"Skittish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... accompanied by a young Arab who was carrying the green bag. The stranger was looking straight before him down the tunnel, and he went by swiftly. But his guide had something to say to Batouch, and altered his pace to keep beside them for a moment. He was a very thin, lithe, skittish-looking youth, apparently about twenty-three years old, with a chocolate-brown skin, high cheek bones, long, almond-shaped eyes twinkling with dissipated humour, and a large mouth that smiled showing pointed white teeth. A straggling black moustache sprouted on his ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... the park, and across the common, and round the base of Blackman's Hanger, as fast as her clever mare could carry her with any degree of comfort to either. The clever mare was somewhat skittish from want of work, and inclined to show her cleverness by shying at every stray rabbit, or crocodile-shaped excrescence in the way of fallen timber, lying within her range of vision; but Ida was too anxious to be disconcerted by any such small surprises, ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... Then they went out, and mounting, rode back in the direction of Mudgee. Uncle Abe winked long and hard and solemnly at Andy Page, and Andy winked back like a mechanical wooden image. The two women nudged and smiled and seemed quite girlish, not to say skittish, all the morning. Something had come to break the cruel hopeless monotony of their lives. And even the ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... in it. She simulated an interest in the rowing about which she knew nothing at all—visited the house-boats of such of her friends as had come down for the regatta, and was, in Willy Forrest's words, as "skittish as a two-year-old that had slipped its halter." Forrest had been to and fro from the stable near Winchester on several occasions. "He comes to tell me that I am about to lose a fortune, and I am beginning ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... you will go to the Cross next Saturday and there buy him a fairer wife than he can wed out of our lineages? and a wife withal of whose humours he need take no more account of than the dullness of his hound or the skittish temper of his mare, so long as the thong smarts, ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... the situation. "I guess you'll jest have to wait and git wet. Miss Hildreth's horse is skittish on ferries. I wouldn't wanter go on with you an' leave her ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... chosen a more secluded nook to say this in, but you're skittish, as I have learned to my cost, and likely to bolt. What I want to say is, don't bolt. It won't do you any good.—I've found you once, and I'll find you again, no matter what rabbit's hole you ...
— The Faith Healer - A Play in Three Acts • William Vaughn Moody
... the reins of her skittish, snorting pony and picked up Lennon's new sombrero. Through the middle of the high peak was ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... are useful brutes, Though somewhat skittish; the foam is whit'ning The crest and rein of my courser "Lightning"; He pulls to-night, being short of work, And takes his head with a sudden jerk; Still heel and steady hand on the bit, For that is "Tempest" on which ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... the ground after the horse, for the purpose of enabling us to catch him more readily. Besides the animals we rode, we had seven horses, for the conveyance of our provisions, tents, etc. The two we bought from Captain Sutter, though strong, were skittish, and gave us much trouble, for our newly engaged servant, whose name is James Horry, knew more about harpooning and flenching whales than about the management of horses. He was certainly willing and did his best, but he occasioned some ...
— California • J. Tyrwhitt Brooks
... they are true, and if Madame de Grammont was the culprit, it is a sad confirmation of the old gibe, "Skittish in youth, prudish in age." It can only be pleaded in extenuation that some youth which was not skittish, such as Sarah Marlborough's, matured or turned into something worse than "devotion." And Elizabeth Hamilton ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... the eye on, To see a Christian creature graze at Sion, Then homeward, of the saintly pasture full, Rush bellowing, and breathing fire and smoke, At crippled Papistry to butt and poke, Exactly as a skittish Scottish bull Haunts an old woman ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... again come on to the footway, and was joking with Madame Taboureau's little servant. He seemed quite gay and skittish that morning. He took hold of the little servant's hands, and squeezed her fingers so tightly, in the exuberance of his spirits, that he made her cry out. Lisa had the greatest trouble to get him to go back into the kitchen. She was impatiently pacing about the shop, fearing lest ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... the presence of Mr. Pound and Mrs. Pound, who used it as their own; the Buckwalters' rockaway and the Rickabachs' spring-wagon. Even Miss Agnes Spinner's bicycle had a fence panel all to itself, as though it were very skittish and likely to kick and set the whole road in commotion. To my own unimportant self I never attributed this assembly of all the great folk of the valley. There was some more potent reason. As I pondered, hunting for it, we came to the lane. Until I found that ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... condolence for Colonel Starbottle, overbearing that excellent man with untimely and demonstrative sympathy in barrooms, saloons, and other localities not generally deemed favorable to the display of sentiment. "She was alliz a skittish thing, Kernel," said one sympathizer, with a fine affectation of gloomy concern and great readiness of illustration; "and it's kinder nat'ril thet she'd get away someday, and stampede that theer colt: but thet she should shake YOU, Kernel, diet she should jist ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... tits that pull This rum concern along, so full, Should never back or bolt, or kick The load and driver to Old Nick. But, never fear, the breed, though British, Is now no longer game or skittish; Except sometimes about their corn, Tamer Houghnhums ne'er were born. ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... foot o' mine kind o' b'longs to the church, anyway," said Captain Leezur sweetly; "has for years; don't pain me much as I knows on, but she ain't seound: if t'other one starts off kind o' skittish she ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... thou shalt loue In the sweet pangs of it, remember me: For such as I am, all true Louers are, Vnstaid and skittish in all motions else, Saue in the constant image of the creature That is belou'd. How dost thou like this tune? Vio. It giues a verie eccho to the ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... been right about Hannibal. The big mule had not only taken his own passage across the Tennessee as a matter-of-course proceeding, but had shouldered and urged along three horses as he went. And twice since then Drew had taken him back and forth to bring in skittish mounts causing trouble. ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... the slightest disharmony between sense and nonsense, humor and respectability, despite the skittish tendency to assume that there is. But, why, then, that widespread error? What actual fact of life lies behind it, giving it a specious appearance of reasonableness? None other, I am convinced, than the fact that the average ...
— Damn! - A Book of Calumny • Henry Louis Mencken
... easily be an accident, even with the best of drivers such as we had in Terry, and I was sure that he was having all he could do to keep on the crown of the road. At any moment, slowly as we were going, the heavily laden car might become skittish and begin to waltz, a feat which would certainly first surprise and then alarm the ladies, even if it had ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Gloriana to San Lorenzo; as we feared to trust our friend—for so we had come to regard her—with the mule, a mischievous beast, spoiled by prosperity. Ajax drove a skittish pair of colts. Gloriana and I occupied the back seat of our ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... first appearance; but I said no more, and possessed my soul in patience, until the day came when I received a copy of a newspaper marked in the corner, "Compliments of J.P." I opened it with sensible shrinkings; and there, wedged between an account of a prize-fight and a skittish article upon chiropody—think of chiropody treated with a leer!—I came upon a column and a half in which myself and my poor statue were embalmed. Like the editor with the first of the series, I did but glance my eye down the head-lines and was more ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... he replied, steering a straight course. "She's a bit skittish at times. I was saying as how I did the Colonel an injustice. I'm very sorry. No man who wasn't steel all through ever got the V.C. They don't chuck it around ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... how Aunty played up her skittish symptoms about them same bonds a few weeks back, the time she planned to exhibit me to Vee in my office boy job and got so badly jolted when she finds me posin' as a private sec instead? Went away real ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford
... the stranger, leaning back against the gate and spreading his long arms along the top bar. "Which yo're the most nervous gent I ever did see. The hotel ain't close enough for anybody to hear a word, and there's only hosses in the corral. Get a-hold of yoreself. Don't be so skittish." ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... my wife—cousin. I'm goin' in ter see him a minit. Hold the horse, will yer, he's a bit skittish." ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... his last interview with Napoleon in Danzig, when his august brother-in-law had told him: "I made you King that you should reign in my way, but not in yours!"—he had cheerfully taken up his familiar business, and—like a well-fed but not overfat horse that feels himself in harness and grows skittish between the shafts—he dressed up in clothes as variegated and expensive as possible, and gaily and contentedly galloped along the roads of Poland, without himself ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... persuaded him to trot the animal to and fro in front of the hotel. There was a good deal of noise and hoof-clattering, and people came to their doors to see what was going on. Obviously, if they were watching the antics of a skittish two-year-old in the high-street, their eyes were blind to proceedings in the back premises. Even the postmaster and his daughter were interested onlookers, and a policeman, who might have put a summary end to the display, vanished as though ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... enlarging the windows; and yet, you know how much he clings to everything that is old about the house. He tries to do everything for my pleasure. Did he not go to Strasbourg the other day to buy a pony for me, because I thought Titania was too skittish? It would be impossible to ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... I got my orders to accompany them, and, along with Bayne, to do their scouting. My horse was exhausted with the work he had done already; I told Major Forbes, and he at once gave me his. It was a young horse, rather skittish, but strong and fairly ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... say it is. That job will come later. But we got to be pationate, an' not spoil it by upsettin' our kettles o' fish with boardin'-schools, an' such nonsense. Meanwhile we can put in time with Mrs. Sherman, who'll pay you well, an' won't be too skittish if you just keep a firm hand on her. This mornin' she got discoursin' about everythin' under the canopy, from nickel-plated bathroom fixin's, an' marble slobs, to that state o' life unto which it has pleased God to call me. ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann
... they meant to raise a cry of unfairness and walk out. That then was their program—first the riot and then, as a last resort, the bolt. But they had men in their ranks, high-tempered men who, like so many skittish colts, wouldn't stand without hitching. The signals crossed and the thunder cracked across that calm-before-the-storm situation before there was proper color of excuse either for ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... in the Denman house and for our family and Uncle Joe's family. She didn't have much time for anythin' but cookin' all the time. But she's the bestes' cook. Us had fine greens and hawgs and beef. Us et collard greens and pork till us got skittish of it and then they quit the pork and kilt a beef. When they done that, they's jus' pourin' water on our wheels, 'cause us liked best of anythin' the beef, and I do to this day, only I can't ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... would need nerves of steel. I have not nerves of steel, and I felt dreadfully incommoded by the bill. For the space of five minutes I might occasionally forget it, and then, in the midst of some light and skittish quotation, my eye would light upon it, and the verses would come feebly and falteringly off the tongue. ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... proceed far in explanation; and he was studious in the sequel to prevent the young folks from being too intimately acquainted with each other's inclinations. Grimes, of consequence, attributed the reluctance of Miss Melville to maiden coyness, and the skittish shyness of an unbroken filly. Indeed, had it been otherwise, it is not probable that it would have made any effectual impression upon him; as he was always accustomed to consider women as made for the recreation of ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... if she did her duty. I remember once, when I was in the world, I saw a mountebank driving ten horses at once. I dare say he hadn't an easy time of it. But, lack-a-day! we have to drive thirty: and skittish fillies some of them are. I don't know what Sister Roberga has done with her vocation: but I never saw the corner of ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... I lie! May I be the son of a bitch if I lie! Ask, and all the officers will bear witness, all the army will tell you that in the second army, ninth corps, second division of infantry, fiftieth yager regiment, Major Plut is the foremost dancer of the mazurka. Come on, young lady! Don't be so skittish, for I shall punish you ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... expect, And beg they 'll take my word about the moral, Which I with their amusement will connect (So children cutting teeth receive a coral); Meantime, they 'll doubtless please to recollect My epical pretensions to the laurel: For fear some prudish readers should grow skittish, I 've bribed ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... thought that the hill in front of old Grout Nickelson's wuz steep, and the road a skittish one that wound around it above the creek. But imagine goin' along a road where you could look down thousands of feet into running water, and right up on the other side of you mountains thousands of ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... care if he is skittish about machinery," said Romper Ryan emphatically, "I'm going to see that Dick Austin becomes a scout before he leaves Woodbridge; he's the kind of ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump
... at her funeral last fall. I was determined then that they should never draw me;" and Aunt Pen shivered for herself beforehand. "And I can't have them from Timlin's, for the same reason," said she. "All his animals are skittish; and you remember when a pair of them took fright and dashed away from the procession and ran straight to the river, and there'd have been four other funerals if the schooner at the wharf hadn't stopped the runaways. And Timlins has a way, too, ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... traces were not tightened. One of the mares wished to go faster, hearing another horse tramp behind her; "and nothing made her so mad," quoth Platt, "as to be held in when she wanted to go." The near leader started. "O the little devil," said he, "how skittish she is!" Another stumbled, and Platt bantered her thereupon. Then he told of foundering through snow-drifts in winter, and carrying the mail on his back—four miles from Bennington. And thus we jogged on, and got to "mine inn" just ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... The horse seemed so skittish that Philip finally told the men to lead him away, adding that a man would be foolish to purchase such a useless animal. Alexander then stepped forward and begged permission to ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber
... impression was significant of great things being expected from him. For everybody's family doctor was remarkably clever, and was understood to have immeasurable skill in the management and training of the most skittish or vicious diseases. The evidence of his cleverness was of the higher intuitive order, lying in his lady-patients' immovable conviction, and was unassailable by any objection except that their intuitions were opposed by others equally strong; ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... Nora, you must be more careful than you were once on a time, on a skittish young horse which nearly proved your death," observed the old lawyer. "A day like this tries an animal; and unless your steed is as steady as a rock I cannot sanction your ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... surprising in anyone else than Haydn. In the first part, where Handel would have been sublime, he is frequently nearly sublime, and this is our loss; but in the later portion, where Handel would have been solemn, earnest, and intolerably dull, he is light, skittish, good-natured, and sometimes jocular, and this is our gain, even if the gain is not great. The Representation of Chaos is a curious bit of music, less like chaos than an attempt to write music of ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... steady, certain; sicker score strict conditions. Sidelins, sideways. Siller, silver; money in general. Simmer, summer. Sin, son. Sin', since. Sindry, sundry. Singet, singed, shriveled. Sinn, the sun. Sinny, sunny. Skaith, damage. Skeigh, skiegh, skittish. Skellum, a good-for-nothing. Skelp, a slap, a smack. Skelp, to spank; skelpin at it driving at it. Skelpie-limmer's-face, a technical term in female scolding (R. B.). Skelvy, shelvy. Skiegh, v. skeigh. Skinking, watery. ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... ses the manager. "She'll teach you to dance and shy assegais. Pore thing! she buried her 'usband the day afore we come here, but you'll be surprised to see 'ow skittish she can be when she has got over ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... until she's darn near forty—well, it takes! You see I hadn't even been vaccinated against it by girlish flirtations. I began to be a governess when I was just a kid, and a governess doesn't get many chances to be skittish. So now when it came, it hit me hard. That's when a woman finds herself—when she's in love. I don't care if she is old or fat or homely or prosy. She feels that little flutter under her ribs and she drops from the ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... probably never beat the record of them that is, but I've kept an eye on him this summer, and I tell you he's developing the traits that win every time. Last spring, when the judge made this offer, he was as skittish and unreliable as a young colt. I wouldn't have trusted him around the corner to do an errand for me. I've known him ever since he put on the district messenger uniform, and I wouldn't have given one of his own brass buttons ...
— The Quilt that Jack Built; How He Won the Bicycle • Annie Fellows Johnston
... do say, that's a sight for sore eyes!" exclaimed the nurse. "I am as pleased as punch to find you here; but I've been thinking that like as not, you're scared of sick folks; there's plenty of people that are; but there's nothing to be skittish about; I think this poor dear will get ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... of reporting a clerical gathering at Exeter Hall. Brown was credited with having a particularly happy touch in the reporting of religious meetings. He certainly had an open mind, for I remember his saying that day that he thought Christianity was perhaps better adapted to a skittish climate like ours than Buddhism, and that Ju-Ju worship in London would be sure to cause friction with ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... round Rosalie and smiled—yes, by Jove, smiled—and, if you'll take the word of a retired master mariner, winked, with a peculiar, tender and calfish expression that in anybody else would have been called skittish. ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... were enormous: what a team to drive; and on such a road, untrodden before by hoof or wheel! Two Empresses that cordially hate one another, and that disagree on this very subject. Kaunitz and his Empress are extremely skittish in the matter, and as if quite refuse it at first: "Zips will be better," thinks Kaunitz to himself; "Cannot we have, all to ourselves, a beautiful little cutting out of Poland in that part; and then ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... to Dullhampton the Bishop was in the best of spirits, much on the principle of a naughty boy who, having played truant, means to enjoy his holiday to the full, well knowing that he will be caned when it is over. Indeed his Lordship became positively skittish, and Miss Arminster was obliged to squelch him a little, as that young lady, for excellent reasons of her own, had no more intention of becoming the mistress of Blanford than she had of wedding the author of "The Purple ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... having run through the curriculum of Infancy, Boyhood, and Manhood, the Colossal Man, (escaping, for some unexplained reason, the penalty of Old Age,) is to grow young again,—shake his rattle and cut his teeth afresh? There is a childish vivaciousness, a juvenile recklessness, a skittish impatience of restraint, in this amiable author's speculations, which powerfully corroborate such a view of ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... her only advances had been a muffled request for the salt. The next morning, Miss Arthur's chair had been empty, and her charge, left to herself, had been more glacially circumspect than ever. Whatever skittish traits the pair might develop, Weldon felt assured that they would be solely upon the ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... Father Baby; but, like a skittish girl, the friar hopped across the room, shook off his wooden shoes, picked up the skirt of his habit, and began to dance. The exhilarating drink, the ruddiness of the fire, the discomfort outside, the smoothness of the oak boards,—these were conditions ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... horse of some light material, fastened round the waist of the morrice-dancer, who imitated the movements of a skittish horse. ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... Sets, patterns. Seventeen-hunder, very fine (linen). Shachled, feeble, shapeless. Shaw, show. Shiel, shelter. Shool, shovel. Shoon, shoes. Shouther, shoulder. Sic, such. Siller, silver, money. Sin', since. Skeigh, skittish. Skellum, good-for-nothing. Skelp, run quickly. Skiffing, moving along lightly. Skirl, squeal, scream. Skriech, screech. Slaes, sloes. Slap, gap in a fence. Slea, slay. Sleekit, sleek. Slid, smooth. Smeddum, powder. Smethe, smoke. ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... guest at the Aubrey Arms o' nights—always attended by Hector, the large Newfoundland dog already spoken of, and who was now lying stretched on the floor at Pumpkin's feet, his nose resting on his fore feet, and his eyes, with great gravity, watching the motions of a skittish kitten under the table. Opposite to him sat Tonson the gamekeeper—a thin, wiry, beetle-browed fellow, with eyes like a ferret; and there were also, one or two farmers, who ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... not forget that you are off a leeshore; you are mounted on a skittish racehorse, with, if you like, a New Forest fly operating within an inch of his belly-girths. Our situation is so far ticklish, and prompts ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... full-grown bicycle, but only a colt—a fifty-inch, with the pedals shortened up to forty-eight—and skittish, like any other colt. The Expert explained the thing's points briefly, then he got on its back and rode around a little, to show me how easy it was to do. He said that the dismounting was perhaps the hardest thing to learn, and so we would leave that to the last. But he ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... all sizes and furrowed and channelled by drifts of hard and icy snow, and quite suddenly you may find yourself prostrate upon a surface of slippery blue ice. It may be easily imagined that it is no seemly place to exercise skittish ponies or mules in a cold wind, but there is no other place when ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... fellow-servants: "Finding," says he, "that my master was in danger of being thrown over the bridge, I fearlessly rode near him; when, to my very great surprise, I found that my master's horse (which was young and skittish) was frightened at an ass, which stood grazing near the corner of the wall." "Are you sure it was an ass, Jervais?" asked the servants, staring one at another, half frightened themselves. "Are you quite ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... Bonnet," the old coachman answered cheerfully. "An' right skittish, too. I don't think she's had a saddle to her back since you last rode her. I meant to give her a run yesterday, but Darrell's boy was late getting her in. Think you'd better let me try her ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... hearin' of the Meductic, Sandy sez to me, sez he: 'Jabe, old 'Ductic is a-hoopin' her up to-day. There's a big head o' water on, an' I'm thinkin' we'll hev to keep our eyes peeled. It'll take some skittish steerin', fur ef the old raft jest teches the rocks she'll go all ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... he to the urchin, who gazed gravely in his face with a pair of very large and dark eyes, "ponies is often skittish. Keason why one should be, an' another not, I can't comprehend. P'r'aps it's nat'ral, p'r'aps not, but howsomediver so 'tis; an' if it's more nor above the likes o' me, Joseph, you needn't be suprised that ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... "the testimony was to the effect that he was riding a young, skittish horse, which was startled by stray hogs breaking at a dead run through the bushes, and that the horse bolted and ran away. And the man died from concussion of the brain. That would have happened if we had had a road of the first class, twenty feet wide, instead of this little seven-foot ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... manner might be well defined as elegantly skittish; She loves a Lord as only a Republican can do; And quite the best of titles she's persuaded are the British, And well she knows the Peerage, for she reads it through ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., September 20, 1890 • Various
... could remember nothing, the association seemed to be one of pain. In vain she beat her brains. Memory was an almost uncultivated quality with her, and, like the rest of her intellectual powers, had a nervous, skittish way of deserting her in need, as ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... "The flighty and skittish wife of Ingild longs to observe the fashions of the Teutons; she prepares the orgy and makes ready the ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... might lay hands on that devil yet, and not far away, either. I was up at Demorest's to-day, and I heard Joan and a skittish sort o' Mexican young lady talkin' about some tramp that had frightened her. And Miss ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... the two latter classes our present medium belonged, one might venture to say she had safely passed the former. She was of that ripe and Rubens-like beauty to which we could well imagine some "Higher" spirit offering the golden apple of its approval, however the skittish Paris of the spheres might incline to sweet sixteen. I had a short time before sat infructuously with this lady, when a distressing contretemps occurred. We were going in for a dark seance then, and just as we fancied the revenants were about to justify the title, we were startled by a crash, and ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... agent has been trying to locate a colony of Mennonites here," Judge Thayer said, "fifty families or more of them, but the notoriety of the town made the elders skittish. They were out here this spring, liked the country, saw its future with eyes that revealed like telescopes, and would have bought ten sections of land to begin with if it hadn't been for two or three ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... the driver can handle the reins under it, and while it might not be safe to drive a skittish horse with it down, still for the ordinary use in the country it will ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 49, October 14, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... for tragedy, and the way Sadler acted as if he wasn't going to escape real mysterious. For the Mayor had to please the British consul and Ferdinand Street and the Transport Company; but the Hottentots were skittish, and the ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton
... influence machine can be compared to a highland cataract of lofty height but small volume, which is more picturesque than useful, and the current from a voltaic battery, a thermopile, or a dynamo to a lowland river which can be dammed to turn a mill. It is the difference between a skittish gelding ...
— The Story Of Electricity • John Munro
... God, into heaven, where he should see strange mysteries, which were not lawful to be seen by any other man. He prayed him, then, to get upon Alborak; but the beast, having lain idle and unemployed from the time of Christ to Mahomet, was grown so mettlesome and skittish, that he would not stand still for Mahomet to mount him, till at length he was forced to bribe him to it by promising him a place in paradise. When he was firmly seated on him, the angel Gabriel led the way, with the bridle of the beast in his hand, and carried the prophet from ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... So Sirens sing— Sly, seducious, and skittish— To the Tourist, wealthy, British, When Society's on the wing, Or should be, for "Foreign Parts." British BULL mistrusts their arts. "Come away!" (One doth say), "Our Emperor is quiet to-day!" Cries another, "Come, my brother, "Avalanches down again!" ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 6, 1892 • Various
... mind hastily, and was fain to admit inwardly that he had wanted to ask him, but somehow felt "skittish" about it. Outwardly he retorted, being displeased at his own weakness, ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... of my young lady's various pranks would fill a thick volume. A favorite trick of hers, on being requested to "walk like Miss Abigail," was to assume a little skittish gait so true to nature that Miss Abigail herself was obliged to admit the ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... danger, as some white-livered chaps are who ought to be ashamed to ship as sailors, for he'd venture aloft sometimes when no one else would dare, and was the first man at the weather-earing when it was 'Reef topsails!' But he had a temper as skittish as the cap'en's, and couldn't stand being swore at. I've heard him many a time mutter after the captain had been going on at him. I know I'd not have liked to have said half to him that Captain Jarvis did, for Black Harry looked like a man who would never forget ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... you'll stay. You shan't abuse our hospitality again. Bud, get a rope and tie our friend. He's skittish, and is likely to run away ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... walked up and down the room a few moments, taking very short steps, and solacing his mind by muttering to himself: "Well, that's what I get by having a scholar in the family. Learning goes to the head and the heels—makes 'em proud and skittish." ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... seems there didn't any of us—only Jimmy, maybe—take the girl herself into consideration. For a time she was a little skittish, an' led Jimmy a purty chase with her dancin' nearer an' nearer, an' then flyin' off out of reach. But at last she came out fair an' square fur Jimmy, an' they was as lively a pair of lovers as ye'd wish ter see. It looked, too, as if ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... "You tell him you would like any one, and see what will come of it." There was a pretty sun-burnt girl about fifteen years of age that had given me a cock-stand. "That's a pretty girl Smith, I'd give a sovereign to have her,—is she loose?" "Don't think so yet squire, she be skittish; her sister's not fourteen, and they say she be in the family way, when one sister takes to it squire, the others generally do." "Where do you pay their wages?" I asked. The old fellow leered at me. "Why you be a taken a leaf ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... him a new album that will fall to pieces whenever you laugh in the same room? Why should you forget the old love for the new? Do we not often impose on the old subscriber by giving up the space he has paid for to flaming advertisements to catch the coy and skittish gudgeon who still lurks outside the fold? Do we not ofttimes offer a family Bible for a new subscriber when an old subscriber may be in a lost and ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... There is perhaps more art than you think for in the peccant chapter, where I have succeeded in packing into one a dedication, an explanation, and a termination. Surely you had not recognised the phrase about boodle? It was a quotation from Jim Pinkerton, and seemed to me agreeably skittish. However, all shall ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... her hand; she goes arrayed like a queen, and feasts delicately every day upon tinned meats. And she who was perhaps of no regard or station among natives sits with captains, and is entertained on board of schooners. Five of these privileged dames were some time our neighbours. Four were handsome skittish lasses, gamesome like children, and like children liable to fits of pouting. They wore dresses by day, but there was a tendency after dark to strip these lendings and to career and squall about the compound in the aboriginal ridi. Games of cards were continually played, with ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... best by her, too, Aunt Emily. I rather shy at perfect types; girls, at the best, make me skittish. They make me think of myself and ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... 10, 1865, and was sent to San Diego, Texas; but I never was in a battle. And they was only one time when I felt anyways skittish. That was when I was a new recruit on picket duty. And it was pitch dark, and I heard something comin' th'ough the bushes, and I thought, 'Let 'em come, whoever it is'. And I got my bayonet all ready, and waited. I'se gittin' sorta nervous, and ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: The Ohio Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... said nothing whatever, being fully occupied with the animal he was driving—a skittish young mare ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... and Iglesias, while presenting a dignified front to the enemy, had inwardly shuddered. She was an excellent, estimable woman; but when ponderously arch, when extensively sly! Oh, dear no! It didn't do. Her gambols were too sadly suggestive of those of a skittish hippopotamus. Dominic Iglesias was conscious that he had a skin too little to-night; he could not witness them with philosophy. The kindliest intention, the best-meant words, might cause ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... ambitions. The poor little beggar would like nothing better than to go the pace, as a sort of experimental lap for the instruction of his characters; but he always finds the pace too swift, and lags behind. As result, he isn't fast, but merely skittish. In the same way, he'd like to pose as a black-hearted villain. Instead, he gets to a point where he is just about as unsanctified as a ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... said consolingly. "The roads ain't none too good this season, an' Kittie—that's her" (pointing to his mare)—"don't feel over-skittish; she's nigh onter fourteen year, an' right smart, too, fur her age, but sorter broken-winded latterly; but I guess we'll make it afore dark.—Go ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... said Tunk, sadly. "Heavens! I've had my share o' bangin'. Can't conquer a skittish hoss without sufferin' some—not allwus. Now, here's a boss," he added, as they walked to a stall. "He ain't much ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... Campbell girls, who didn't appear quite so skittish as she was, "do tell us, no doubt you will make a funny one out ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... the boys that are for you," advised Presson, fretfully, "not this year, when reformers have got 'em filled up with a lot of skittish notions. Humor those that ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... no less distinction than the Duchess Agnes had complained to him of the reckless countess. Only yesterday she had ridden into the forest with her father, and when the young Bohemian princess met her, Cordula's dogs had assailed her skittish Arabian so furiously that it would have been difficult for a less practised rider to keep her seat in the saddle. This time the docile animals had refused to obey their mistress, and the duchess expressed the suspicion that she had not intended to call them off; for, though she had ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... spirit craved a spice of the dangerous in everything, had taken immediately to the sorrel, who had apparently been given no name. He was a skittish horse, gentle, as Andy explained, but "pow'ful nervous—had to be ...
— The Outdoor Girls in the Saddle - Or, The Girl Miner of Gold Run • Laura Lee Hope
... punish the animal for its peculiar actions, simply because we are not able to see what is worrying it. How often does the dog start suddenly, and bristle up its hair, when nothing is in sight, or within hearing distance. How often does the horse grow "skittish," or even panicky, when there is nothing within sight or hearing. Domestic fowls, especially geese, manifest an uneasiness at the presence of strange persons or animals, though they may not be able to see or hear them. It is ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... you to church and take care of you as a woman ought to be took care of by a man. And you know I could do it, Jen, for my wages is good; but you've shied an' shied whenever you've seen me, and baulked an' baulked when you couldn't shy, so as no skittish ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... grange one evening—a dark evening threatening thunder—and, just at the turn of the Heights, I encountered a little boy with a sheep and two lambs before him. He was crying terribly, and I supposed the lambs were skittish and would not ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... Kingstonians some seconds to decide which was Quiz and which was ski. For the skittish skies skewed and skedaddled and skulked and skipped and scrubbed and screwed and screamed and scrawled and scooped and scrabbled and scrambled and scambled and scumbled and scraped and scrunched and scudded and scuttled and scuffled and skimped and scattered ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... new got to town from Mullingar with the stage where his coz and Mal M's brother will stay a month yet till Saint Swithin and asks what in the earth he does there, he bound home and he to Andrew Horne's being stayed for to crush a cup of wine, so he said, but would tell him of a skittish heifer, big of her age and beef to the heel, and all this while poured with rain and so both together on to Horne's. There Leop. Bloom of Crawford's journal sitting snug with a covey of wags, likely brangling ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... particularly complicated corner in an air, it is his artistic habit to hold his tongue between his teeth, twist his head in sympathy with the elaborate fingering, and involuntarily lift one foot higher and higher from the floor as some skittish note frantically dodges to evade him, his general musical aspect at his own hearth is that of a partially Oriental gentleman, agonizingly laboring to cast from him some furious animal full of strange sounds. Thus engaging in desperate ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 18, July 30, 1870 • Various
... were tolerable skittish, the ladies powerful neat, That old bass viol's music just got there with both feet. That wailin' frisky fiddle, I never shall forget; And Windy kept a singin'—I think I hear him yet— "O Xes, chase your squirrels, an' cut 'em to one side, Spur Treadwell to the center, with Cross P Charley's ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various
... you'd get skittish, and try and do something foolish. Old Potts is bound to keep you under ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... may have meant no more than the natural coyness of a maiden whom the learned Upton somewhat drolly designates as "a skittish female." [3] Indeed, Spenser must have thought so himself, and with reason, for she continues to receive his presents, "the kids, the cracknels, and the early fruit," sent through his friend Hobbinoll ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... monsieur," she replied, "but I know not exactly how to go. I do not wish to take my carriage; your nag is so skittish that I am afraid to ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... replied, 'Ah, master, it is no use to be cruel, and as for stubbornness, I cannot complain, for he is ready to do any thing, and will go any where; I bred him myself, and have had him these two years: he is sometimes skittish and playful, and once ran away from me: you will hardly believe it, but there were more than fifty people after him to stop him, and they were not able to effect it, yet he turned back of himself, and never stopped till he run his ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... dexterity, as a horse is never to be depended on that is skittish about the tail. Let your hand fall lightly and rapidly on that part next to the body a minute or two, and then you will begin to give it a slight pull upwards every quarter of a minute. At the same time you continue this handling ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... ob de culled people gits mighty skittish ef dey tries to git em to vote dare ticket 'lection time, an' keeps dem at a proper distance wen de 'lection's ober. Some ob dem say dere's a trick behine it, an' don't want to tech it. Dese white folks could do a heap wid de culled folks ef ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... an idealised comic servant; and Foresight grotesque farce. Angelica is a shrewd but hearty 'English girl,' and Miss Prue a veritable country Miss; while Mrs. Frail and Mrs. Foresight are broadly skittish matrons. There is nothing in the play to strain the attention or to puzzle the intellect, and it is full of laughter: no wonder it was a success. It is, intellectually, on an altogether different plane from The Way of the World, ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... important. We must picture Milton "affable, erect, and manly," as Wood describes him, speaking from a low pulpit in the hall of Christ's College, to an audience of various standing, from grave doctors to skittish undergraduates, with most of whom he was in daily intercourse. The term is the summer of 1628, about nine months before his graduation; the words were Latin, but we resort to the version ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... any education ought to give a man is character, and the second thing is education. That is where I'm a little skittish about this college business. I'm not starting in to preach to you, because I know a young fellow with the right sort of stuff in him preaches to himself harder than any one else can, and that he's mighty often switched off the ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... pins and tied round the waist with a small bath towel. She was to be the Dauntless Equestrienne, and to give her enhancing act a barebacked daring, riding either a pig or a sheep, whichever we found was freshest and most skittish. Dora was dressed for the Haute ecole, which means a riding-habit and a high hat. She took Dick's topper that he wears with his Etons, and a skirt of Mrs Pettigrew's. Daisy, dressed the same as Alice, taking the muslin from Mrs Pettigrew's dressing-table with-out saying ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... that their cattle own them. In all the world there is no 'boss' who behaves as stupidly as the beasts you favour. Pretty nearly every day they give you trouble or do you some mischief. Now it is a skittish horse that runs away or lashes out with his heels; then it is a cow, however good-tempered, that won't keep still to be milked and tramples on your toes when the flies annoy her. And even if by good fortune they don't harm you, they are forever finding a way to destroy your comfort ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... shalt love, In the sweet pangs of it remember me; For such as I am all true lovers are, Unstaid and skittish in all motions else. Save in the constant image of the creature That is beloved. Twelfth Night, Act ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... slut! Musu - amusingly translated the other day 'don't want to,' literally cross, but always in the sense of stubbornness and resistance - my wife's little dark-brown mare, with a white star on her forehead, whom I have been riding of late to steady her - she has no vices, but is unused, skittish and uneasy, and wants a lot of attention and humouring; lastly (of saddle horses) Luna - not the Latin MOON, the Hawaiian OVERSEER, but it's pronounced the same - a pretty little mare too, but scarce at all broken, a bad bucker, and has to be ridden with ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... said. "They want to, I'm sure of that, but yet neither one of 'em will speak first. Such foolishness I never did see. Now take yesterday! Cousin Sam went to town, and Cousin Sim werried every single minute he was gone. The mare was skittish, and the harness might break, and he might meet the cars, and I don't know what all. If he called me off my work once he did a dozen times, till I thought I should fly. By the time Cousin Sam got back he was all worn out, and soon as he heard him safe in the house ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... I used to drive constantly were fair, but not remarkable performers; their best mile-time was a trifle under three minutes twenty seconds. Their owner had not had leisure to keep them in steady exercise, so that at first they were very skittish, and prone to break; but they soon settled down to their work, and then did not pull an ounce too much for pleasure, even when spinning along at top-speed, with their small lean heads thrust eagerly forward, after ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... he, leering round upon us, "they tell me your pretty Penelope takes something more than a common interest in yonder fop; have a care, Sir John, she's a plaguey skittish filly by the looks of her, have a ...
— The Honourable Mr. Tawnish • Jeffery Farnol
... If ever thou shalt love, In the sweet pangs of it remember me: For, such as I am, all true lovers are; Unstaid and skittish in all motions else, Save in the constant image of the creature That is belov'd.—How dost thou like ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... surname with a touch of malice. She coloured, but replied "Good-morning" with a sweet composure. He eyed her askance, but had no opportunity for more words, as old Hugo just then clambered up into the dog-cart, and took the reins of the rather skittish young mare ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... the runaway horse they found him still somewhat skittish. But he was soon calmed down, and then Gif remounted him, and they set off along the trail ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer
... another imaginary creature, to guide them about alleys and by-paths, because imaginary creatures find little nourishment in the public highways, and shun them. Thus must these timid persons skulk about obscurely with their diffident and skittish guides, and they do not ever venture willingly into the thronged places where men get horses and ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... and skittish horses whirled him rapidly along to Mr. Perekatov's house. It was a summer day, close and sultry. Not a cloud anywhere. The blue of the sky was so thick and dark on the horizon that the eye mistook ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... present Lord Mayor. is very ill with a fall off his horse, under Newgate, as he was going to proclaim Bartholomew Fair. The city custom is, it seems, to drink always under Newgate when the Lord Mayor passes that way; and at this time the Lord Mayor's horse, being somewhat skittish,-started at the sight of the large glittering tankard which was reached to his lordship." Letter of ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... expecting to hear more about Nate's grant and the gold mine. Rufe and Tennessee added their company without any definite intention. Pete and Joe were hurrying out of the house toward the group. All the dogs congregated, some of them climbing over the fence to investigate the colt, which was skittish under the ordeal. Even the turkey-gobbler, strutting on the outskirts of the assemblage, had an attentive aspect, as if he, ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... roadside hoping his pursuers would pass him by. With a determined grip Ree clung to the bridle of the lead horse, though he was nearly jerked to the ground. With his other hand he sought to check his own animal, but the skittish young thing had taken fright and was now running ahead ...
— Far Past the Frontier • James A. Braden
... clear out then, for it's a secret confab of the whole executive committee that develops, includin' Auntie. But we got a full report later. It seems Rupert was skittish about havin' naval officers snoopin' around the yacht. For one thing, he don't want 'em to find out that this is a treasure-huntin' cruise, on account of the government's bein' apt to hog part of the swag. ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... a curt little nod. "I'm the biggest fool in Washington County. We've been setting traps for wolves. They've been getting our lambs. I jumped off my horse right into this one. Blacky is a skittish colt and when the trap went ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... handed to me neatly tied up in a pillow-case with her tufted head protruding from a hole in the seam at the side. Although very anxious to carry her home immediately, my heart died within me at the prospect of a long gallop on a skittish mare with a plump Dorking hen tied up in a bag ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... purchase him for me, one of your servants might ride him to Euston, and I might receive him there. This, sir, is just as such a thing happens. If you hear, too, of a Welch widow, with a good jointure, that has her goings and is not very skittish, pray, be pleased to cast your eye on her for me, too. You see, sir, the great trust I repose in your skill and honour, when I dare put two such commissions in your hand...."—The Hanmer ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... She knows what she wants and goes straight for it; and she isn't a fool. The daughter is. She was intended by nature to be a dull young woman with a pretty face, but not content with that she puts on an absurdly skittish manner—oh, so ruthlessly bright—talks what she thinks is smart slang, poses continually, and wears clothes that would not be out of place at Ascot, but are a positive offence to the little grey town. ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... piquant hors-d'oeuvre they settled down to a solid joint of national finance, laid before them by Lord MIDLETON. I am afraid they would have found it rather indigestible but for the sauce provided by Lord INCHCAPE, who was positively skittish in his comments upon the extravagance of the Government, and on one occasion even indulged in a pun. In his view the Ministry of Transport was an entirely superfluous creation, solely arising out of the supposed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 14th, 1920 • Various
... herself in my arms, her whole being would not become languid, and suddenly sink into a state of prostration? I wanted to reason with myself, and bring myself face to face with those cursed suggestions, as one does with a skittish horse before some object that frightens it, and to evoke the recollection of every hour, every minute of that first night of love, and to extract ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... poor thing!" said Bruce, looking after her commiseratingly; "and a stranger might think her no more nor half-witted. But she has sense enough, poor crittur! and, I reckon, is just as smart, if she war not so humble and skittish, as ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... a large piece of bacon. "My ole man's gone down to Worrick to-day," she said, "an' won't be back tell night; an' you soldiers, a-leavin' the country all at oncet, hit makes me feel kinder skittish." ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... Birch needed to be, for presently Penobscot, always a skittish young racer, began to grow lively after he had shaken off the weighty shadow of Katahdin, and, kicking up his heels, went galloping down hill, so furiously that we were at last, after sundry frantic plunges, compelled ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... father drink a glass off at one gulp, his heels well together in military fashion. Minora thought the incident typical of German manners, and not only made notes about it, but joined heartily in the health-drinking, and afterward grew skittish. ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... warm eggs. He don't wait for the others, but pikes for the wagonette and climbs in one of the side seats facin' me. We was just turnin' to back up to the block for the ladies, when a yellow kyoodle dashes around the corner after a cat. Them skittish horses was just waitin' for some such excuse as that, and before Mr. Driver can put the curb bit on 'em hard enough they've done a quick pivot, cramped the wheels, and turned us over on the soggy grass as neat as anything you ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... become skittish by seeing her family always in danger, came to me with a very distressed countenance, and said, "What will you do if the mayor of Boston sends him word that you haven't been there? Then he will suspect the letter was a trick; and maybe he'll find out something ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... and duller," said Mr. Tredgold to himself, wearily. "Two skittish octogenarians, one gloomy baby, one gloomier nursemaid, and three dogs in the last five minutes. If ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... was, so to speak, an outsize in Good Sports. She loomed up behind the small and demure Miss Leonard like a liner towed by a tug. She was big, blonde, skittish, and exuberant; she wore a dress like the sunset of a fine summer evening, and she effervesced with spacious good will to all men. She was one of those girls who splash into public places like stones into quiet pools. Her form was large, her eyes were large, her teeth were large, and ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... the cloud had passed Mathilde was no longer on the garden wall. She lay prone on the ground in a field on the opposite side of the wall. Horsemen were all about her. Now and then a horse narrowly missed stepping on her, and those Uhlans must have wondered that night why their horses were so skittish. ...
— The Children of France • Ruth Royce
... the Bois-Guillaume hill, a skittish horse—" And then followed the story of an accident caused by the ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... its high spring-seat, was drawn up beside a telegraph pole to which the skittish young horses had been securely tied. Anne went over to meet Jeb, ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... yet the more a man considers and observes them, the less he finds of difference between them and other men, though (blessed be God!) they are both princes of great nobleness and spirits. The Duke of Monmouth is the most skittish leaping gallant that ever I saw, always in action, vaulting or leaping, or clambering. Sad news of the death of so many in the parish of the plague, forty last night. The bell always going. This day poor Robin Shaw at Backewell's ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... to describe," said Tom, "but the secret lies in a new way of feeding gasolene into the motor, a new sparking device, and an improved muffler. I think I could start my new airship in front of the most skittish horse, and he wouldn't stir, for the racket wouldn't wake a baby. It's going ...
— Tom Swift and his Great Searchlight • Victor Appleton
... something Trojan, Illiadic, in the way in which they moved out presently, to bay. The first tang of salt air, that rotten, indescribable smell of the sea, tickled her nostrils. It was all she could do to keep from being drunk with it. She felt skittish. ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... house reached, drawing-rooms most magnificent. Here, the Podsnaps await the happy party; Mr Podsnap, with his hair-brushes made the most of; that imperial rocking-horse, Mrs Podsnap, majestically skittish. Here, too, are Boots and Brewer, and the two other Buffers; each Buffer with a flower in his button-hole, his hair curled, and his gloves buttoned on tight, apparently come prepared, if anything had happened to ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... the kindly sweet virginal soul, ever blessed as she is, in love, for what truly? Your noble onnur has too much bowels of fatherly miseration. No, no! Your noble onnur has a clencht it; take her now she is in the humour. Whereby maidens be wayward and fain and froward and full of skittish tricks, when they be happen to be crossed in love. Take her in the humour your wise ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... this fervent admirer as he would never have lived in those of a colder historian. Dancing, riding, hunting, raking and fighting, we are bound to feel about him much as old PEPYS did, who called him, in a memorable and picturesque phrase, "skittish and leaping," and, for all his righteous disapproval, admired with the best. "How he would have loved flying!" is Mrs. NEPEAN'S very characteristic comment upon a record of her hero's graceful activities. For one thing especially does ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 25, 1914 • Various
... West Salem," I replied. "All our talk has been of West Salem, and if you can content yourself to live with us there, I shall be very glad of your co-operation. Father is still skittish. He will not come back till he can sell to advantage. However, the season has started well and I am hoping that he will at least come down with mother and talk the matter ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... "Gee, but you're skittish this morning," said Ted, giving Sultan a vigorous slap on the haunch. "But just you wait a few minutes until I get on you. I'll take some of that ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... too, for the motor, save for a low hum, made no noise. So quiet was the car, in fact, that it was nearly the cause of a disaster. Tom was so interested in the performance of his latest invention, that, before he knew it, he had come up behind a farmer, driving a team of skittish horses. As the big machine went past them, giving no warning of its approach, the steeds reared up, and would have bolted, but for the prompt action of ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Runabout - or, The Speediest Car on the Road • Victor Appleton
... no longer yourself when you are in society with your wife. Like a man who is riding a skittish horse and glares straight between the beast's two ears, you are absorbed by the attention with which you ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac
... of the yarn, Sim. It happened this way: You see, I was comin' along the road between East Wellmouth and the Center when I run afoul of him. He was fat and shiny, and drivin' a skittish horse hitched to a fancy buggy. When he sighted me he hove to ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... she did regret the change in her name, though she was by no means indifferent to the rank. As Lady Glencora she had made a reputation which might very possibly fall away from her as Duchess of Omnium. Fame is a skittish jade, more fickle even than Fortune, and apt to shy, and bolt, and plunge away on very trifling causes. As Lady Glencora Palliser she was known to every one, and had always done exactly as she had pleased. The world in which she lived had submitted to her fantasies, and had placed her on a ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... frock-coats, full to the brim of the best food, like Uncle Tom; but nice, lean, hungry-looking, open-air men who were majors, or country squires, or something interesting of that kind, whose clothes sat well on them, and who drew up in the Row on little skittish, curveting polo-ponies when Aunt Emmy and I walked there. I once asked her, after a certain good-looking Major Stoddart had ridden on, why she did not marry, but she only said reprovingly, with ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... said Burr, not finishing his sentence, and the pair, urging their horses to a faster gait came up with the others. Just then the party met a robust countryman who saluted the Morgans, as he trotted by on a skittish colt. ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... thinner—must have lost several tons at least—and as nervous as a schoolmarm on the wrong side of matrimony. When I'd come up with him and yell, or lain him with a rock at long range, he'd jump like a skittish colt and tremble all over. Then he'd pull out on the run, tail and trunk waving stiff, head over one shoulder and wicked eyes blazing, and the way he'd swear at me was something dreadful. A most immoral beast he was, a murderer, and ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London |
