there will be a mad scramble for money and position. It would be the only kind of a world that ...
— Hunters Out of Space • Joseph Everidge Kelleam
... during the Winter Sales' scramble, inadvertently went off with two husbands please return the other one to his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 21st, 1920 • Various
... cheerful fire, and a plentiful board, graced with the most cordial welcome. The faces that looked on him were free from the cloud of care, the constraint of ceremony, and the distrust and fear, with which men learn to regard one another in the midst of the rivalry, competition, and scramble of populous cities. The spoils of the chase gave variety to his table, and afforded Boone an excuse for devoting his leisure hours to his favorite pursuit. The country around spread an ample field for its exercise, as it was almost untouched by the ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... 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 ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... God-forsaken hole of a place like Mount Hope! You killed my ambition then and there; I saw it was no use. You wanted the results, but you wouldn't pay the price in self-denial and patience, and so we rushed into debt and it's been a scramble ever since! I've begged and borrowed ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... other man, 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 took every advantage of their knowledge. ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... "I'm tired of the scramble," he kept breaking out Of silence to say. "I don't blame the boys, but it's plain to me they see that my going will let them move up one. Mason cynically voiced the whole thing today: 'I can say, "Sorry to see you go, Bloom," ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... When it reached a certain point the people in front of the grave-yard, of whom much the greater number were women, carrying satchels and parcels, projected themselves upon it in a compact body—a movement suggesting the scramble for places in a life-boat at sea—and were engulfed in its large interior. Then the life-boat—or the life-car, as the lady at the window of the hotel vaguely designated it—went bumping and jingling away upon its invisible wheels, with the helmsman (the man at the wheel) guiding ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... father's hand and had thought: "How old he's getting! ... How I shall miss him! ... I hope nothing happens to him!" In the very balance of his father's sentences and the deliberate choice of words there had been something old-fashioned and remote from all the life and scramble of Martin's recent years. Now he took his father's hand in his own strong ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... 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 frontiers and which ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... next to Duncan's our long bowsprit almost swept off a row of old fellows from the cap-log. They had to scramble, but didn't mind. "Good luck, and I hope you fill her ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... would steady you, if you'll scramble down; or let me go down, and you hold the rope—I'm your man ...
— The Heiress of Wyvern Court • Emilie Searchfield
... prospect pleases, and only man is in a vile situation. The big iron island had an uncomfortable habit every now and then of lounging partly over to one side or the other, so that De Plonville had to scramble this way or that to keep from falling off. He vaguely surmised that his motions on these occasions lacked dignity. The hot sun began to dry the clothes on his back, and he felt his hair become crisp with salt. He recollected ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... addressed them. And he spoke of war and violence. He spoke of how in times of peace this present system murders men—on ships and docks and railroads, in the mills and down in the mines. And as though these lives were not enough, the powers above in this scramble for theirs for all the profits in the world, all the sweated labor they could wring out of humankind, had now flown at each others' throats. And the blood of the common people was pouring out upon ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... of inhabitants without that disagreeable accident. But it had occurred; nothing was wanting to make it seem serious; and, setting her teeth, she shook herself, morally, hard, for having fallen into the trap of fate. Well, she would scramble out, with only a scare, probably. Henry Burrage was very attentive, but somehow she didn't fear him now; and it was only natural he should feel that he couldn't be polite enough, after they had consented to be exploited ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... berries," said Little Bear, "and I 'll go with you to find a hen's nest that has eggs in it to scramble." ...
— Little Bear at Work and at Play • Frances Margaret Fox
... Hume had topped a gentle rise and dropped down and out of sight upon the farther side, did the girl turn quickly to the great cedar up which she had seen the escaping cub scramble. She was certain that he had not come down. When at first she did not see him she circled the tree slowly, expecting from each new angle to catch a glimpse of the roly-poly brown body. And when, after fifteen minutes peering upward through the widely flung, horizontal branches, she saw him, ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... There was a commotion—a 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 ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young
... my whistle shriek, Between teeth set; I fling an arm up, Scramble up the grime Over the parapet! I'm up. Go on. Something meets us. Head down into the storm that ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... rocks, which had the boat touched, at the almost giddy rapidity we were hurried along, our destruction must have been inevitable. Landing to cook our dinners, I went to the top of the highest neighbouring hill, to obtain a round of angles: our journey was a perfect scramble, the face of the country being intersected by deep ravines, and covered with huge blocks of coarse sandstone; over these we observed several of the rock-kangaroo, bounding with their long, bushy tails swinging high in the air as if in defiance of pursuit. ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... 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 learned aught else the least That to the faithful herdman's art belongs! What ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... Bedford is not, or never has been, devoted entirely to the scramble for wealth. Her public schools have been given a place among the best, their cost last year being one hundred thousand dollars. She has given to the world many scholarly as well as smart men. During the war she did her duty ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 5, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 5, May, 1886 • Various
... enough! Come on, lassies, let's go down and scramble for best places and first table, when eating ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... by daylight, and although we had a hazy notion as to what we would do when we did reach their side, the longing to get there made us oblivious of danger. I swung down on to the crumbling foothold that supported Holman, and breathlessly we began to scramble toward the valley. ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... Ladybird at Bahia; and the probabilities of wind-circulation, atmospheric moisture, aberrations of audibility in fog; and in the middle of it the pulse of the sun, the thundering engines and shooting shuttles of this Loom; a tiptop briskness and bustle of action; a scramble of wits; a melee to the death; mixed with pea-jackets, and aromas of chewed pigtail, and ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... good business and good policy to have these few workers fool around the edge of the wreckage for five or ten minutes adjusting a dynamite blast, then hastily scramble away and consume as much more time before a tremendous roar announces the ugly work is done, but the onlookers doubt it. Sometimes, when an extra large shot is used, the water, bits of wood and iron, and other shapes more fearfully suggestive, ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... 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 ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... its easy scramble, and its plethora of civilized concomitants; for he loved the mountains, the streams, the open forests, and the physical struggles of the wild places; but—and he gave over reasoning, and knew that it was because of the charm of Miss Presby herself, and that he wanted her, and had hoped unconsciously. ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... her hopefully. Being quite plump, he was a bit lazy. And he did not care to scramble up to a shelf ...
— The Tale of Miss Kitty Cat - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... gown, bringing up the rear: like a pack of cards arranged to be tumbled down at a touch, with a disproportionately large Knave of clubs at the end. When they have had a minute or so at the chief altar, they scramble up, and filing off to the chapel of the Madonna, or the sacrament, flop down again in the same order; so that if anybody did stumble against the master, a general and sudden overthrow of the whole ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... husband's freakish temper gave her much trouble, his unexpectedly bearish moods when she was doing her very best for him, "bringing him out" as she put it, making the right kind of friends,—influential ones, so that he might have some chance in the scramble for the good things of life. Surely that was a wife's part. Bessie was satisfied that she had done much for her husband in this way, developed him socially; for when he rode up to the mountain hotel, ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... splash in the water, a scramble up the bank, a bound or two toward the woods, a pitiful bleat, ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland |
