"Scaling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was to determine to which side we should turn for a new route; to right, as to left, arose impenetrable masses of trees and bushes. In truth even the scaling of cliffs would have been more easy. Perhaps if we could get above this wooded slope we could advance with surer foot. Now, we could only go ahead blindly, and trust to the instincts of our two ...
— The Master of the World • Jules Verne
... charge, and also by the Trojan soldiers, who shot arrows and darts down upon them from the roofs above, supposing, from the armor and the plumes which they wore, that they were enemies. They saw the royal palace besieged, and the tortoise formed for scaling the walls of it. The tumult and din, and the frightful glare of lurid flames by which the city was illuminated, a scene of ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... branches of the trees, which all around clothed the shelving sides of the ravine and completely embowered the channel of the stream: to a place more strange and replete with gloom and horror no benighted traveller ever found his way. After a short pause we commenced scaling the opposite bank, which we did not find so steep as the other, and a few minutes' exertion brought ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... back. Then they saw—oh, Heavens! who was that? Was not that her red hood—and that figure who thus slowly emerged from behind the edge of the precipice which had so long concealed her—that figure! Was it possible? Not dead—not mangled, but living, moving, and, yes—wonder of wonders—scaling a precipice! Could it be! Oh joy! Oh bliss! Oh revulsion from despair! The ladies trembled and shivered, and laughed and sobbed convulsively, and wept in ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... when they turned to fly, were driven onward by the spear-points of the savages, to be slain in heaps like game in a pitfall. Still, some of them lived, and running under the shelter of the wall, began to breach it with the rude battering rams, and to raise the scaling ladders till death found them, or they were worn out with excitement, ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... blue-green waters hurrying seawards—from stony heights of air into the mass of 'the restless wavy plain'; with their sides of rock rising in gigantic terrace after terrace up to the heavens; with their scaling pines, erect and slight, cone-head aspiring above cone-head, ambitious to clothe the bare mass with green, till failing at length in their upward efforts, the savage rock shot away and beyond and above them, the white and blue glaciers clinging cold and cruel to their ragged ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... leaves of our manuscript are so arranged that hair side faces hair side and flesh side faces flesh side. The visible effect of this arrangement is that two pages of clear writing alternate with two pages of faded writing, the faded appearance being caused by the ink scaling off from the less porous surface of the flesh side of the vellum.[22] As a matter of fact, the flesh side of the vellum showed faded writing long before modern time. To judge by the retouched characters on fol. 53r it ...
— A Sixth-Century Fragment of the Letters of Pliny the Younger • Elias Avery Lowe and Edward Kennard Rand
... it not seldom had granted Thy help to essay. Carry on and complete an adventure,—my shield and my sword In that act where my soul was Thy servant, Thy word was my word,— Still be with me, who then at the summit of human endeavour And scaling the highest, man's thought could, gazed hopeless as ever On the new stretch of heaven above me—till, mighty to save, Just one lift of Thy hand cleared that distance—God's throne from man's grave! Let me tell out my tale to its ending—my ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... or rather scaling a small rock that my long-expected fall came. Alat, my horse, floundered badly at an angle of forty-five degrees and lost his balance completely. The doctor, who was behind, shouted to me to pull him up, but as I was sliding off his back with a broken girth ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... last charge, we could see nothing. The Naval Brigade, who had the hardest part of the position to take, lost terribly, but did the job in a way that every one says was perfectly splendid. It is said, however, that they made the mistake, in the scaling of the hill, of closing together, and so offering a more compact mass to the enemy's fire. We came on behind the infantry with our friends the Lancers, and passed through a gap in the range and on across some open ground and through a few more kopjes as fast as we could go. Then ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... begun by Appius bringing his pent-houses, and scaling ladders, and attempting to fix the latter against that part of the wall which abuts on Hexapylus toward the east. At the same time Marcus Claudius Marcellus with sixty quinqueremes was making a descent upon Achradina. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... Sunday is no choice, it means walking, it means a return, it means scaling the season in between ...
— Matisse Picasso and Gertrude Stein - With Two Shorter Stories • Gertrude Stein
... continued to exert the utmost vigilance to provide against every danger. One night some noise was heard at the foot of the sea-wall of the castle, where it appeared that the enemy were applying great numbers of scaling ladders. Every effort was made to oppose them during the darkness of the night, and when morning broke, the place was seen beset all round by at least 14,000 men. The cannon of the fort was immediately directed ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... pages, says he cannot help thinking with what pleasure the City merchant, or his clerk, hastening to the seaside, will pack it up with his collar-box. Every year the monumental work increases in value, by reason of accumulated information. To the tired City man, scaling some Alp, gliding in well-found yacht over silver seas, or prone in bosky dell, there can be nothing more soothing or delightful than to take his "BURDETT" out of his waistcoat-pocket, and read it through from first ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, March 25, 1893 • Various
... join the Hau-Haus, they and their converts made the mistake of attacking him. After beating them off he was joined by Major Biggs and a company of militia. Together they advanced against the stronghold of the insurgents, perched on a cliff among the Waiapu hills. By scaling a precipice with twenty picked men, Ropata and Biggs gained a crest above the pa, whence they could fire down into the midst of their astonished adversaries, over 400 of whom surrendered in terror to the daring handful. But the mischief ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... of Palma, the city, and all the southern extremity of the island. I endeavored to get into the fields, to seek other points of view; but they were surrounded by such lofty walls that I fancied the owners of the soil could only get at them by scaling-ladders. The grain and trees on either side of the road were hoary with dust, and the soil of the hue of burnt chalk, seemed never to have known moisture. But while I loitered on the cliffs the cloud in the west had risen and spread; a cold wind blew over the hills, and the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... the strong projections, which jutted like galleries from every direction along the entire height of the escarped walls to prevent the planting of scaling-ladders, soldiers looked through the embrasures at the advancing convicts; yet the archers had replaced their arrows in the quivers, for the watchmen in the towers perceived how few were the numbers of the approaching troop, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... throughout the contest. The assaulting columns did little execution with small arms, as they came up relying more on the use of the bayonet in case of effecting a breach in our line. Some of them carried fascines and ladders in expectation of crossing the ditch and scaling the parapet. But all in vain. The musketry and rifles of the Tennessee and Kentucky militia, joining with the fire of the artillery, mowed down whole files of men, and so decimated their ranks as to throw them into a panic of disorder and ...
— The Battle of New Orleans • Zachary F. Smith
... FROM SUN AND FROST.—Sun and frost cause scaling and hair cracks. For work in freezing weather the water, sand and gravel should be heated or salt used to retard freezing until the walk can be finished; it may then be protected from further action of the frost by covering it first with paper and then with a mattress of ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette
... valour? Could featherheaded young ensigns do other than, by white Bourbon Cockades, handed them from fair fingers; by waving of swords, drawn to pledge the Queen's health; by trampling of National Cockades; by scaling the Boxes, whence intrusive murmurs may come; by vociferation, tripudiation, sound, fury and distraction, within doors and without,—testify what tempest-tost state of vacuity they are in? Till champagne and tripudiation do their work; and all lie silent, horizontal; passively ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... like a jumper who runs backward, that he may be able to leap with greater force; then gathered up to the stature of a hill and crowned with roaring foam, it would return with soft tread, but terrible might, scaling the rock, and flinging its white arms around the waist of the tower. Throughout the tumult, flocks of sea-birds, driven from the surface, and bewildered in the dense darkness of the storm, would fly for the light and smite the lantern; and then they would fall backward into the surf, as if struck ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... more absorbed he became. Youth and strength lent ardor to the ascent, and Bucks, soon forgetting everything below, was scaling the granite pile that towered above him. For thirty minutes, without a halt, he continued to climb, and reaching after a while what seemed the highest ledge of the rocky spur, he walked out upon it to the very edge and was rewarded for ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... Cambrai, Flower o' the Lily (HODDER AND STOUGHTON), should not be regarded as in any way bearing upon the more modern history of that remarkable city. It has nothing to do with our war; it has a war of its own, a rapid affair of bows and arrows, scaling ladders and such desperate situations as can be, and were, saved by the arrival of the right man, single-handed, in the right place at the right moment. Familiar as is his type in novels of this adventurous kind, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 29, 1919 • Various
... played traitor to and deserted in old age. Well, that's enough of that; we're on land now. What land is it? What are the people like? When do we eat? That last question is most important for the moment. What say we try scaling the cliff and then ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... used for scaling low precipices, either of rock or ice, which sometimes come in the way, and which could not be surmounted without such aid. In long and dangerous excursions, especially among the higher Alps, one of the guides always carries a ladder; ...
— Rollo in Switzerland • Jacob Abbott
... and ingenuity in the art of making things unpleasant for other people shone forth conspicuously. It was his habit to ride forth every morning accompanied by a strong band of attendants armed with axes and machetes, and well provided with ropes to assist in the scaling of precipitous slopes, for the purpose of selecting and marking out the day's route, a task which could usually be accomplished in a couple of hours; and then to return and supervise the work of his subordinate, which he made as difficult ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... charged into the town, pursuing the garrison, which only consisted of twelve hundred men, and obliged them to take refuge in the citadel. Pressed with an impetuosity the French were not accustomed to find in their enemies, and seeing that the scaling ladders were already in position against the ramparts, the captain Boucret wished to come to terms; but his position was too precarious for him to obtain any conditions from his savage conquerors, and he and his soldiers were made prisoners ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - VANINKA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... By murder on the highway; 2. Alone, or in a band; 3. By breaking into buildings, or scaling walls; 4. By abstraction; 5. By fraudulent bankruptcy; 6. By forgery of the handwriting of public officials or private individuals; 7. By manufacture of ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... with their easy sport, the hungry boys next proceeded to the grateful task of scaling and dressing their fish. This they did very expeditiously, as soon as the more difficult part of kindling a fire on the beach had been accomplished with the help of the flint, knife, and dried rushes. The fish were then suspended, Indian fashion, ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... had attained his twentieth year. One day he was standing in the kitchen watching the cook, who was busy scaling a perch. She was a pretty young woman with a delicate complexion. He was teasing her and finally put his hand down ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... trusting more to my hands than feet for security against falling. There was evidently a fireplace of some kind on the first floor, with a considerable opening leading from it into the chimney we were scaling, for as Jed slowly passed, I could perceive a sudden gleam of light streaming across his face from the glare of the lamps within. He glanced anxiously that way, but did not pause ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... 30th May, in the year 1810. There the captain persuaded the governor to let him have about twenty artillery-men and a lot of scaling-ladders; and having learned something more about the chief place in Banda, called Banda-Neira, he kept to the resolution he had all along in his mind, to try and get possession of it. In spite of the south-east ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... the lamp, Morrow felt his way to the kitchen, where he pocketed Caliban with scant ceremony and departed swiftly the way he had come, through the pantry window. By scaling a back-yard wall or two he found an alley leading to the street; and making a detour of several blocks, he returned to his lodgings, to find Mrs. Quinlan waiting in great excitement to relate her version ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... are fortified. They are guarded by narrow passes where the world must go single file and where, if one slip from the trail, he falls into chasms of awful depths; by cliffs of apparent impassable abruptness which, if in scaling, one lose his head he is lost; and by false trails that seem to promise easy going but lead in the wrong direction. Not in careless ease are those higher levels gained. The upward climb is one of strenuous effort, of desperate struggle, of hazardous risk. ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright
... things on earth, soonest brings a man to his senses. "My good friend," said he, "however fine this affair may be, live in hope of seeing something finer. Never be shot at Longwy, when you may have a chance of scaling the walls of Paris. I have made a vow never to be hanged in the beginning of a revolution, nor to be shot in the beginning of a war. But come, the duke is beckoning to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... rendered to their country is scarcely understood as it should be. On the disastrous assault on the Redan, 18th of June 1855, the naval brigade consisted of four parties of sixty men each, one for each column; but two only went out, the other two being kept in reserve. They were told off to carry scaling-ladders and wool-bags, and to place them for the storming-parties. They were led by Captain Peel. Severely they suffered. Out of the two small parties, fourteen were killed and forty-seven ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... consider what his experience of the railway servant is from the time of his departure to his arrival at his destination. I know what mine is. Here he is, in velveteen or in a policeman's dress, scaling cabs, storming carriages, finding lost articles by a sort of instinct, binding up lost umbrellas and walking sticks, wheeling trucks, counselling old ladies, with a wonderful interest in their affairs- -mostly very complicated—and sticking labels upon all ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... announced my project of scaling the highest summits of the Alps, the astonishment was general. Some imagined that it was a mere whim which would be fully satisfied by the noise it caused. Others exclaimed against a hardihood willing to encounter ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... least obvious corner of the court. Such a fortress was strong enough to resist any modes of attack then at the disposal of the best-equipped armies, which knew but three ways of taking a place by force, viz. scaling, sapping, and breaking open the gates. The height of the walls effectually prevented scaling. The pioneers were kept at a distance by the brave, but if a breach were made in that, the small flanking galleries fixed outside the battlements enabled the besieged to overwhelm the enemy with stones ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... and how the Palladium was to be got. Having thus obtained the information he desired, Ulysses contrived to make his way back unobserved to the Greek camp. In a few days he returned, accompanied by Diomede. They got into the city by scaling the walls, and Diomede, climbing on the shoulders of Ulysses, entered the citadel. Here, by following the directions given by Helen, he found the famous statue, and he and his companion carried it off to their friends at the ships, who ...
— The Story of Troy • Michael Clarke
... Bedford interrupted him; "My lord, his name is not Paterson; that is a Scotch name; his name is Patinson." But, alack! the next day the rebels returned, having placed the women and children of the country in waggons in front of their army, and forcing the peasants to fix the scaling-ladders. The great Mr. Pattinson, or Patterson (for now his name may be which one pleases), instantly surrendered the town, and agreed to pay two thousand pounds to save it from pillage. Well! then we were assured that the citadel could hold out seven or eight days; but ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... be a regular tortoise," said Mr. Clifford. "But why don't you make a couple of scaling ladders? I'll have the top hooks forged for you if you'll build the ladders. They'll be light and serviceable and you can work up a mighty spectacular ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump
... It doesn't much matter to me what becomes of Missouri, unless Henderson should happen to get smashed in it, and that isn't what he is there for. But when you look at the combinations, and the dropping-off of roads that have been drained, and the scaling down in refunding, and the rearranging, and the strikes, how much chance do you think the small fry stand? I don't doubt that Henderson will make a big thing out of it, and there will be lots of howling by those who were not so smart, and the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... combustibles, fell close to the third division, and, exposing their ranks, forced them to commence the attack before the hour appointed. Crossing the Rivillas by a narrow bridge, under a tremendous fire, the third division assaulted the castle, and, although their scaling-ladders were over and over again hurled down, the stormers at last obtained a footing, and the rest of the troops poured in and the castle was won. A similar and more rapid success attended the assault on San Roque, which ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... how his eyes shone like blue winter stars under the tumbled yellow hair, and noted the flash of his big teeth as he swore between them. He held a dead fox by the brush, which he was cutting off; two hounds, lank and wolfish, were scaling his huge body in frantic attempts to get at the carrion. A ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... of wand'ring to and fro, Like restless spirits; scaling mountain heights; Dwelling among the countless, rare delights Of lands historic; turning dusty pages, Stamped with the tragedies of mighty ages; Gazing upon the scenes of bloody acts, Of kings long buried—bare, unvarnished facts, Surpassing wildest fictions of the brain; Rubbing against all people, ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... grief at the hands of the gods, are not weak passive creatures, but heaven-scaling Titans. This points to the antipodal difference between the characters of these two poets, and explains in part why Goethe did not succumb to the sickly sentimentalism of which he rid himself in "Werther." The difference between yielding and striving resulted in the difference between ...
— Types of Weltschmerz in German Poetry • Wilhelm Alfred Braun
... despite a defeat, it allows the enemy to ravage the fields, and yet persists in defending the walls of its town,—the war is likely to be tedious and indecisive. It is notorious that Greeks dislike hard sieges. The soldiers are the fellow townsmen of the generals. If the latter order an assault with scaling ladders and it is repulsed with bloody loss, the generals risk a prosecution when they get home for "casting away the lives of their fellow citizens."[*] In short, fifty men behind a stout wall and "able to throw anything" are in a ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... of forest, like solid battalions of infantry; sometimes solitary trees appeared, as if distributed by chance upon the grassy slopes, or scaling the summit of the steepest rocks like a body of bold sharpshooters. A little, unfrequented road, if one can judge from the scarcity of tracks, ran alongside the banks of the stream, climbing up and down hills; overcoming every obstacle, it stretched out in ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... had reached the Paris road, up which his friends of the Vendean army would probably approach, when he saw an immense obstruction. Climbing a tree, the better to look about him, he found that the obstruction was a big redoubt, very solidly constructed. Scaling garden walls and getting behind the redoubt, he satisfied himself that it could be taken from the rear, and being by this time very tired, he lay down under a ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... better. The sun and moon and stars overhead, and the big grey or brown plain beneath were for ever instilling knowledge that a city knows not. A city's soot kills elms, they say; only plane trees, self-scaling and self-cleaning, live and grow and survive. I think man is more like the elm; he cannot clean himself in ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... [which had lost its defenders], as he was so near to his island of Vicheu where he kept the main body of his followers, from which they were continually coming and going; and for every one who died a thousand fresh men came to his camp. They now set out to engage the Dutch with six hundred scaling-ladders, fourteen of their men being allotted to each ladder; but the besieged hung out a white flag, and came out to propose terms of surrender. This was granted with the condition that only the property of private persons should be removed, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXXVI, 1649-1666 • Various
... rocks was difficult; a strong artillery protected all the positions. When the French advanced to the assault of this natural fortress, they could not at first reach the English lines. General Kellermann alone succeeded in scaling the steep slopes which led to the enemy, and was received by a deadly fire, which forced him to retire. Our cavalry superior to that of the English, was useless in this difficult attack; its only ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... "Several lengths of scaling-ladder, each 6 1/2 feet long, all of which may be readily connected, forming in a short space of time a ladder of any required height; a canvas sheet, with 10 or 12 handles of rope round the edge of it for the purpose of a fire-escape; one 10-fathom ...
— Fires and Firemen • Anon.
... knowledge merely play'd, I told thee—hardly nigher made, Tho' scaling slow from grade ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... The design of scaling this almost inaccessible stronghold was made by a Mr. Arthur, who had been an ensign in the Scots' Guards and quartered in the castle, and was, therefore, familiar with its interior arrangement. He found means to gain over, by cash and promises, ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... dysentery. Wolfe himself fell sick. Depressed in spirits by the disastrous attempt to land on the Beauport shoals, and worn down with fatigue and watching, he was compelled to take to his bed. It was while lying ill that the plan occurred to him of proceeding up the river, scaling the heights by night, and forcing Montcalm to a general engagement. On his recovery he proceeded to carry his plan into execution. A feint of landing again at Beauport was made. The boats of the fleet, filled with sailors and marines, apparently made for the shore, covered ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... begin 'Orders by Major-General Woolfe in America: Halifax, April 30, 1759.' They continue dated from Louisburg, Point Orleans, Montmorenci, Cape Rouge, &c., to the last, which is dated on board the Sutherland, off St. Nicholas, Sept. 12th, the day before the scaling the heights of Abraham; no doubt the last issued by Woolfe, as on that day (13th) he fell in battle. There is no clue in the MS. to its compiler; it consists of 103 pages 4to., beautifully written, with MS. Plan of Order of Battle, of the army commanded by General ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 238, May 20, 1854 • Various
... initiative in action appeared in the tendency of certain mice to climb out of the experiment boxes or labyrinths. It would have been extremely easy for any of the mice to escape from the labyrinths by scaling the walls of the alleys, for they were only 10 cm. in height, and when a dancer stood on its hind legs it could easily reach the top with its nose. But, strange though it will seem to any one who has not worked with the dancer, not more ...
— The Dancing Mouse - A Study in Animal Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes
... No less than three times in the course of the day did we reascend the mountain to listen for them in vain. We went up to the top of the Newera Ellia Pass, in the hope of hearing them in that direction, but with the same want of success. Miles of ground were gone over to no purpose. Scaling the steep sides of the mountains at the back of the barracks, we listened among the deep hollows on the other side, but again we were disappointed; the sound of the torrents was all that we ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... independence as most desirable. Under these circumstances Sucre for a while made little headway against the royalists concentrated in the mountainous parts of the country despite the partial support he received from troops which were sent by the southern commander. At length, on May 24, 1822, scaling the flanks of the volcano of Pichincha, near the capital town of Quito itself, he delivered the blow for freedom. Here Bolivar, who had fought his way overland amid tremendous difficulties, joined him and started for Guayaquil, where he and San Martin were ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd
... enquiry, and tells us that it is impious. The law, we are told, has been fulfilled for us in condescension to our inherent worthlessness, and our business is to appropriate another's righteousness, and not, like Titans, to be scaling heaven by profane efforts of our own. Protestants, we know very well, will cry out in tones loud enough at such a representation of their doctrines. But we know also that unless men may feel a cheerful ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... as by the fearful severity of the Roman proceedings in the island, more especially the slaughter of the citizens of Enna, suspected of a design to revolt, by the Roman garrison which was stationed there. In 542 the besiegers of Syracuse during a festival in the city succeeded in scaling a portion of the extensive outer walls that had been deserted by the guard, and in penetrating into the suburbs which stretched from the "island" and the city proper on the shore (Achradina) towards the interior. The fortress of Euryalus, which, situated ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... Highland Brigade and Guards would have carried all before them, and the place would have fallen. General Jones was struck by a stone in the forehead, but not much hurt. I believe it is said that the trenches were too high to get over. As the scaling-ladders were carried over them, this can hardly be sustained. So ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... and found many pieces that gave warning of scaling off. Several large flakes, each weighing some hundredweight, lay beneath the table rock,-upon the under surface of which could be distinctly traced the mould of the ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... an easy tree to climb," said he. "A scaling ladder would not be simpler. Go up it, and you will find that the top branch will enable you to step upon the roof of that house. After that it is your guardian angel who must be your guide, for I can help ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... farther cliff. "This looks like it—no—yes, here it is! Close after me, sonny, and up we go. Surely, 'tis Robinson Crusoe and man Friday with a touch of something else thrown in—can't think what, for the moment, unless 'tis the scaling of Plataea. Ever ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... cutouts. Picture a forest clinging to the sides of a peak in the Harz Mountains, but a submerged forest. The trails were cluttered with algae and fucus plants, hosts of crustaceans swarming among them. I plunged on, scaling rocks, straddling fallen tree trunks, snapping marine creepers that swayed from one tree to another, startling the fish that flitted from branch to branch. Carried away, I didn't feel exhausted any more. I followed a guide who was immune ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... the heights of Inkerman, the charge of the noble Six Hundred, the fearful onslaught of the Guards at Waterloo, the scaling of Lookout Mountain,—have all been sung in story, and perhaps always will be; but they all pale beside the glory that will ever enshroud the heroes who, with perhaps not literally "cannon to right of them" and "cannon to left of them," but with a hundred cannon belching forth death in ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... rejoice as though Your deeds were glorious; Not your own valour brave, Numbers, not courage, have Made you victorious. Those who on every side, Have marked the battle's tide, Praying for Cymru's arms, Filled now with wild alarms, The heights are scaling. Old men and children flee, As in amaze they see, Their chosen warriors yield, On Rhuddlan's bloody field, ...
— Welsh Lyrics of the Nineteenth Century • Edmund O. Jones
... the crowning-point of his story now. Honor listened spellbound as he told her of the breathless rush up that rugged incline, and of the sight that greeted them after scaling the ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... (part of the Fourteenth German Corps,) after a severe shelling, made a violent attack with scaling ladders on the keep, also to the north and south of it. In the keep and on the north side the Sussex Regiment held the enemy off, inflicting on him serious losses. On the south side the hostile infantry succeeded in reaching the Northamptonshire Regiment's trenches, ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... sound of feet, at that moment, around the next corner. Open went the nearest gate, and in went Jack, and before long he was scaling more fences. ...
— Crowded Out o' Crofield - or, The Boy who made his Way • William O. Stoddard
... resolved to assault the cantonment early on the following morning, and the spy was able to communicate the plan of attack. The 2000 men holding the King's Garden and the Mahomed Shereef fort had been equipped with scaling ladders, and were to make a false attack which might become a real one, against the western section of the southern front. The principal assault, however, was to be made against the eastern face of the Behmaroo village—unquestionably ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... and when the paroxysm of rage had spent itself, went exulting homeward, carrying away women for concubines, men to be sacrificed, and such miscellaneous booty as could be conveyed without wagons or beasts to draw them.[109] If the sudden assault, with scaling ladders, happened to fail, the assailants were likely to be baffled, for there was no artillery, and so little food could be carried that a siege meant starvation ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... up-rolled sleeves of a blue flannel shirt disclosed forearms well-enough sinewed, but instead of being browned to the hue of a saddle-skirt, they were white underneath and pinkly red above. Moreover, they were scaling in the fashion of a skin not inured to weather beating. Though the man had thought on setting out from civilization that he was suiting his appearance to the environment, the impression he made on this native girl was distinctly foreign. The flannel shirt might ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... some light scaling ladders should be made, as I expected we should find them very useful in crossing the Nisa Gol. Accordingly, Oldham set his Sappers to work, and by evening had ten light scaling ladders ready, each about ten feet long, and light enough to ...
— With Kelly to Chitral • William George Laurence Beynon
... got loose, ran over to the wall, and started to scale it. Then both cubs scurried after him, and, nimbly scaling the cliff, they caught up with him and tossed him down on the moss, ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... general level of emotion is what counts, not the spectacular scaling of peaks. Staking all on high moments is melodrama ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... long after him. The enemy was driven back with fearful loss. Scaling-ladders were thrown down; the archers on the walls, better accustomed to their ground, marking their foes by the torches they carried, but concealed themselves by the darkness, dealt destruction with as unerring hand ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... get rid of his painful thoughts Sydney worked hard with the men till everything possible under the circumstances had been done. Rocks had been shifted, breastworks built, and the place was so added to, that if an enemy should come, the scaling of the cliff over the landing-place and capture of the lower gun did not mean defeat. There was quite a little fort to attack half-way up the gap, and then there was a stout wall built across behind the ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... into his head how the Swiss youth climb the sides of the Alps to find the flower called the Edelweiss for the maidens whom they wish to please. It is a pretty fancy, that of scaling some dangerous height before the dawn, so as to gather the flower in its freshness, that the favored maiden may wear it to church on Sunday morning, a proof at once of her lover's devotion and his courage. Mr. Bernard determined to explore the region where this flower was said to grow, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... down the mountain side, crossed the deep wadi bed in front of the right of our line, and crept up the steep terraced sides of the opposite ridge where ran a portion of the Turkish line. One brigade was to make a frontal attack, while another was to turn the left flank of the enemy's position, by scaling a spur to the south-west of the village of Ain Karim. These two brigades stormed the main line of works before daylight and captured the western defences of Jerusalem. Considerable rifle and artillery fire was experienced from the outskirts of ...
— With the British Army in The Holy Land • Henry Osmond Lock
... naturally conclude they were strangely crouded together, and that in general they were a very frowzy generation. That they were crouded together appears from the height of their houses, which the poet Rutilius compared to towers made for scaling heaven. In order to remedy this inconvenience, Augustus Caesar published a decree, that for the future no houses should be built above seventy feet high, which, at a moderate computation, might make six stories. But what seems to prove, beyond all dispute, that ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... right and to the left, if there were any possibility of scaling the wooded slopes and so rejoining the sturdy swordsmith without coming to blows again with his father's household; but one glance told him that such hopes were vain indeed. On either hand the crags rose inaccessible even to the foot of man, ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... the best violinist the Conservatorium had turned out for years, one to whom all gates would open; but—this "but" always followed, with a meaning smile and a wink of the eye: and then came the anecdotes. They had nothing heaven-scaling in them—these soiled love-stories; this perpetual impecuniosity; this inability to refuse money, no matter whose the hand that offered it; this fine art in the disregarding of established canons—and, to Maurice Guest, ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... Saxony. Having crossed the broad stream, we leapt joyously up the steep path that led into a mimic Switzerland; a country of peaks, valleys, and pine trees, wanting only snow and glaciers. For three days we wandered among those wild regions; now scaling the bleak face of a rock; now stretched luxuriously on the purple moss, or gathering wild raspberries by the road side. From the abrupt edge of the overhanging Bastei we looked down some six hundred feet upon the wandering Elbe, threading its way by broad slopes, rich with ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... run. In an instant a conflagration of potential disasters leaped up from the spark of the immediate danger. He flew along faster, colliding with irate pedestrians, escaping the wheels of skimming automobiles ... Presently the familiar cliff and the tawny path scaling it loomed ahead. He began to climb upward, almost on all-fours, digging his finger nails into the yellow clay in an instinctive effort to pull himself forward. Finally he gained the top ... The street, somnolent with approaching ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... ball or powder; sledge-hammers, knives, axes, saws, and weapons pillaged from the butchers' shops; a forest of iron bars and wooden clubs; long ladders for scaling the walls, each carried on the shoulders of a dozen men; lighted torches; tow smeared with pitch, and tar, and brimstone; staves roughly plucked from fence and paling; and even crutches taken from crippled beggars ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... to maintain the troops was discussed in his presence; he himself distributed the troops in their respective divisions and regulated the order of their march; he issued the orders relating to the equipment of the fleet, and discussed the various methods proposed for breaching, mining, and scaling the walls. His enthusiasm was the impulse of a hero, but the immense superiority of his force would have secured him the victory with ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... engineers. Under the direction of Alexander Taylor, second in command to Baird-Smith, who was unfortunately on the sick list, they worked day and night constructing the breaching batteries and getting ready fascines, gabions, and scaling-ladders. Owing to the heavy musketry fire concentrated on them by the sepoys, the task was one which cost many valuable lives; but, like the true heroes they were, the engineers never flinched. As one after another was laid low, a ...
— John Nicholson - The Lion of the Punjaub • R. E. Cholmeley
... of concrete works on the sea coast is due to the alternate exposure to air and water, frost, and heat, and takes the form of cracking or scaling, the latter being the most usual when severe frosts are experienced. When concrete blocks are employed in the construction of works, they should be made as long as possible before they are required to be built ...
— The Sewerage of Sea Coast Towns • Henry C. Adams
... and made my way up the hill to the castle on the top. Here, however, I was less fortunate, there being no way of entering the building, save by walking in through the gate, or climbing the walls with the help of a scaling ladder. The place is much more formidable looking than the battery, being in appearance a strong castle, with dry ditch, drawbridge, and portcullis to the main and, so far as I could see, the only entrance. In plan it is shaped like the letter L, with the angle turned harbour-ward; and it must ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... concerned, it is, in truth, still in course of experiment. There is at present a very general and but too just complaint of the popular education, as tending to inflate rather than to inform; as prompting large numbers of young men especially to aim at scaling to positions above those in which the school found them, a thing that would be well enough were it not inevitable that, in the general scramble, the positions aspired to are at the same time too frequently those above their capabilities, and quite too full without ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... Liitzen, which was soon taken; Gustavus Adolphus marched on to the enemy's intrenchments; for an instant the Swedish infantry seemed to waver; the king seized a pike and flung himself amidst the ranks. "After crossing so many rivers, scaling so many walls, and storming so many places, if you have not courage enough to defend yourselves, at least turn your heads to see me die," he shouted to the soldiers. They rallied: the king remounted his horse, bearing along with ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Canyon is twenty-five miles and, with the three above, the unbroken canyon is about thirty-five miles. Under the circumstances the canyon seemed interminable and the cliffs insurmountable. The latter grow more precipitous toward the lower end, and scaling would be a difficult feat for a man well fed and strong, though well-nigh hopeless for any weakened by lack of proper food. At last, however, an opening appeared. Here they discovered Provo encamped with an abundance of provisions, so their troubles were quickly ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... towns have gradually increased in size. There have been very few of those melancholy accidents that we so often hear of from Switzerland, because, probably, considerably fewer tourists attempt these mountains than attempt the Alps. In this volume no descriptions of scaling ice-walls, searching for the lammergeiers' nests, or any other great feats, will be found. It contains a plain account of what may be seen and done by any party visiting the mountain resorts in spring, without much trouble or fatigue; and the narrative ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough
... After scaling the roof, I took one end of my linen roll and attached it to a piece of antique tile which was built into the fortress wall; it happened to jut out scarcely four fingers. In order to fix the band, I gave it the form of a stirrup. When I had attached it to ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... renown,— The boat lowered down, With a boat's crew brave, In front of the cave; While up the rock scaling, And comrades up trailing, The Norsemen gain, And the ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... air with a sizzling snap. The roar of cannon shook the thin palmettos, and wild British cheers came from the lusty throats of the British veterans of Spain, as they advanced to the assault in close order—sixty men in front—with fascines and ladders for scaling the defences. Now a veritable storm of rockets hissed and sizzed into the American lines, while a light battery of artillery pom-pomed and growled upon the left flank. All was silence ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... hour of Change was striking for Corvan and all Lost Valley, Tharon Last, who had set it to strike, was scaling False Ridge in the Canon Country. Grim, ash-pale with effort, her blue eyes shining, she climbed the Secret Way that ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... of Messire Charles of Valois. In fact, at that very time, the Company of the Marechal de Rais was making assault on the Walls near by the Porte Saint-Honore. The Armagnacs had brought up in carts great bundles of faggots and wattled hurdles to fill up the moats, and above six hundred scaling-ladders for storming the ramparts. The Maid Jeanne, who was nowise as the Burgundians believed, but lived a pious life and guarded her chastity, set foot to ground, and was the first down into a dry moat, which for that cause was easy to ...
— The Merrie Tales Of Jacques Tournebroche - 1909 • Anatole France
... the mighty wall-scaling struggle to get over the fence and secure the coveted ball. As fast as one team would try to boost each other over, their opponents would pull them down. This contest continued for fully five minutes while ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... hard work must be to hide your money and paint that schooner of yours. We'll go about it openly and above board. We'll say she is scaling,—if she isn't she ought to be, for it is a long time since she saw a brush,—and that she needs another coat of paint to protect her from ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... policy of reconstruction came to an end in 1877, some of its results were more lasting. The Southern States were burdened heavily with debt, much of which had been fraudulently incurred. There now followed a period of adjustment, of refunding, scaling, and repudiation, which not only injured the credit of the states but left them with enormous debts. The Democratic party under the leadership of former Confederates began its regime of strict economy, race fairness, and inelastic ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming
... vulgar age is with them and their miserable huckstering. They know that well enough and act upon it, though they are too illiterate to put it into words—know that trade is in process of exploding learning, of exploiting literature and art to its own low purposes, in process of scaling Olympus, in short, and ignominiously ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... this conclusion during a long walk around the valley, during which he once more noted the absolute seclusion of the place and the impossibility of escape by scaling the cliffs. The doctor was fishing again by the brook, but paid no heed when Uncle John tramped by. The sight of the dapper little man gave Mr. Merrick a thought, and presently he turned back and sat ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... rocks, the direction of which had been given him, and dived deep into clear water. Between vast grey boulders he swam out to the tossing open, forced himself some little way against a coast-wise current, and then returned to his refuge battered and refreshed. Ten minutes later he was scaling the cliff again, and his mind, cleared for the moment of a heavy disgust for the affair he had in hand, was turning over ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... now low tide, there was no danger of their falling into the water; and, as fast as they came to ground, the men below picked them up, and, taking them on their heads, walked off with them to the boat. It was really a picturesque sight: the great height, the scaling of the hides, and the continual walking to and fro of the men, who looked like mites, on the beach. This was the romance of ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... it sat groups preparing their suppers and discussing what the visit and review might mean. Some said it was for the secretary to inspect the navy yard; some to examine into the defenses of the fort; and some said that it meant scaling ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... rebuff, the two soldiers followed up the steep rock, George giving a hand at the worst spots to his friend and superior. Up, up, the scaling party mounted, the business becoming every moment more difficult and more full of danger. More than once the gallant fellows-in front paused and declared ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead
... fine clothes, it is a pity to spoil them; you had better take them off so as not to spoil the fine porcupine work on them." The young man took off his fine clothes and climbed up into the tree, and securing the chicken, threw it down to the old man. As the young man was scaling down the tree, the old man said: "Iyashkapa, iyashkapa," (stick fast, stick fast). Hearing him say something, he asked, "What did you say, old man?" He answered, "I was only talking to myself." The young man proceeded to descend, but he could not move. His body was stuck fast to the bark of the ...
— Myths and Legends of the Sioux • Marie L. McLaughlin
... shaft, and circles of branches at regular intervals; but as it grows older its growth becomes irregular, and the crown is divided into several main branches.[10] The trunk and branches are covered with a rough, scaly bark of a reddish brown color, where it is exposed by the scaling off of the outer layers. Covering the younger branches, but becoming thinner on the older ones, are numerous needle-shaped leaves. These are in pairs, and the base of each pair is surrounded by ...
— Elements of Structural and Systematic Botany - For High Schools and Elementary College Courses • Douglas Houghton Campbell
... walls Swarm with skilled bowmen, archers—from them falls A cloud of winged missiles on their foes, Who swift reply with shouts and twanging bows; And now amidst the raining death appears The scaling ladder, lined with glistening spears, But see! the ponderous catapults now crush The ladder, spearsmen, with their mighty rush Of rocks and beams, nor in their fury slacked As if a toppling wall came ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... about empty engines, others scampering with full buckets, and spilling the contents into their neighbors' boots, and others ringing the church bells all night, by way of putting out the fire. Little firemen, like sturdy little knights storming a breach, clambering up and down scaling-ladders, and bawling through tin trumpets, by way of directing the attack. Here a fellow, in his great zeal to save the property of the unfortunate, catches up some article of no value, and gallants it off with an air of as much self-importance ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... hath beside well in his person wrought To be set high in place, we did commend To your remembrances: but you have found, Scaling his present bearing with his past, That he's your fixed enemy, and revoke ...
— The Tragedy of Coriolanus • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... prolonged far on into the summer of B.C. 212, nor did there appear any prospect of its termination, as the communications of the besieged by sea were almost entirely open. In this state of things Marcellus fortunately discovered a part of the walls more accessible than the rest; and, having prepared scaling ladders, effected an entrance at this point during the night which followed a great festival, and thus made himself master of Epipolae. The two quarters called Tyche and Neapolis were now at his mercy, and were given up to plunder; ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... was scaling the stairs. On the way Mrs. Beamish accompanied her. She wished she could tell her father. Yet, if she told him, how could she account for what she did with the money? And would it be a hundred? Perhaps ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... over the face of the cliff that towered some eighty feet aloft from the inner margin of the beach. I soon saw that, steep as at first sight it appeared to be, there were so many flat fragments protruding from its face that the scaling of it would be a comparatively easy matter; and, assuring my companions that I would not be gone longer than I could possibly help, ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... language of the day "grease the fist" of the Swiss sentry, or was it a case of a boorish fellow refusing to fight under a woman's command? Legend gives both explanations; but on Easter Sunday morning Charnisay's men gained entrance by scaling the walls where the Swiss sentry stood. Madame La Tour rushed her men to an inner fort loopholed with guns. Afraid of a final defeat that would disgrace him before all the world, Charnisay called up generous terms if she would surrender. To save the ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... imprisonment; but as the sled moved on and on, and in his helplessness he weighed the situation, he began to feel a vague fear of possibilities. He began to plan means of escape. When at last the sled went scaling down a long slope, he rolled off ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day |
